Jeremiah 9

¹Oh that my head were waters,

and my eyes a spring of tears,

that I might weep day and night

for the slain of the daughter of my people!

²Oh that I had in the wilderness

a lodging place of wayfaring men,

that I might leave my people

and go from them!

For they are all adulterers,

an assembly of treacherous men.

³“They bend their tongue,

as their bow, for falsehood.

They have grown strong in the land,

but not for truth;

for they proceed from evil to evil,

and they don’t know me,” says the LORD.

⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbour,

and don’t trust in any brother;

for every brother will utterly supplant,

and every neighbour will go around like a slanderer.

⁵Friends deceive each other,

and will not speak the truth.

They have taught their tongue to speak lies.

They weary themselves committing iniquity.

⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit.

Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

⁷Therefore the LORD of Hosts says,

“Behold, I will melt them and test them;

for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow.

It speaks deceit.

One speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth,

but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD.

“Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?

¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains,

and lament for the pastures of the wilderness,

because they are burnt up, so that no one passes through;

Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock.

Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled.

They are gone.

¹¹“I will make Jerusalem heaps,

a dwelling place of jackals.

I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,

without inhabitant.”

¹²Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

¹³The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways, ¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.” ¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. ¹⁶I will scatter them also amongst the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

¹⁷The LORD of Hosts says,

“Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come.

Send for the skilful women, that they may come.

¹⁸Let them make haste

and take up a wailing for us,

that our eyes may run down with tears

and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,

‘How we are ruined!

We are greatly confounded

because we have forsaken the land,

because they have cast down our dwellings.’ ”

²⁰Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women.

Let your ear receive the word of his mouth.

Teach your daughters wailing.

Everyone teach her neighbour a lamentation.

²¹For death has come up into our windows.

It has entered into our palaces

to cut off the children from outside,

and the young men from the streets.

²²Speak, “The LORD says,

“ ‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field,

and as the handful after the harvester.

No one will gather them.’ ”

²³The LORD says,

“Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom.

Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might.

Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

²⁴But let him who glories glory in this,

that he has understanding, and knows me,

that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth,

for I delight in these things,” says the LORD.

²⁵“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh: ²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”