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Jeremiah 4:19-31

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19My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart!

My heart is pounding in me;

I cannot keep silent,

Because, my soul, you have heard

The sound of the trumpet,

The alarm of war.

20Disaster upon disaster is proclaimed,

For the whole land is devastated;

Suddenly my tents are devastated,

And my curtains in an instant.

21How long must I see the flag

And hear the sound of the trumpet?

22“For My people are foolish,

They do not know Me;

They are foolish children

And have no understanding.

They are skillful at doing evil,

But they do not know how to do good.”

23I looked at the earth, and behold, it was a formless and desolate emptiness;

And to the heavens, and they had no light.

24I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,

And all the hills jolted back and forth.

25I looked, and behold, there was no human,

And all the birds of the sky had fled.

26I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness,

And all its cities were pulled down

Before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

27For this is what the Lord says:

“The whole land shall be a desolation,

Yet I will not execute a complete destruction.

28“For this the earth will mourn,

And the heavens above will become dark,

Because I have spoken, I have purposed,

And I have not changed My mind, nor will I turn from it.”

29At the sound of the horseman and archer every city flees;

They go into the thickets and climb among the rocks;

Every city is abandoned,

And no one lives in them.

30And you, desolate one, what will you do?

Although you dress in scarlet,

Although you adorn yourself with jewelry of gold,

Although you enlarge your eyes with makeup,

In vain you make yourself beautiful.

Your lovers despise you;

They seek your life.

31For I heard a voice cry as of a woman in labor,

The anguish as of one giving birth to her first child.

The voice of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,

Stretching out her hands, saying,

“Ah, woe to me, for I faint before murderers.”