⁴ The roads to Jerusalem^[a] are in mourning,
    for crowds no longer come to celebrate the festivals.
The city gates are silent,
    her priests groan,
her young women are crying—
    how bitter is her fate!

⁸ Weep like a bride dressed in black,
    mourning the death of her husband.
⁹ For there is no grain or wine
    to offer at the Temple of the Lord.
So the priests are in mourning.
    The ministers of the Lord are weeping.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
    the land is stripped bare.
The grain is destroyed,
    the grapes have shriveled,
    and the olive oil is gone.

¹¹ Despair, all you farmers!
    Wail, all you vine growers!
Weep, because the wheat and barley—
    all the crops of the field—are ruined.
¹² The grapevines have dried up,
    and the fig trees have withered.
The pomegranate trees, palm trees, and apple trees—
    all the fruit trees—have dried up.
    And the people’s joy has dried up with them.

¹³ Dress yourselves in burlap and weep, you priests!
    Wail, you who serve before the altar!
Come, spend the night in burlap,
    you ministers of my God.
For there is no grain or wine
    to offer at the Temple of your God.

¹¹ “I will make Jerusalem into a heap of ruins,” says the Lord.
    “It will be a place haunted by jackals.
The towns of Judah will be ghost towns,
    with no one living in them.”

⁶ He has broken down his Temple
    as though it were merely a garden shelter.
The Lord has blotted out all memory
    of the holy festivals and Sabbath days.
Kings and priests fall together
    before his fierce anger.

⁷ The Lord has rejected his own altar;
    he despises his own sanctuary.
He has given Jerusalem’s palaces
    to her enemies.
They shout in the Lord’s Temple
    as though it were a day of celebration.

² “Judah wilts;
    commerce at the city gates grinds to a halt.
All the people sit on the ground in mourning,
    and a great cry rises from Jerusalem.

²² Listen! Hear the terrifying roar of great armies
    as they roll down from the north.
The towns of Judah will be destroyed
    and become a haunt for jackals.

⁴ The earth mourns and dries up,
    and the land wastes away and withers.
    Even the greatest people on earth waste away.
⁵ The earth suffers for the sins of its people,
    for they have twisted God’s instructions,
violated his laws,
    and broken his everlasting covenant.
⁶ Therefore, a curse consumes the earth.
    Its people must pay the price for their sin.
They are destroyed by fire,
    and only a few are left alive.

¹² Because of you, Mount Zion will be plowed like an open field;
    Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins!
A thicket will grow on the heights
    where the Temple now stands.

¹³ Young men are led away to work at millstones,
    and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.