O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth, and wallow in ashes; make mourning for yourself, as for an only son, most bitter weeping; for the ravager shall suddenly come on us.
And she went and sat down across from him, a good way off, about a bowshot. For she said, Let me not see the death of the boy. And she sat across from him, and lifted up her voice, and cried.
And it shall be, instead of sweet smell, there shall be an odor of decay; and instead of a sash, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a wrapping of sackcloth; burning instead of beauty.
The ravagers have come on all high places through the wilderness; for the sword of Jehovah shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh shall have peace.
But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. And my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears, because Jehovah's flock was captured.
And you shall speak this word to them: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and do not let them cease. For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great break, with a very grievous blow.
Their widows are more numerous about Me than the sand of the seas; I have brought on them, against a mother of a young man, a ravager at noonday; I have caused anguish and terror to fall on her suddenly.
Let a cry be heard from their houses, when You suddenly bring a raiding party on them. For they have dug a pit to take me, and have hidden snares for my feet.
At that time it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind from the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people, not to sift nor to cleanse.
Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, from a far country. Is not Jehovah in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign vanities?
I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains, and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness; because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.
For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My sons are desolated because the enemy prevails.
She bitterly weeps 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 deceitfully with her; they became her enemies.
My eyes fail with tears; my inward parts ferment; my liver is poured on the ground for the ruin of the daughter of my people, in that the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.
And I will turn your feast into mourning, and all your songs into weeping; and I will bring up sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head. And I will make it like the mourning of an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
For word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne. And he laid his robe from him, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
And I will pour on the house of David, and on the people of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of prayers. And they shall look on Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be bitter over Him, as the bitterness over the first-born.
And drawing near the gate of the city, even behold, one having died was being carried out, an only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable crowd of the city was with her.