Bible Verses About Famine

If I have gone forth to the field, Then, lo, the pierced of the sword! And if I have entered the city, Then, lo, the diseased of famine! For both prophet and priest have gone up and down Unto a land that they knew not.

Hast Thou utterly rejected Judah? Zion hath Thy soul loathed? Wherefore hast Thou smitten us, And there is no healing to us? Looking for peace, and there is no good, And for a time of healing, and lo, terror.

We have known, O Jehovah, our wickedness, The iniquity of our fathers, For we have sinned against Thee.

Do not despise, for Thy name's sake, Dishonour not the throne of Thine honour, Remember, break not Thy covenant with us.

Are there among the vanities of the nations any causing rain? And do the heavens give showers? Art not Thou He, O Jehovah our God? And we wait for thee, for Thou--Thou hast done all these!

Consumed by tears have been my eyes, Troubled have been my bowels, Poured out to the earth hath been my liver, For the breach of the daughter of my people; In infant and suckling being feeble, In the broad places of the city,

To their mothers they say, `Where are corn and wine?' In their becoming feeble as a pierced one In the broad places of the city, In their soul pouring itself out into the bosom of their mothers.

What do I testify to thee, what do I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What do I equal to thee, and I comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For great as a sea is thy breach, Who doth give healing to thee?

Thy prophets have seen for thee a false and insipid thing, And have not revealed concerning thine iniquity, To turn back thy captivity, And they see for thee false burdens and causes of expulsion.

Clapped hands at thee have all passing by the way, They have hissed--and they shake the head At the daughter of Jerusalem: `Is this the city of which they said: The perfection of beauty, a joy to all the land?'

Opened against thee their mouth have all thine enemies, They have hissed, yea, they gnash the teeth, They have said: `We have swallowed her up, Surely this is the day that we looked for, We have found--we have seen.'

Jehovah hath done that which He devised, He hath fulfilled His saying That He commanded from the days of old, He hath broken down and hath not pitied, And causeth an enemy to rejoice over thee, He lifted up the horn of thine adversaries.

Cried hath their heart unto the Lord; O wall of the daughter of Zion, Cause to go down as a stream tears daily and nightly, Give not rest to thyself, Let not the daughter of thine eye stand still.

Arise, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the watches. Pour out as water thy heart, Over against the face of the Lord, Lift up unto Him thy hands, for the soul of thine infants, Who are feeble with hunger at the head of all out-places.

See, O Jehovah, and look attentively, To whom Thou hast acted thus, Do women eat their fruit, infants of a handbreadth? Slain in the sanctuary of the Lord are priest and prophet?

Lain on the earth in out-places have young and old, My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword, Thou hast slain in a day of Thine anger, Thou hast slaughtered--Thou hast not pitied.

Thou dost call as at a day of appointment, My fears from round about, And there hath not been in the day of the anger of Jehovah, An escaped and remaining one, They whom I stretched out and nourished, My enemy hath consumed!

Cleaved hath the tongue of a suckling unto his palate with thirst, Infants asked bread, a dealer out they have none.

Those eating of dainties have been desolate in out-places, Those supported on scarlet have embraced dunghills.

And greater is the iniquity of the daughter of my people, Than the sin of Sodom, That was overturned as in a moment, And no hands were stayed on her.

Purer were her Nazarites than snow, Whiter than milk, ruddier of body than rubies, Of sapphire their form.

Darker than blackness hath been their visage, They have not been known in out-places, Cleaved hath their skin unto their bone, It hath withered--it hath been as wood.

Better have been the pierced of a sword Than the pierced of famine, For these flow away, pierced through, Without the increase of the field.

The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Our water for money we have drunk, Our wood for a price doth come.