Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken? Let him declare it! Why is the land ravaged, scorched like a wilderness no one crosses?
How solitary sits the city, once filled with people. She who was great among the nations is now like a widow. Once a princess among the provinces, now a toiling slave.
Her gates sank into the ground; he smashed her bars to bits. Her king and her princes are among the nations; instruction is wanting, Even her prophets do not obtain any vision from the Lord.