for your sins and your ancestors’ sins,” ¹  says the Lord. “Because they burned incense on the mountains and offended ²  me on the hills, I will punish them in full measure.” ³ 

For after we turned away from you we repented. After we came to our senses ¹  we beat our breasts in sorrow. ²  We are ashamed and humiliated because of the disgraceful things we did previously.’ ³ 

כ (Kaf) My eyes are worn out ¹  from weeping; ²  my stomach is in knots. ³  My heart ⁴  is poured out on the ground due to the destruction ⁵  of my helpless people; ⁶  children and infants faint in the town squares.

ל (Lamed) Children ¹  say to their mothers, ²  “Where are food and drink?” ³  They faint ⁴  like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly ⁵  in their mothers’ arms. ⁶ 

ד (Dalet) The infant’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth due to thirst; little children beg for bread, ¹  but no one gives them even a morsel. ² 

Cry out and moan, son of man, for it is wielded against my people; against all the princes of Israel. They are delivered up to the sword, along with my people. Therefore, strike your thigh. ¹ 

I will attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs – I will rip open their chests. I will devour them there like a lion – like a wild animal would tear them apart.

Then someone will ask him, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’ ¹  and he will answer, ‘Some that I received in the house of my friends.’

and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for yourself’?” ¹ 

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress ¹  on the earth and wrath against this people.

for you are still influenced by the flesh. ¹  For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people? ² 

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, ¹  I set aside childish ways.

Did I conceive this entire people? ¹  Did I give birth to ²  them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a foster father ³  bears a nursing child,’ to the land which you swore to their fathers?

So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything that they have. Don’t spare ¹  them. Put them to death – man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’”

For this is what the Lord says: “Look, I am ready to extend to her prosperity that will flow like a river, the riches of nations will flow into her like a stream that floods its banks. ¹  You will nurse from her breast ²  and be carried at her side; you will play on her knees.

“So now the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ¹  asks, ‘Why will you do such great harm to yourselves? Why should every man, woman, child, and baby of yours be destroyed from the midst of Judah? Why should you leave yourselves without a remnant?