²⁰ Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
    and suffering for drink,
he will still be with you to teach you.
    You will see your teacher with your own eyes.

⁵ You have fed us with sorrow
    and made us drink tears by the bucketful.

² It is useless for you to work so hard
    from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
    for God gives rest to his loved ones.

¹¹ “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
    “when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
    but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from border to border^[a]
searching for the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.

⁹ We no longer see your miraculous signs.
    All the prophets are gone,
    and no one can tell us when it will end.

⁹ I eat ashes for food.
    My tears run down into my drink

⁵ For his anger lasts only a moment,
    but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.