GIMEL. Nay, serpents have drawn out the breasts, they give suck to their young, the daughters of my people are incurably cruel, as an ostrich in a desert.

RHECHS. Behold, O Lord, and see for whom You have gathered thus. Shall the women eat the fruit of their womb? The cook has made a gathering: shall the infants nursing at the breasts be slain? Will You slay the priest and prophet in the sanctuary of the Lord?

And the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, and a woman cried to him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.

And the king said to her, What is [the matter] with you? And the woman said to him, This [woman] said to me, Give your son, and we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.

Will a woman forget her child, so as not to have compassion upon the offspring of her womb? But if a woman should even forget these, yet I will not forget you, says the Lord.

My eye shall pour down torrents of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

And she that is tender and delicate among you, whose foot has not ventured to go upon the earth for delicacy and tenderness, shall look with an evil eye on her husband in her bosom, and her son and her daughter,

and her offspring that comes out between her feet, and the child which she shall bear; for she shall eat them because of the needs of all things, secretly in your desperate straits, and in your affliction, with which your enemy shall afflict you in your cities.

So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, Give your son, and let us eat him; but she has hidden her son.