Lamentations 1:19

¹¹All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, LORD, and see, for I have become despised.”

²She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

²⁰“Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

¹³“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. ¹⁴My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. ¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. ¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. ¹⁸Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. ¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

¹¹for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says the LORD. ¹²Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says the LORD. ¹³“I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

¹²Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored.

¹⁵Therefore the LORD says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. ¹⁶The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

¹⁷“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. ¹⁸If I go out into the field, then behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”

¹³Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon;’ for they prophesy a lie to you. ¹⁵For I have not sent them,” says the LORD, “but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

¹⁷Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

⁷Her nobles were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was like sapphire. ⁸Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood. ⁹Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.