“Young and old lie on the ground in the streets. My maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your displeasure, You have slaughtered without compassion.
Therefore He brought against them the sovereign of the Chaldeans, and he slew their young men with the sword in the House of their set-apart place, and had no compassion on young man or maiden, on the aged or the weak – He gave all into his hand.
“For I shall no longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” declares יהוה. “But see, I am delivering up mankind, each one into his neighbour’s hand and into the hand of his sovereign. And they shall crush the earth, but I do not deliver from their hand.”
“And I shall dash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together,” declares יהוה. “I do not spare nor pardon nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.” ’ ”
יהוה has done what He planned, He has filled His word Which He commanded in days of old. He has torn down, without compassion, And He has let your enemy rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
“יהוה has trodden down all my strong men in my midst, He has called an appointed time Against me to crush my young men. יהוה has trodden down as in a winepress The maiden daughter of Yehuḏ
So give their children over to scarcity of food, and hand them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become widows and bereaved of their children. Let their men be put to death, their young men be smitten by the sword in battle.
“I have sent among you a plague in the way of Mitsrayim. I have slain your young men with a sword, along with your captured horses. And I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils. But you did not turn back to Me,” declares יהוה.
“Therefore I shall indeed deal in wrath. My eye shall not pardon nor would I spare. And they shall cry in My ears with a loud voice, but I shall not hear them.”
‘And My eye shall not pardon, nor would I spare. I give you according to your ways while your abominations are in your midst. And you shall know that I am יהוה who smites.
‘And My eye shall not pardon you, nor would I spare, for I repay your ways while your abominations are in your midst. And you shall know that I am יהוה!’
‘Therefore, as I live,’ declares the Master יהוה, ‘because you have defiled My set-apart place with all your disgusting matters and with all your abominations, therefore I also withdraw. And My eye shall not pardon, nor shall I spare.
“And with you I shall break in pieces man and woman, and with you I shall break in pieces old and young, and with you I shall break in pieces the young man and the maiden.
therefore thus said יהוה of hosts, ‘See, I am punishing them, the young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by scarcity of food.
Therefore I am filled with the wrath of יהוה. I have become weary of containing it. “Pour it out on the children outside, and on the company of young men together, for even husband and wife shall be taken, the aged and the very old.
When its twigs are dry, they are broken off, women come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no understanding, therefore He who made them has no compassion on them, and He who formed them shows them no favour.
The ways to Tsiyon mourn For no one comes to the appointed times. All her gates are deserted, Her priests sigh, her maidens are afflicted, And she has bitterness.
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labour, the distress as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Tsiyon! She bewails herself, she spreads out her hands, saying, “Woe to me, for my being faints because of murderers!”
But hear the word of יהוה, O women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth. And teach your daughters wailing, and each one her neighbour a lamentation.