What do you mean that you have gone up,
    all of you, to the housetops,
² you who are full of shoutings,
    tumultuous city, ^(C)exultant town?
Your slain are ^(D)not slain with the sword
    or dead in battle.
^3 (E)All your leaders have fled together;
    without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
    though they had fled far away.
⁴ Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
    ^(F)let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
    concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

^5 (A)For the Lord God of hosts has ^(B)a day
    of tumult and ^(C)trampling and ^(D)confusion
    in ^(E)the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
    and a shouting to the mountains.
⁶ And ^(F)Elam bore the quiver
    with chariots and horsemen,
    and ^(G)Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
    and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
⁸ He has taken away ^(H)the covering of Judah.

¹² In that day ^(A)the Lord God of hosts
    called for weeping and mourning,
    for ^(B)baldness and ^(C)wearing sackcloth;
¹³ and behold, joy and gladness,
    killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
    eating flesh and drinking wine.
^(D)“Let us eat and drink,
    for tomorrow we die.”
¹⁴ The Lord of hosts ^(E)has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely ^(F)this iniquity will not be atoned for you ^(G)until you die,”
    says the Lord God of hosts.