The elders of beloved Zion sit mute on the ground. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads in sorrow to the ground.
The empty roads to Zion mourn, for no one travels to her sacred feasts anymore. The singing maidens suffer, and the priests can only groan. The city gates stand empty, and Zion can only moan.
How lonely sits the city once thronged with people! Once great among the nations, she is now lonely like a widow. Once a fair princess ruling among the provinces, now a shackled servant.
“Get down from your throne and sit in the dust, O Miss Babylon! Sit on the ground where you belong, not on a throne, O Miss Chaldea! For you will never be described again as ‘delicate and dainty.’
Joshua and the elders of Israel tore their clothes and threw dust over their heads to show their sorrow. They threw themselves facedown to the ground in front of the ark of Yahweh until the evening sacrifice.
As a sign of their dismay, they threw dust on their heads and shouted with sobs and grief: “How horrible, so horrible, O great city Babylon! For in one moment you suffered such destruction— you who once made the merchants on the sea so very wealthy.
They will shave their heads in sorrow for you and dress themselves in sackcloth. They will weep bitterly for you, Tyre, with heartfelt sorrow over your fall.
Why are we just sitting here? Let’s band together and go inside our walled cities and await our death, since Yahweh our God has condemned us to die. He has given us our bitter poison to drink, for we have sinned against him.
So the three officials of Hezekiah—Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator; Shebna, the scribe; and Joah, son of Asaph the secretary—came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn as a sign of despair and reported what the Assyrian commander had said.
A stench will take the place of seductive perfumes; a rope will take the place of a sash, baldness for braided hair, rags instead of a fine robe, and the brand of a captive instead of beauty.