O my inward parts, my inward parts! I am in pain! O the walls of my heart! My heart pounds in me, I am not silent. For you have heard, O my being, the sound of the ram’s horn, a shout of battle!
I heard, and my body trembled, My lips quivered at the sound, Rottenness came into my bones. And I trembled within myself, That I might rest for the day of distress, To come upon the people who would attack us.
“I shall take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they have been burned up, without any passing over, nor has the voice of cattle been heard. Both the birds of the heavens and the beasts have fled, they have gone.
Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labour. I was distressed when I heard it; I was troubled when I saw it.
My eyes are spent with tears, My inward parts ferment, My bile has been poured on the ground Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, As children and the infants languish In the streets of the city.
“This is why I weep. My eye, my eye is running down with water, Because the comforter, Who could bring back my life, Has been far from me. My children are stunned, For the enemy has prevailed.”
My heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man overcome by wine, because of יהוה, and because of His set-apart words.
Whenever I said, “Let me not mention Him, nor speak in His Name again,” it was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I became weary of holding it back, and was helpless.
And if you do not listen, my being shall weep in secret for your pride, and my eyes bitterly weep and run down with tears, because the flock of יהוה shall be taken captive.
“And when you go into battle in your land against the enemy that distresses you, then you shall shout with the trumpets, and you shall be remembered before יהוה your Elohim, and you shall be saved from your enemies.
“Let my being not enter their council, let my esteem not be united to their assembly; because they slew a man in their displeasure, and they lamed an ox in pleasure.
saying, ‘No, but we are going to the land of Mitsrayim so that we see no fighting, nor hear the sound of the ram’s horn, nor hunger for bread, and there we shall stay,’
“Therefore see, the days are coming,” declares יהוה, “when I shall sound a battle cry in Rabbah of the Ammonites. And it shall be a heap, a wasteland, and her villages shall be burned with fire. Then Yisra’ĕ
“See, O יהוה, that I am in distress. My inward parts are boiling up, My heart is overturned within me, For I have been very rebellious. From without the sword has bereaved, At home it is like death.