5 For who shall have pity on you, OJerusalem?Or who shall bemoan you?Or who shall go aside to ask how you are doing?
6 You who have forsaken Me, says the Lord,you keep going backward.Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you.I am weary of relenting!
7 I will winnow them with a winnowing forkin the gates of the land;I will bereave them of children. I will destroy My people,since they did not repent from their ways.
8 Their widows will increase before Memore than the sand of the seas;I will bring against them, against the mother of a young man,a destroyer at noonday;I will suddenly bring down on hersorrow and terrors.
9 She who has borne seven sons languishes;she has given up the spirit;her sun has gone down while it was yet day;she has been ashamed and humiliated.And the rest of them I will deliver to the swordbefore their enemies,says the Lord.
10 Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne meas a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!I have not lent with usury, nor have men lent to me on usury,yet every one of them curses me!
11 The Lord said: Truly I will set you free for good purposes.Truly I will cause the enemy to entreat youin the time of evil and in the time of affliction.