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The People Mourn in Judgement

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord of hosts:
Consider, and call for the mourning-women to come;
   send for the skilled women to come;
¹⁸ let them quickly raise a dirge over us,
   so that our eyes may run down with tears,
   and our eyelids flow with water.
¹⁹ For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
   ‘How we are ruined!
   We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land,
   because they have cast down our dwellings.’

²⁰ Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,
   and let your ears receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a dirge,
   and each to her neighbour a lament.
²¹ ‘Death has come up into our windows,
   it has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets
   and the young men from the squares.’
²² Speak! Thus says the Lord:
‘Human corpses shall fall
   like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves behind the reaper,
   and no one shall gather them.’

23 Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; ²⁴but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.

25 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will attend to all those who are circumcised only in the foreskin: ²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaven temples who live in the desert. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.