¹⁷ Your builders outdo your destroyers,^[a]
    and those who laid you waste go away from you.^(A)

⁵ For as a young man marries a young woman,
    so shall your builder^[a] marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
    so shall your God rejoice over you.^(A)

¹³ You have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
    who stretched out the heavens
    and laid the foundations of the earth.
You fear continually all day long
    because of the fury of the oppressor,
who is bent on destruction.
    But where is the fury of the oppressor?^(A)

²² Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord,
    your God who pleads the cause of his people:
See, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
you shall drink no more
    from the cup of my wrath.^(A)
23 And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
    who have said to you,
    “Bow down, that we may walk on you,”
and you have made your back like the ground
    and like the street for them to walk on.^(B)

¹⁸ There is no one to guide her
    among all the children she has borne;
there is no one to take her by the hand
    among all the children she has brought up.^(A)
19 These two things have befallen you
    —who will grieve with you?—
devastation and destruction, famine and sword.
    Who will comfort you?^[a](B)
20 Your children have fainted;
    they lie at the head of every street
    like an antelope in a net;
they are full of the wrath of the Lord,
    the rebuke of your God.^(C)

⁶ Against a godless nation I send him,
    and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
    and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.^(A)