Jeremiah 9:1 - 9:16

Oh that my head were waters

And my eyes a fountain of tears,

That I might weep day and night

For the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the desert

A travelers’ lodging place,

That I might leave my people

And go from them!

For all of them are adulterers,

A solemn assembly of treacherous men.

“They bend their tongue like their bow;

Lies and unfaithfulness prevail in the land,

For they go onward from evil to evil,

And they do not know Me,” declares Yahweh.

“Let everyone beware of his neighbor,

And do not trust any brother,

Because every brother surely supplants,

And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

Everyone deceives his neighbor

And does not speak the truth;

They have taught their tongue to speak lies;

They weary themselves committing iniquity.

Your habitation is in the midst of deceit;

Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares Yahweh.

7 Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts,

“Behold, I will refine them and test them;

For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?

Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow;

It speaks deceit;

With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor,

But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.

Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares Yahweh.

“On a nation such as this

Shall I not avenge Myself?

“For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing,

And for the pastures of the wilderness a funeral lamentation,

Because they are turned into ruin so that no one passes through,

And the lowing of the cattle is not heard;

Both the birds of the sky and the beasts have fled; they are gone.

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,

A haunt of jackals;

And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

12 Who is the wise man that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished, turned into ruin like a desert, so that no one passes through? 13 Yahweh said, “Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to My voice nor walked according to it, 14 but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,” 15 therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. 16 I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.”