Howl, O gate; cry, O city; you, all Philistia, are dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.
Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks;
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for you shall no longer be called tender and delicate.
Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be completely desolate,
Their widows are multiplied to me more than the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a plunderer at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.
How the city sits solitary that was full of people! how she has become like a widow! She who was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how she has become one who pays tribute!
The ways of Zion mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have thrown up dust upon their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the embankment and the wall to lament; they mourned together.
Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and put off their embroidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble every moment, and be astonished at you.
And shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another; because you knew not the time of your visitation.