3 Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness. 4 The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any. 5 Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.
Lamentations 4:3–5
Semantically similar passages
Lamentations 4:9–11
9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce. 10 The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter o…
Lamentations 5:2–4
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners. 3 We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows. 4 We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.
Job 24:8–10
8 Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter. 9 The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt. 10 Without clothing, they wander about naked. They carry the sheaves, but still go…
Lamentations 2:11–13
11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. 12 They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as… 13 …
Book of Enoch 99:4–6
4 In those days the nations shall be stirred up, And the families of the nations shall arise on the day of destruction. (ENO) 5 And in those days the destitute shall go forth and carry off their children, And they shall abandon them, so that their children shall perish… (ENO) 6 … (ENO)
Job 24:4–6
4 They push the needy off the road and force all the poor of the land into hiding. 5 Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go to work foraging for food; the wasteland is food for their children. 6 They gather fodder in the fields and glean the vineyards o…
Jeremiah 14:4–6
4 The ground is cracked because no rain has fallen on the land. The farmers are ashamed; they cover their heads. 5 Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. 6 Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; th…
Leviticus 26:28–30
28 then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless rem…
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