Teach a lament

16Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come.

17Let them hurry and raise a lament over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.

18For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: “How we are devastated! We are utterly ashamed, because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.”

19For hear the word of Yahweh, O women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each woman her neighbor a dirge.

20For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our palaces, to cut off the child from outside, the young men from the streets.

21Speak: Thus says Yahweh, “The corpse of man will fall like dung on the face of the field, and like a sheaf behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”