Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops and pant for breath like jackals. Their eyes are strained looking for food, because there is none to be found.” ¹ 

As your words came to me I drank them in, ¹  and they filled my heart with joy and happiness because I belong to you. ² 

“When that time comes, people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but the children’s teeth have grown numb.’ ¹ 

By the ninth day of the fourth month ¹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ²  had no food.

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says, ‘I will bring war, ²  starvation, and disease on them. I will treat them like figs that are so rotten ³  they cannot be eaten.

“I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem ¹  or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ² 

Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ³