Jeremiah 9

1 Oh that one would make my head water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people!

2 Oh that one would place me in the wilderness in a lodging-place of wayfaring men. that I might leave my people, and go from them! for all of them are adulterers, a band of traitors.

3 And they bend their tongues, their bow of falsehood, and not for the truth are they valiant in the land; for from evil to evil do they proceed, and me they know not, saith the Lord.

4 Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and on any brother place ye no reliance; for every brother will surely supplant, and every neighbor will go about as a talebearer.

5 And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and the truth will they not speak: they have taught their tongue to speak falsehood, they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

6 Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.

7 Therefore thus hath said the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and probe them; for how [else] shall I do because of the daughter of my people?

8 A murderous arrow is their tongue; [every one] speaketh deceit: with his mouth speaketh he peaceably to his neighbor, but in his heart he layeth wait for him.

9 Shall I not for these things inflict punishment on them? saith the Lord: or shall not on a nation such as this my soul be avenged?

10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation; because they are burnt up, so that no man can pass through them; and they hear not the voice of the cattle: both the fowls of the heavens and the beasts are fled; they are gone away.

11 And I will change Jerusalem into heaps of ruins, a dwelling for monsters: and the cities of Judah will I make desolate, without an inhabitant.

12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it: for what is the land destroyed, burnt up like the wilderness, without one that passeth through?

13 And the Lord said, Because they forsook my law which I had set before them, and hearkened not to my voice, and walked not therein;

14 But have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Be'alim, which their fathers had taught them.

15 Therefore thus hath said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them—this people, with wormwood, and give them poison-water to drink.

16 And I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send out after them the sword, till I have consumed them.

17 Thus hath said the Lord of hosts, Consider it well, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the women skilled in lament, that they may come;

18 And let them make haste, and take up for us a lamentation, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids drop down water.

19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we wasted! we are greatly ashamed; because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.

20 For hear, O ye women, the word of the Lord, and let your ear perceive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation.

21 For death is come up through our windows, is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the open places.

22 Speak, Thus saith the Lord, Yea, the carcasses of men shall lie as dung upon the open field, and as the sheaves [left] after the harvestman, with none to gather them.

23 Thus hath said the Lord, Let not the wise glorify himself in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glorify himself in his might, let not the rich glorify himself in his riches;

24 But let him that glorifieth himself glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord who exercise kindness, justice, and righteousness, on the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

25 Behold, days are coming, saith the Lord, that I will send punishment on all the circumcised who are [yet] uncircumcised;

26 On Egypt, and on Judah, and on Edom, and on the children of 'Ammon, and on Moab, and all who have the locks of their hair cut off round that dwell in the wilderness; for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.