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And before your feet stumble

Upon the mountains of twilight,

And, while ye look for light,

He turn it into the shadow of death,

And make it gross darkness.

¹⁷But if ye will not hear it,

My soul shall weep in secret for your pride;

And mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears,

Because the Lord's flock is carried away captive.

 

¹⁸Say thou unto the king and to the queen-mother:

'Sit ye down low;

For your headtires are come down,

Even your beautiful crown.'

¹⁹The cities of the South are shut up,

And there is none to open them;

Judah is carried away captive all of it;

It is wholly carried away captive.

 

²⁰Lift up your eyes, and behold

Them that come from the north;

Where is the flock that was given thee,

Thy beautiful flock?

²¹What wilt thou say, when He shall set the friends over thee as head,

Whom thou thyself hast trained against thee?

Shall not pangs take hold of thee,

As of a woman in travail?

²²And if thou say in thy heart:

'Wherefore are these things befallen me?'—

For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts uncovered,

And thy heels suffer violence.

²³Can the Ethiopian change his skin,

Or the leopard his spots?

Then may ye also do good,

That are accustomed to do evil.

²⁴Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passeth away

By the wind of the wilderness.

²⁵This is thy lot, the portion measured unto thee from Me,

Saith the Lord;

Because thou hast forgotten Me,

And trusted in falsehood.

²⁶Therefore will I also uncover thy skirts upon thy face,

And thy shame shall appear.

²⁷Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy harlotry,

On the hills in the field have I seen thy detestable acts.

Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! thou wilt not be made clean!

When shall it ever be?

14The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.

²Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish,

They bow down in black unto the ground;

And the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

³And their nobles send their lads for water:

They come to the pits, and find no water;

Their vessels return empty;

They are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads.

⁴Because of the ground which is cracked,

For there hath been no rain in the land,

The plowmen are ashamed, they cover their heads.

⁵Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young,

Because there is no grass,

⁶And the wild asses stand on the high hills,

They gasp for air like jackals;

Their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.

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