Jeremiah 9

Revised Geneva Translation

9 Oh, that my head were full of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, 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 cottage of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, and an assembly of rebels!

³ “And they bend their tongues like their bows, for lies. But they have no courage for the truth upon the Earth. For they proceed from evil to worse, and they have not known Me,” says the LORD.

⁴ “Let everyone observe his neighbor. And do not trust in any brother. For every brother will use deceit, and every friend will deal deceitfully.

⁵ “And everyone will deceive his friend, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and take great pains to do wickedly.

⁶ “Your habitation is in the midst of deceivers. Because of deceit, they refuse to know Me,” says the LORD.

⁷ Therefore, thus says the LORD of Hosts: “Behold, I will refine them and test them. For what else should I do for the Daughter of My people?

⁸ “Their tongue is as an arrow shot out and speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth. But in his heart, he lays in wait for him.

⁹ “Shall I not reckon with them for these things?” says the LORD. “Or shall My Soul not be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁰ “Upon the mountains will I take up a weeping and a lamentation, and upon the fair places of the wilderness a mourning, because they are burnt up, so that no one can pass through them, nor can men hear the voice of the flock. Both the bird of the air and the beast have fled away, gone.

¹¹ “And I will make Jerusalem a heap, a den of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah waste, without an inhabitant.”

¹² Who is wise to understand this? And to whom the Mouth of the LORD has spoken, He shall declare it. Why does the land perish, burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

¹³ And the LORD says, “Because they have forsaken My Law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed My Voice, or walked thereafter,

¹⁴ “but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after Baal, which their fathers taught them,”

¹⁵ Therefore, thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: “behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them waters of gall to drink.

¹⁶ “I will also scatter them among the heathen, 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: “Consider, and call for the mourning women, so that they may come. And send for skillful women, so that they may come.”

¹⁸ And let them hurry. And let them take up a lamentation for us, so that our eyes may cast out tears, and our eyelids gush out of water.

¹⁹ For a lamentable noise is heard out of Zion, “How we are destroyed and utterly confounded! For we have forsaken the land, and our dwellings have cast us out!”

²⁰ Therefore hear the Word of the LORD, O you women, and let your ears regard the words of His Mouth. And teach your daughters to mourn, and everyone her neighbor to lament.

²¹ For death has come up into our windows and has entered into our palaces, to destroy the children outside, and the young men in the streets:

²² “Speak, ‘Thus says the LORD: “The carcasses of men shall lie as the dung upon the field, and as the handful after the mower. And no one shall gather.”

²³ ‘Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, or the strong man glory in his strength, or the rich man glory in his riches.

²⁴ “But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me. For I am the LORD, Who shows mercy, judgment, and righteousness on the Earth. For in these things I delight,” says the LORD.’

²⁵ “Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will visit all those who are circumcised, with the uncircumcised.

²⁶ “Egypt and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all the utmost corners of those who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the House of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.”’”