Daughter of my people, gird you with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes: make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, *Don't let me see the death of the child.* She sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a girding of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.
Destroyers are come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of the LORD devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has shalom.
But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for [your] pride; and my eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is taken captive.
You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.
Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Yerushalayim, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;
Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: isn't the LORD in Tziyon? Isn't her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone.
For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water; Because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.
She weeps sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies.
My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Yerushalayim, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.
Now when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.