13 The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it. 14 Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts and followed after the Baals as their fathers taught them.” 15 Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink. 16 I will scatter them among the nations that they and their fathers have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
17 This is what the Lord of Hosts says:
Consider, and summon the women who mourn;
send for the skillful women.
18 Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us
so that our eyes may overflow with tears,
our eyelids soaked with weeping.
19 For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.
20 Now hear the word of the Lord, you women.
Pay attention to the word of His mouth.
Teach your daughters a lament
and one another a dirge,
21 for Death has climbed through our windows;
it has entered our fortresses,
cutting off children from the streets,
young men from the squares.
22 Speak as follows:
This is what the Lord says:
Human corpses will fall
like manure on the surface of the field,
like newly cut grain after the reaper
with no one to gather it.