On that day the lamentation in Jerusalem will be as great as the lamentation at Hadad-Rimmon ¹  in the plain of Megiddo. ² 

In all the vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through ¹  your midst,” says the Lord.

Then you turned my lament into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and covered me with joy. ¹ 

At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning, for shaved heads and sackcloth. ¹ 

they will tear out their hair because of you and put on sackcloth, and they will weep bitterly over you with intense mourning. ¹ 

“Yet even now,” the Lord says, “return to me with all your heart – with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, ¹  not just your garments!”

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.

When they came to the threshing floor of Atad ¹  on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. ²  There Joseph observed a seven day period of mourning for his father.

So I said, ¹  “Oh, my dear people, ²  put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with painful sobs as though you had lost your only child. For any moment now ³  that destructive army ⁴  will come against us.”

On all the housetops in Moab and in all its public squares there will be nothing but mourning. For I will break Moab like an unwanted jar. I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹ 

For this reason I ¹  will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot ²  and without my outer garments. ³  I will howl ⁴  like a wild dog, ⁵  and screech ⁶  like an owl. ⁷ 

Throughout each and every province where the king’s edict and law were announced ¹  there was considerable ²  mourning among the Jews, along with fasting, weeping, and sorrow. ³  Sackcloth and ashes were characteristic ⁴  of many.