cruelty, like scavenger birds abandoning their nestlings in the desert.
4 Desperate and destitute, suckling infants thrust out their tongues in thirst; young children ask for bread, but not a slice is to be had.
5 Elites who once feasted on delicacies expire in the streets; those raised in luxury are glad to eat from garbage heaps.
6 Forsooth, the punishment of my beloved nation exceeds even that imposed upon Sodom, which was destroyed in but a passing moment, with no such protracted suffering.
7 Gentlemen once purer than the driven snow, as wholesome and hale as milk, their radiant complexions ruddier than rubies,
8 Have grown ashen and sickly, unrecognizable as they roam the streets, their skin hanging on bones now brittle as kindling wood.
9 It is better to die by the sword than to fall victim to hunger, succumbing to stabbing hunger pangs, without even weeds or wild plants to sustain you.
10 Judean women, renowned for their compassion, have been reduced to cannibalizing their own children, just to survive amid the destruction of a once beautiful nation.
11 Kindling a fire in Zion which razed it to its very foundations, the Lord has loosed His full measure of fury, pouring out His blazing wrath.
12 Landed nobles, kings and their peoples will hardly believe that such vile enemies could penetrate the gates of Jerusalem.
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