⁴ Beware of your neighbours,
    and put no trust in any of your kin;^[c]
for all your kin^[d] are supplanters,
    and every neighbour goes around like a slanderer.
⁵ They all deceive their neighbours,
    and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongues to speak lies;
    they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.^[e]
6 Oppression upon oppression, deceit^[f] upon deceit!
    They refuse to know me, says the Lord.

⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts:
I will now refine and test them,
    for what else can I do with my sinful people?^[g]
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    it speaks deceit through the mouth.
They all speak friendly words to their neighbours,
    but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.
⁹ Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord;
    and shall I not bring retribution
    on a nation such as this?

¹⁰ Take up^[h] weeping and wailing for the mountains,
    and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness,
because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
both the birds of the air and the animals
    have fled and are gone.
¹¹ I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
    a lair of jackals;
and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation
    without inhabitant.

²⁰ Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,
    and let your ears receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a dirge,
    and each to her neighbour a lament.
²¹ ‘Death has come up into our windows,
    it has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets
    and the young men from the squares.’
²² Speak! Thus says the Lord:
‘Human corpses shall fall
    like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves behind the reaper,
    and no one shall gather them.’