²⁹ At the shouts of horsemen and archers
    every city takes to flight.
Some people crawl into the thickets
    while others scale the rocks.
All the cities are abandoned,
    with no one to live in them.
³⁰ What are you doing, you who are doomed,
    by clothing yourself in purple,
adorning yourself with ornaments of gold
    and shading your eyes with cosmetics?
You are beautifying yourself in vain,
    for your lovers despise you,
    and they only seek your life.
³¹ I hear cries like those of a woman in labor,
    the anguished groans of one bearing her first child.
They are the screams of daughter Zion gasping for breath
    as she stretches forth her hands and cries out,
“Woe is me; I am dying.
    I sink exhausted before my murderers.”