17This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
18Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.
19For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”
20Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.
21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
22Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”