Jeremiah

¹ And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people!

² 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.

³ Lies and unfaithfulness prevail in the land, For they go onward from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,” declares Yahweh.

⁴ And do not trust any brother, Because every brother surely supplants, And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

⁵ And does not speak the truth; They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves committing iniquity.

⁶ Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares Yahweh.

⁷ For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?

⁸ It speaks deceit; With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor, But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.

⁹ “On a nation such as this Shall I not avenge Myself?

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ 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.”

¹⁷ And send for the skillful women, that they may come!

¹⁸ That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.

¹⁹ ‘How we are destroyed! We are put to great shame, For we have left the land Because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

²⁰ And let your ear receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And everyone her neighbor a funeral lamentation.

²¹ It has entered our palaces To cut off the infants from the streets, The choice men from the open squares.

²² ‘The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field And like the sheaf after the reaper, But no one will gather them.’”

²³ Thus says Yahweh, “Let not a wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast in his might; let not a rich man boast in his riches,

²⁴ but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am Yahweh who shows lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares Yahweh.

²⁵ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised—

²⁶ Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”