What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops,
² You who are full of noise,
A ^[b]tumultuous city, ^(A)a joyous city?
Your slain men are not slain with the sword,
Nor dead in battle.
³ All your rulers have fled together;
They are captured by the archers.
All who are found in you are bound together;
They have fled from afar.
⁴ Therefore I said, “Look away from me,
^(B)I will weep bitterly;
Do not labor to comfort me
Because of the plundering of the daughter of my people.”

^5 (C)For it is a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity
^(D)By the Lord God of hosts
In the Valley of Vision—
Breaking down the walls
And of crying to the mountain.
^6 (E)Elam bore the quiver
With chariots of men and horsemen,
And ^(F)Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ It shall come to pass that your choicest valleys
Shall be full of chariots,
And the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

^8 (G)He removed the ^[c]protection of Judah.
You looked in that day to the armor ^(H)of the House of the Forest;
^9 (I)You also saw the ^[d]damage to the city of David,
That it was great;
And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.
¹⁰ You numbered the houses of Jerusalem,
And the houses you broke down
To fortify the wall.
^11 (J)You also made a reservoir between the two walls
For the water of the old ^(K)pool.
But you did not look to its Maker,
Nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago.

¹² And in that day the Lord God of hosts
^(L)Called for weeping and for mourning,
^(M)For baldness and for girding with sackcloth.
¹³ But instead, joy and gladness,
Slaying oxen and killing sheep,
Eating meat and ^(N)drinking wine:
^(O)“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

^14 (P)Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts,
“Surely for this iniquity there ^(Q)will be no atonement for you,
Even to your death,” says the Lord God of hosts.