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30 Judah, you have been destroyed.
    So what are you doing now?
Why are you putting on your best red dress?
    Why are you putting on your gold jewelry?
Why are you putting on your eye makeup?
    You make yourself beautiful,
    but it is a waste of time.
Your lovers hate you.
    They are trying to kill you.
31 I hear a cry like a woman in labor,
    a scream like a woman giving birth to her first baby.
    It is the cry of daughter Zion.[a]
She is lifting her hands in prayer, saying,
    “Oh! I am about to faint!
    Murderers are all around me!”

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 4:31 daughter Zion Another name for Jerusalem. See “Zion” in the Word List.

30 What are you doing,(A) you devastated one?
    Why dress yourself in scarlet
    and put on jewels(B) of gold?
Why highlight your eyes with makeup?(C)
    You adorn yourself in vain.
Your lovers(D) despise you;
    they want to kill you.(E)

31 I hear a cry as of a woman in labor,(F)
    a groan as of one bearing her first child—
the cry of Daughter Zion(G) gasping for breath,(H)
    stretching out her hands(I) and saying,
“Alas! I am fainting;
    my life is given over to murderers.”(J)

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