² Showing no compassion, my Lord devoured each of Jacob’s meadows;
in his wrath he tore down the walled cities of Daughter Judah.
The kingdom and its officials, he forced to the ground, shamed.

¹⁰ Daughter Zion’s elders sit on the ground and mourn.
They throw dust on their heads; they put on mourning clothes.
Jerusalem’s young women bow their heads all the way to the ground.

¹¹ My eyes are worn out from weeping; my stomach is churning.
My insides are poured on the ground because the daughter of my people is shattered,
because children and babies are fainting in the city streets.

¹² They say to their mothers, “Where are grain and wine?”
while fainting like the wounded in the city streets,
while their lives are draining away at their own mothers’ breasts.

¹³ What can I testify about you, Daughter Jerusalem?^[a] To what could I compare you?
With what could I equate you? How can I comfort you, young woman Daughter Zion?
Your hurt is as vast as the sea. Who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your prophets gave you worthless and empty visions.
They didn’t reveal your sin so as to prevent your captivity.
Instead, they showed you worthless and incorrect prophecies.

¹⁸ Cry out to my Lord from the heart,^[a] you wall of Daughter Zion;
make your^[b] tears run down like a flood all day and night.
Don’t relax at all; don’t rest your eyes a moment.

¹⁹ Get up and cry out at nighttime, at the start of the night shift; pour out your heart before my Lord like water.
Lift your hands up to him for the life of your children—
the ones who are fainting from hunger on every street corner.

⁴ Your enemies roared in your own meeting place;
    they set up their own signs there!
⁵ It looked like axes raised
    against a thicket of trees.^[b]
6 And then all its carvings
    they hacked down with hatchet and pick.
⁷ They set fire to your sanctuary, burned it to the ground;
    they defiled the dwelling place of your name.
⁸ They said in their hearts, We’ll kill all of them together!
    They burned all of God’s meeting places in the land.

¹⁷         You set all the boundaries of the earth in place.
        Summer and winter? You made them!

¹⁸ So remember this, Lord:
    how enemies have insulted you,
    how unbelieving fools have abused your name.
¹⁹ Don’t deliver the life of your dove to wild animals!
    Don’t forget the lives of your afflicted people forever!
²⁰ Consider the covenant!
    Because the land’s dark places are full of violence.