²⁹ People can hear the sound of horsemen.
    Men armed with bows are coming.
    The people in every town run away.
Some of them go into the bushes.
    Others climb up among the rocks.
All the towns are deserted.
    No one is living in them.

³⁰ What are you doing, you who are destroyed?
    Why do you dress yourself in bright red clothes?
    Why do you put on jewels of gold?
Why do you put makeup on your eyes?
    You make yourself beautiful for no reason at all.
Your lovers hate you.
    They want to kill you.

³¹ I hear a cry like the cry of a woman having a baby.
    I hear a groan like someone having her first child.
It’s the cry of the people of Zion struggling to breathe.
    They reach out their hands and say,
“Help us! We’re fainting!
    Murderers are about to kill us!”