12 Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? ¹³And the Lord says: Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in accordance with it, ¹⁴but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them. ¹⁵Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am feeding this people with wormwood, and giving them poisonous water to drink. ¹⁶I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.

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.