I said, ¹  “There is no one like you, Lord. ²  You are great. And you are renowned for your power. ³ 

Do not go out into the countryside. Do not travel on the roads. For the enemy is there with sword in hand. ¹  They are spreading terror everywhere.” ² 

“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, ¹  and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Then I said, ¹  “O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ²  even though our sins speak out against us. ³  Indeed, ⁴  we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹ 

But you are always thinking and looking for ways to increase your wealth by dishonest means. Your eyes and your heart are set on killing some innocent person and committing fraud and oppression. ¹ 

In fact, ¹  I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first baby. It is the cry of Daughter Zion ²  gasping for breath, reaching out for help, ³  saying, “I am done in! ⁴  My life is ebbing away before these murderers!”

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

They will die of deadly diseases. No one will mourn for them. They will not be buried. Their dead bodies will lie like manure spread on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation. Their corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals.

For take note, I am already beginning to bring disaster on the city that I call my own. ¹  So how can you possibly avoid being punished? ²  You will not go unpunished! For I am proclaiming war against all who live on the earth. I, the Lord who rules over all, ³  affirm it!’ ⁴ 

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ¹  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ²  says the Lord. “For ³  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

Indeed they will climb the slopes of Luhith, weeping continually as they go. ¹  For on the road down to Horonaim they will hear the cries of distress over the destruction. ² 

I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ³ 

For a nation from the north ¹  will attack Babylon. It will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’

They offer only superficial help for the hurt my dear people ¹  have suffered. ²  They say, “Everything will be all right!” But everything is not all right! ³ 

For he did not kill me before I came from the womb, making my pregnant mother’s womb my grave forever. ¹ 

So I said, ¹  “Oh, my dear people, ²  put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with painful sobs as though you had lost your only child. For any moment now ³  that destructive army ⁴  will come against us.”

So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out seven ounces of silver and gave it to him to pay for it. ¹ 

¹ So I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least important to the most important of them, all of them are greedy for dishonest gain. Prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.

The Lord says, “A sound is heard in Ramah, ¹  a sound of crying in bitter grief. It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ²