Tuesday in Season after Pentecost

13Verse 13. What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you? 14Verse 14. The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading. 15Verse 15. All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” 16Verse 16. All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!” 17Verse 17. The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes. 18Verse 18. The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. 19Verse 19. Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. 20Verse 20. Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21Verse 21. Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion. 22Verse 22. You summoned my terrors on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

5Verse 5. and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own. 6Verse 6. Will not all of these take up a taunt against him, speaking with mockery and derision: ‘Woe to him who amasses what is not his and makes himself rich with many loans! How long will this go on?’ 7Verse 7. Will not your creditors suddenly arise and those who disturb you awaken? Then you will become their prey. 8Verse 8. Because you have plundered many nations, the remnant of the people will plunder you— because of your bloodshed against man and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers. 9Verse 9. Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster! 10Verse 10. You have plotted shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and forfeiting your life. 11Verse 11. For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork.