When Mordecai learned all that was done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the middle of the city crying out in a loud and bitter voice.
Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah. I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh. For on your summer and your harvest the battle cry has fallen.
Therefore my body is filled with pain. Pangs have taken hold of me like the pangs of a woman in labor. I am bewildered by what I hear, terrified by what I see.
My stomach, my stomach! I writhe in anguish! The pain of my heart! My heart is pounding within me! I cannot keep silent because I have heard, O my soul, the sound of the shofar, the battle-cry of war.
If only I had a travelers’ lodging place in the wilderness, then I might leave my people and get away from them! For they are all adulterers, a bunch of traitors.
In that day He will lift up a parable for you, and there will be wailing lamentation, saying: “We have been utterly ruined! He changes the portion of my people. How He removes it from me! To the faithless He apportions our fields!”
Then he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. That is why people were saying, “Is Saul too among the prophets?”