¹⁶ She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,

³ Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

⁵⁷ and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates.

²⁶ Then spoke the woman whose the living child was to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way kill it. But the other said, It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it.

²⁷ Then the king answered, Give her the living child, and in no way kill it: she is the mother of it.

²⁸ The king said to her, What ails you? She answered, This woman said to me, Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.

²⁹ So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, Give your son, that we may eat him; and she has hid her son.

¹⁵ The labor of fools wearies every one of them; for he doesn't know how to go to the city.

²⁰ Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

¹³ Behold, isn't it of Yahweh of Hosts that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?

³¹ without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;