And in the fourteenth year of Sovereign Ḥizqiyahu, Sanḥĕriḇ sovereign of Ashshur came up against all the walled cities of Yehuḏah and captured them.
And Mordeḵai learned of all that had been done, and Mordeḵai tore his garments and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
“But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be filled with owls. And ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats frolic there.
Therefore I bewail the vine of Siḇmah, with the weeping of Ya‛zĕr. I water you with my tears, O Ḥeshbon and El‛alĕh, for acclamation has fallen over your summer fruit and your harvest.
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.
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, a voice of a shophar, a shout of battle!
“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.
“For a voice of wailing is heard from Tsiyon, ‘How we are ravaged! We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because we have been thrown out of our dwellings.’ ”
“Son of man, wail over the crowd of Mitsrayim, and send them down to the depths of the earth, her and the daughters of the mighty nations, with those going down to the pit.
“In that day one shall lift up a proverb against you, and he shall lament with a bitter lamentation, and shall say, ‘We have been utterly ravaged! He changes the inheritance of my people. How He removes it from me! He apportions our fields to the backslider.’ ”
And he also stripped off his garments and prophesied before Shemu’ĕl, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Sha’ul also among the prophets?”