What is troubling you now?
Why have all of you gone up to the rooftops?
² Why is the town full of shouting?
Why is the joyful city full of turmoil?
Your fallen were not run through with the sword.
Your dead did not fall in battle.
³ All your rulers fled together,
captured by archers without bows.
All your refugees were caught together.
They had fled far away.
⁴ That is why I said,
“Look away from me.
I will weep bitterly.
Do not try to comfort me over the destruction of the daughter
    of my people.”^[a]
5 For it is a day of turmoil, trampling, and terror.
This has come from the Lord, the God of Armies,
in the Valley of Vision.
It is a day for breaking down walls
and crying out to the mountains.
⁶ Elam picks up the quiver, with chariots and charioteers,
and Kir removes the covering from their shields.
⁷ Your fertile^[b] valleys are full of chariots,
and charioteers^[c] are posted by the gate.
⁸ He removed the cover that was protecting Judah.

On that day you looked for the weapons in the House of the Forest.
⁹ You saw all the breaches through the walls of the City of David—
and there were many.
You collected water from the Lower Pool.
¹⁰ You counted the houses of Jerusalem.
You planned to tear them down to strengthen the wall.
¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls
for the water from the Old Pool.
But you did not look to the one who had made it.
You did not consider the one who shaped this long ago.

¹² On that day the Lord, the God of Armies,
called for weeping and loud mourning.
He called for shaved heads and for dressing in sackcloth.
¹³ But take a look and see:
    joy and gladness,
    butchering cattle, killing sheep,
    eating meat, and drinking wine.
“Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”