You shall be chastened, O Jerusalem, with pain and the scourge, lest My soul depart from you; lest I make you a desert land, which shall not be inhabited.

And I will remove the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and make it a dwelling place of dragons; and I will utterly waste the cities of Judah, so that they shall not be inhabited.

Behold, there comes a sound of a noise, and a great earthquake from the land of the north, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, and a resting place for ostriches.

Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that have not known You, and upon the families that have not called upon Your name; for they have devoured Jacob, and consumed him, and have made his pasture desolate.

And I will bring this city to desolation and [make it] a hissing: everyone that passes by it shall scowl, and hiss because of all her plagues.

How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of the field wither, because the wickedness of them that dwell in it? The beasts and birds are utterly destroyed, because [the people] said, God shall not see our ways.

For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; and they have cried out, they are gathered together in pursuit of you. Do not trust in them, though they shall speak fair [words] to you.

My inheritance has become to Me as a lion in a forest; she has uttered her voice against Me; therefore have I hated her.

Judah has mourned, and her gates are emptied, and are darkened upon the earth; and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up.

For because of these things the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up; and their course has become evil, and so [also] their strength.

And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, [that] Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said: ALEPH. How does the city that was filled with people sit solitary! She has become as a widow: she that was magnified among the nations, and princess among the provinces, has become tributary.

GIMEL. Judea is gone into captivity by reason of her affliction, and by reason of the abundance of her servitude; she dwells among the nations, she has not found rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her between her oppressors.

HE. Her oppressors have become the head, and her enemies have prospered; for the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her sins. Her young children have gone into captivity before the face of the oppressor.

Speak to the whole people of the land, and to the priests, saying, Though you fasted or lamented in the fifth or seventh [months] (yea, behold, these seventy years) have you at all fasted to Me?

[It is] better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the banquet house. Since this is the end of every man, and the living man will apply good [warning] to his heart.

So He brought upon them the fury of His wrath; and the war, and those that burned round about them, prevailed against them; yet none of them knew [it], neither did they take [it] to heart.

See how the just man has perished, and no one lays [it] to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers; for the righteous has been removed out of the way of injustice.

If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name, says the Lord Almighty, then I will send forth the curse upon you, and I will bring a curse upon your blessing: yes, I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing, and it shall not exist among you, because you take this not to heart.