³ We have become orphans, fatherless;
    our mothers are like widows.

²¹ Therefore give their children over to famine;
    hurl them out to the power of the sword;
let their wives become childless and widowed.
    May their men meet death by pestilence,
    their youths be slain by the sword in battle.^(A)

³ Assyria shall not save us;
    we will not ride upon horses;
we will say no more, ‘Our God,’
    to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.”^(A)

⁸ Their widows became more numerous
    than the sand of the seas;
I have brought against the mothers of youths
    a destroyer at noonday;
I have made anguish and terror
    fall upon her suddenly.