Jeremiah 9:13-22 - The Nation Is Judged By Yahweh

¹³ And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law which I put before them, giving no attention to my voice and not being guided by it; ¹⁴ But they have been walking in the pride of their hearts, going after the Baals, as their fathers gave them teaching. ¹⁵ So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, I will give them, even this people, bitter plants for food and bitter water for drink. ¹⁶ And I will send them wandering among the nations, among people strange to them and to their fathers: and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them.

¹⁷ This is what the Lord of armies has said: Take thought and send for the weeping women, so that they may come; and send for the wise women, so that they may come: ¹⁸ Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water. ¹⁹ For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How has destruction come on us? we are overcome with shame because we have gone away from our land; he has sent us out from our house.

²⁰ But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief. ²¹ For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way into our great houses; cutting off the children in the streets and the young men in the wide places.

²² The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.