Jeremiah 16:4
They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
The verse pronounces grievous deaths with no lamentation and no burial, leaving corpses exposed upon the ground like refuse to be eaten by the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth. The killing is carried out by sword and by famine. The grievous deaths include death by disease. It is one of the warnings of coming calamity addressed to backslidden Israel, a calamity that could have been avoided if the people had repented and heeded the warning.
It stands within chapters 3 through 21 as a stern denunciation of sin voiced in sorrow over transgression and with earnest calls to return to God, calls that the mass of the people meet with no response. The threatened judgment is the swift punishment to be inflicted through Babylon. The next verse explains the judgment as God withdrawing peace, kindness, and mercy from the people.
On a prophetic level it foreshadows the wicked slain throughout the earth at Christ's second coming, when none are left to mourn or bury them. It also describes the fate in the day of the Lord of the enemies who threaten the faithful remnant; as Jezebel's threat came to nothing and her body was eaten by dogs, so their attempt to destroy the remnant will fail and their unburied bodies will be devoured. Its imagery is applied to the murder of Black people in the postwar South, whose bodies are left unburied and treated as manure, warning that the nation that leaves them without protection is accountable for their deaths.