Jeremiah 9:10–18

¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.↗

¹¹“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”↗

¹²Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?↗

¹³The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,↗

¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”↗

¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.↗

¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”↗

¹⁷The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.↗

¹⁸Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.↗