By the rivers of Babylon we sit down and weep ²  when we remember Zion.

Her gates will mourn and lament; deprived of her people, she will sit on the ground. ¹ 

So my heart constantly sighs for Moab, like the strumming of a harp, ¹  my inner being sighs ²  for Kir Hareseth. ³ 

“Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘Wail, “Alas, the day is here!” ¹ 

and began to shout ¹  when they saw the smoke from the fire that burned her up, ²  “Who is like the great city?”

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed. Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding ¹  Rabbah. Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning. Run about covered with gashes. ²  For your god Milcom will go into exile along with his priests and officials. ³ 

Because of Israel’s sins ¹  this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, ²  says: “In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. ³  They will tell the field workers ⁴  to lament and the professional mourners ⁵  to wail.

You will see trouble in my dwelling place! ¹  Israel will experience blessings, ²  but there will not be an old man in your ³  house for all time. ⁴ 

I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan! You were very dear to me. Your love was more special to me than the love of women.

I cannot eat, I weep day and night; ¹  all day long they say to me, ²  “Where is your God?”

The one who weeps as he walks along, carrying his bag ¹  of seed, will certainly come in with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves of grain. ² 

The fishermen will mourn and lament, all those who cast a fishhook into the river, and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve. ¹ 

Mourn ¹  over the land of my people, which is overgrown with thorns and briers, and over all the once-happy houses ²  in the city filled with revelry. ³ 

This desolation will continue until new life is poured out on us from heaven. ¹  Then the desert will become an orchard and the orchard will be considered a forest. ² 

The Lord cried out, ¹  “Who in the world ²  will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will grieve over you? Who will stop long enough ³  to inquire about how you are doing? ⁴ 

Indeed they will climb the slopes of Luhith, weeping continually as they go. ¹  For on the road down to Horonaim they will hear the cries of distress over the destruction. ² 

But suddenly Babylonia will fall and be destroyed. ¹  Cry out in mourning over it! Get medicine for her wounds! Perhaps she can be healed!

They will lament loudly ¹  over you and cry bitterly. They will throw dust on their heads and roll in the ashes; ² 

Be distressed, ¹  farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.