Bible Verses About Famine

If I go out in the field, I see those slain with the sword. If I enter the city, I see the victims of famine. Meanwhile, prophets and cohanim ply their trade in the land, knowing nothing.'"

Have you rejected Y'hudah completely? Is Tziyon loathsome to you? Why have you struck us irreparably? We looked for peace, but to no avail; for a time of healing, but instead found terror!

We confess our rebellion, ADONAI, also the crimes of our ancestors; yes, we have sinned against you.

For your name's sake, do not spurn us; do not dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your covenant with us; do not break it.

Among the nations' idols, can any make it rain? Can the skies, of themselves, send showers? Aren't you the one, ADONAI, our God? Don't we look to you? For you do all these things.

My eyes are worn out from weeping, everything in me is churning; I am empty of emotion because of the wounds to my people, because children and infants are fainting away in the streets of the city.

They keep asking their mothers, "Where is something to eat or drink?"as they faint away in the streets of the city, gasping out their last breath in their mother's bosom.

What can be said to you, what can be compared with you, daughter of Yerushalayim? What example can I give to comfort you, virgin daughter of Tziyon? For your downfall is as vast as the sea; who can heal you?

The visions your prophets saw for you were futile, just a whitewash. They did not expose your guilt, so as to reverse your fortunes -no, the visions they saw for you were alluring, but futile.

All who pass your way clap their hands at you, hissing and shaking their heads at the daughter of Yerushalayim: "This city was called 'perfection in beauty'? 'the joy of the whole earth'?"

All your adversaries open their mouths to jeer at you. They hiss, they grind their teeth; they say, "We have swallowed her up! This is the day we were waiting for, and now we have lived to see it!"

ADONAI has done what he planned, he has fulfilled his promise, which he decreed in ancient times. He has destroyed without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over you and filled your foes with pride.

Their hearts cried out to Adonai, "Wall of the daughter of Tziyon! Let your tears stream down like a torrent, day and night! Give yourself no respite, give your eyes no rest!

"Get up! Cry out in the night, at the beginning of every watch! Pour your heart out like water before the face of Adonai! Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your babies, who are fainting away from hunger at every streetcorner."

ADONAI, look and see who it is you have thus tormented! Should women eat the fruit of their wombs, the children they have held in their hands? Should cohanim and prophets be slaughtered in the sanctuary of Adonai?

Youths and old men are lying on the ground in the streets, my unmarried women and young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them on the day of your anger, you slaughtered them without pity.

You have summoned my terrors from every direction, as on a festival day. On the day of ADONAI's anger, not one escaped; not one survived -the children I held in my arms and raised, my enemy has destroyed.

The tongue of the baby at the breast sticks to the roof of its mouth from thirst; young children are begging for bread, but no one is giving them any.

People who once ate only the best lie dying in the streets; those who were raised wearing purple are clawing at piles of garbage.

For the offense of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of S'dom, which was overthrown in an instant, without a hand to help her.

Her princes were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than pink pearls, as beautiful as sapphires.

Now their faces are blacker than coal; in the streets they go unrecognized. Their skin has shriveled over their bones and become as dry as a stick.

Those slain by the sword are better off than those who are dying from hunger; since these waste away as if pierced through, for lack of food from the fields.

With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children; their children became their food when the daughter of my people was destroyed.

We have to pay to drink our own water; we have to buy our own wood.