“Think about what I’m saying!^[a]
    Indeed, call out the professional mourners!^[b]
        Send for the best of them to come.
¹⁸ Let them hurry and lament for us.
    Let tears run down from our eyes,
        and let our eyelids flow with water.
¹⁹ For a sound of mourning is heard from Zion:
    ‘How we’re ruined!
Our shame is very great,
    because we have left the land,
        because our houses are torn down.’”

²⁰ “Now, you women, hear the message from the Lord;
    listen to what he has to say!
Teach your daughters how to mourn,
    let every woman teach^[c] her friend how to lament.
²¹ For death comes up through our windows;
    it has come into our palaces
to eliminate children from the streets
    and young men from the town squares.

²² Speak! ‘This is what the Lord says:
“The corpses of people will fall like dung
    on the surface of the field,
and like a row of cut grain behind
    the harvester when there is no one to gather it.”’”