For thus says Jehovah to the house of the king of Judah, You are Gilead to Me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness; cities which are not inhabited.

Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that the fire may devour your cedars.

Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the majestic are destroyed. Howl, O oaks of Bashan, for the inaccessible forest has come down.

Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, rock of the plain, says Jehovah; who say, Who shall come down against us? Or who shall enter into our dwellings?

O you who dwell in Moab, leave the cities and live in the rock, and be like the dove that makes her nest in the sides of the mouth of the cave.

Your dreadfulness has deceived you, and the pride of your heart, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill. Though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there, says Jehovah.

And he looked on the Kenites, and he took up his parable and said: Firm is your dwelling place, and your nest is set in the rock;

Even if they dig through into Sheol, from there My hand will take them. And if they ascend up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down.

Though you rise as high as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, I will bring you down from there, declares Jehovah.

Woe to him who robs unjust gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be delivered from the hand of evil.

A voice was heard on the desolate heights; weeping and supplications of the children of Israel; for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten Jehovah their God.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as of one bearing her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe to me now! For my soul is weary because of murderers.

We have heard the rumor of it; our hands become feeble; anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in labor.

For thus says Jehovah, We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

Ask now, and see whether a man ever gives birth? Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in labor, and all faces are turned pale?

In those days, and at that time, says Jehovah, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping. They shall go and seek Jehovah their God.

They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces headed there, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to Jehovah in an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.

I will go and return to My place until they confess their guilt and seek My face. In their affliction they will seek Me earnestly.

Come, and let us return to Jehovah. For He has torn, and He will heal us. He has stricken, and He will bind us up.

And they have not cried to Me with their heart, when they wailed on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and wine; they turn aside from Me.

And you, what will you do when you are ruined? Though you dress with crimson, though you put on ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes large with paint, you shall make yourself beautiful in vain; your lovers will despise you; they will seek your life.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as of one bearing her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe to me now! For my soul is weary because of murderers.