9:38 And when I spake these things in my heart, I looked back with mine eyes, and upon the right side I saw a woman, and, behold, she mourned and wept with a loud voice, and was much grieved in heart, and her clothes were rent, and she had ashes upon her head. 9:39 Then let I my thoughts go that I was in, and turned me unto her, 9:40 And said unto her, Wherefore weepest thou? why art thou so grieved in thy mind? 9:41 And she said unto me, Sir, let me alone, that I may bewail myself, and add unto my sorrow, for I am sore vexed in my mind, and brought very low. 9:42 And I said unto her, What aileth thee? tell me. 9:43 She said unto me, I thy servant have been barren, and had no child, though I had an husband thirty years, 9:44 And those thirty years I did nothing else day and night, and every hour, but make my, prayer to the Highest. 9:45 After thirty years God heard me thine handmaid, looked upon my misery, considered my trouble, and gave me a son: and I was very glad of him, so was my husband also, and all my neighbours: and we gave great honour unto the Almighty. 9:46 And I nourished him with great travail. 9:47 So when he grew up, and came to the time that he should have a wife, I made a feast. 10:1 And it so came to pass, that when my son was entered into his wedding chamber, he fell down, and died. 10:2 Then we all overthrew the lights, and all my neighbours rose up to comfort me: so I took my rest unto the second day at night. 10:3 And it came to pass, when they had all left off to comfort me, to the end I might be quiet; then rose I up by night and fled, and came hither into this field, as thou seest. 10:4 And I do now purpose not to return into the city, but here to stay, and neither to eat nor drink, but continually to mourn and to fast until I die. 10:5 Then left I the meditations wherein I was, and spake to her in anger, saying, 10:6 Thou foolish woman above all other, seest thou not our mourning, and what happeneth unto us? 10:7 How that Sion our mother is full of all heaviness, and much humbled, mourning very sore? 10:8 And now, seeing we all mourn and are sad, for we are all in heaviness, art thou grieved for one son? 10:9 For ask the earth, and she shall tell thee, that it is she which ought to mourn for the fall of so many that grow upon her. 10:10 For out of her came all at the first, and out of her shall all others come, and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and a multitude of them is utterly rooted out. 10:11 Who then should make more mourning than she, that hath lost so great a multitude; and not thou, which art sorry but for one? 10:12 But if thou sayest unto me, My lamentation is not like the earth’s, because I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth with pains, and bare with sorrows; 10:13 But the earth not so: for the multitude present in it according to the course of the earth is gone, as it came: