Messengers from the city of Dan and from the hills of Ephraim announce the bad news.

and will surround Jerusalem like men guarding a field, because her people have rebelled against the LORD. The LORD has spoken.

The pain! I can't bear the pain! My heart! My heart is beating wildly! I can't keep quiet; I hear the trumpets and the shouts of battle.

They have taken up their bows and swords; they are cruel and merciless. They sound like the roaring sea, as they ride their horses. They are ready for battle against Jerusalem."

"We have heard the news," say the people of Jerusalem, "and our hands hang limp; we are seized by anguish and pain like a woman in labor.

Listen! Throughout the land I hear my people crying out, "Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is Zion's king no longer there?" The LORD, their king, replies, "Why have you made me angry by worshiping your idols and by bowing down to your useless foreign gods?"

Listen to the sound of crying in Zion: "We are ruined! We are completely disgraced! We must leave our land; our homes have been torn down."

You moan and cry out in distress because the LORD in his anger has destroyed your nation and left your peaceful country in ruins.

The LORD says, "A sound is heard in Ramah, the sound of bitter weeping. Rachel is crying for her children; they are gone, and she refuses to be comforted.

Stop your crying and wipe away your tears. All that you have done for your children will not go unrewarded; they will return from the enemy's land.

When that day comes, they will roar over Israel as loudly as the sea. Look at this country! Darkness and distress! The light is swallowed by darkness.

We are frightened and distressed. We long for God to save us from oppression and wrong, but nothing happens.

And so the Sovereign LORD Almighty says, "There will be wailing and cries of sorrow in the city streets. Even farmers will be called to mourn the dead along with those who are paid to mourn.

How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the LORD! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light.

I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only child. That day will be bitter to the end.

"On that day," says the LORD, "you will hear the sound of crying at the Fish Gate in Jerusalem. You will hear wailing in the newer part of the city and a great crashing sound in the hills.

Wail and cry when you hear this, you that live in the lower part of the city, because all the merchants will be dead!

He came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it,

The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side.

"There will be strange things happening to the sun, the moon, and the stars. On earth whole countries will be in despair, afraid of the roar of the sea and the raging tides.

People will faint from fear as they wait for what is coming over the whole earth, for the powers in space will be driven from their courses.

For the days are coming when people will say, 'How lucky are the women who never had children, who never bore babies, who never nursed them!'

"But what do I see?" asks the LORD. "They are turning back in terror. Their soldiers are beaten back; overcome with fear, they run as fast as they can and do not look back.