Jeremiah continues to express his personal pain at the disaster that is to strike Jerusalem. He speaks of the city as a tent, his tent. The children are the inhabitants of the city, his fellow citizens. The city is about to be destroyed, and all the inhabitants will either killed or captured by the enemy. There will be no one left to rebuild that city that is so precious to Israel and to Jeremiah.
20 My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are not; there is no one to spread my tent again and to set up my curtains.