 1 Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears so that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. 2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for traveling men so that I might leave my people and go away from them. For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. 3 They bend their tongues like their bow for lies. But they are not mighty for the truth on the earth. For they go from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord. 4 Everyone beware of his neighbor, and do not trust any brother. For every brother will supplant his neighbor, and will walk with slanders. 5 Everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity. 6 your dwelling is in the midst of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to know me, says the Lord. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them and try them. For what else can I do for the daughter of my people? 8 Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he lies in ambush. 9 Shall I not visit them for these things? says the Lord. Shall my soul not be avenged on such a nation as this? 10 I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains, and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness. Because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them. Nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the heavens and the beast have fled. They are gone. 11 I will make Jerusalem ruins, a den of jackals. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without a living soul. 12 Who is the wise man who may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may declare it? Why does the land perish and burn up like a wilderness, so that none passes through? 13 The Lord says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, and have not walked in it, 14 but they have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water. 16 I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them. 17 Thus says the Lord of hosts, Think carefully and call for the wailers, that they may come. Send for the wise women so that they may come. 18 Let them hurry+ and take up a weeping for us so that our eyes may run down with tears and waters flow from our eyelids. 19 For a voice of weeping is heard out of Zion. How are we plundered. We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because they have thrown down our tents. 20 Yet hear the Word of the Lord, women. Let your ear receive the Word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to weep. Each one teach her neighbor to mourn. 21 For death has come up into our windows, and has entered into our houses, to cut off the children from outside and the young men from the streets. 22 Speak, Thus says the Lord: Even the bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the fallen grain after the reaper. And none shall gather them. 23 Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise glory in his wisdom, nor let the mighty glory in his might. Do not let the rich glory in his riches; 24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, doing kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord. 25 The days are coming, says the Lord, that I will punish all the circumcised with foreskin; 26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all who are in the outermost corners, who live in the wilderness. For all these nations are not circumcised, and all the house of Israel, those not circumcised in heart.
|