The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be cut off by my hand.

Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Zion.

And they have made little of the wounds of the daughter of Zion, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes from a far land: Is the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they made me angry with their images and their strange gods which are no gods?

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.

Come back, O children who are turned away, says the Lord; for I am a husband to you, and I will take you, one from a town and two from a family, and will make you come to Zion;

Put up a flag for a sign to Zion: go in flight so that you may be safe, waiting no longer: for I will send evil from the north, and a great destruction.

A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul turned in disgust from Zion? why have you given us blows from which there is no one to make us well? we were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there was only a great fear.

Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Zion will become like a ploughed field, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the woodland.

For I will make you healthy again and I will make you well from your wounds, says the Lord; because they have given you the name of an outlaw, saying, It is Zion cared for by no man.

For there will be a day when those who get in the grapes on the hills of Ephraim will be crying, Up! let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.

They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

The voice of those who are in flight, who have got away safe from the land of Babylon, to give news in Zion of punishment from the Lord our God, even payment for his Temple.

The Lord has made clear our righteousness: come, and let us give an account in Zion of the work of the Lord our God.

And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldaea, their reward for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

May the violent things done to me, and my downfall, come on Babylon, the daughter of Zion will say; and, May my blood be on the people of Chaldaea, Jerusalem will say.