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¹ How the gold dims, the good gold is changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.² The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold. How they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hand!³ Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young. But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.⁴ The tongue of the nursling cleaves to his palate in thirst. The young children ask bread, but there is no breaking for them.⁵ Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared on scarlet embrace dunghills.⁶ And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were whirled on her.⁷ Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as azure-blue , as lapis lazuli.⁸ Their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the open places. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up, it has become like wood.⁹ Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by famine, those who flow away, pierced because the produce of my fields failed .¹⁰ The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food to them in the ruin of the daughter of my people.¹¹ Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger and has kindled a fire in Zion; and it has devoured its foundations.¹² The kings of the earth and all those living in the world would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³ Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, pouring out the blood of the righteous in her midst,¹⁴ they reeled blind in the open places. They are defiled with blood, so that not any are able to touch their garments.¹⁵ They cried out to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled. They said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.¹⁶ The face of Jehovah has divided them out; He will not continue to look on them. They did not lift up the face of the priests, they did not favor the elders.¹⁷ While here we are, our eyes fail for our vain help. In our watching, we have watched for a nation; it does not save.¹⁸ They hunted our steps from going in our open places. Our end came near, our days were fulfilled, for our end had come.¹⁹ Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they hotly pursued us on the mountains; they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was captured in their pits; of whom we said, In His shadow we will live among the nations.

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, living in the land of Uz. The cup also shall pass through to you; you shall be drunken and stripped naked.²² Your perversity is complete, daughter of Zion; He will not continue to exile you. He will visit your perversity, daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.