10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground in silence. They threw dust on their heads and girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
11 My eyes are filled with tears. My stomach is in torment. My heart is poured out on the ground over the destruction of the daughter of my people— as young children and infants languish in the city squares.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” as they faint like a wounded soldier in the city squares, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ bosom.
13 How can I admonish you? To what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, so that I might console you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea! Who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you false and worthless visions. They did not expose your iniquity, so as to restore your captivity. Rather, they have seen for you false and worthless oracles.
15 All who pass your way clap their hands at you. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. “Is this the city of which they said, ‘The perfection of beauty,’ ‘the joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies opened their mouth wide against you; they hissed and gnashed their teeth, and say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it!”