⁸ Now their faces are blacker than coal;
    they are unrecognized in the streets.
Their skin clings to their bones;
    it has become dry like a stick.

⁹ Those who die by the sword are better off
    than those who die from starvation,
who slowly waste away like those pierced through
    for lack of food from the fields.

¹⁰ With their own hands, compassionate women
    boil their own children—
they become their food—
    when my beloved people were^[a] destroyed.