Now, women of Judah, listen to the message from the Lord. Listen to the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters how to cry loudly. Each of them must learn to sing this funeral song:
The Lord says, “The women in Zion have become very proud. They walk around with their heads in the air, acting like they are better than other people. They flirt with their eyes and make tinkling sounds with their ankle bracelets as they take their quick little steps.”
Is there a man who is wise enough to understand these things? Is there someone who has been taught by the Lord? Can anyone explain his message? Why was the land ruined? Why was it made like an empty desert where no one goes?
This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: “Don’t pay attention to what those prophets are saying to you. They are trying to fool you. They talk about visions, but they did not get their visions from me. Their visions come from their own minds.
Straw is not the same as wheat! In the same way, the dreams of those prophets are not messages from me. If people want to tell about their dreams, let them. But those who hear my message must speak it truthfully.” This is what the Lord says.
But I am full of the Lord’s anger, and I am tired of holding it in! “Pour out my anger on the children playing in the streets and on the young soldiers gathered there as well. A man and his wife will both be captured as well as all the old people.
“Jeremiah, cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry, because the Lord has rejected this generation of people. He has turned his back on these people. And in anger he will punish them.
They will spread the bones on the ground under the sun, the moon, and the stars. The people of Jerusalem love to worship the sun, the moon, and the stars. No one will gather the bones and bury them again. So the bones of those people will be like dung thrown on the ground.
And the people they spoke to will be thrown into the streets. The people will die from hunger and war. I will punish them, and no one will be there to bury them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters.
Get up throughout the night and cry for help. Let your sorrow pour out before the Lord like water. Lift up your hands in prayer to him. Ask him to let your children live. They are starving to death on every street corner.
Young men and old men lie on the ground in the streets of the city. My young women and young men have been killed by the sword. You killed them on the day of your anger. You killed them without mercy!