Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
Again the writer pictures the heartbreaking scene in besieged Jerusalem, with starving people crying out to God for mercy. Some even kill their own children for food (18-20). As pilgrims flock to Jerusalem at the time of an annual festival, so enemy soldiers now pour into the city, but only to slaughter its citizens (21-22).