“Cut off your hair and throw it away. Sing a song of mourning on the bare hills, because in his anger the Lord has rejected and abandoned the people of this generation.
So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants, made them suffer, handed them over to those who looted their property, and finally turned away from Israel.
Have you completely rejected Judah? Do you despise Zion? Why have you struck us so hard that we cannot heal? We hope for peace, but no good comes from it. We hope for a time of healing, but there’s only terror.
“Look at the bare hills, and see. You have had sex with men in every place. You sat by the roadside waiting for them like a nomad in the desert. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
The sound of crying is heard on the hills. It is the crying and the pleading of the people of Israel. They have become crooked and have forgotten the Lord their God.
I will cry and weep for the mountains. I will sing a funeral song for the pastures in the wilderness. They are destroyed so that no one can travel through them. No one can hear the sound of cattle. Birds and cattle have fled. They are gone.
“Son of man, sing a funeral song for the ruler of Tyre. Tell him, ‘This is what the Almighty Lord says: You were the perfect example, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
“Evil and unfaithful people look for a miraculous sign. But the only sign they will be given is that of Jonah.” Then he left them standing there and went away.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he said to them, “You poisonous snakes! Who showed you how to flee from God’s coming anger?