However wild and cruel a jackal may be, it still cares for its young and nurses them. Jeremiah sees how his people cannot even fulfil this basic duty anymore. Mothers have become hard through all their suffering—heartless like ostriches (cf. Job 39:13–18). They do not and cannot feed their children.
3 Even jackals offer the breast; they nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.