This is what the Lord says: A voice was heard in Ramah, a lament with bitter weeping – Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more.
I hear a cry like a woman in labour, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child. The cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands: ‘Woe is me, for my life is weary because of the murderers! ’
I looked and heard an eagle flying high overhead, crying out in a loud voice, ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining trumpet blasts that the three angels are about to sound! ’
Their father Jacob said to them, ‘It’s me that you make childless. Joseph is gone, and Simeon is gone. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything happens to me! ’