Jeremiah 9

1Who will give my head waters and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

2Who will give me a travelers' inn in the wilderness, that I may abandon my people and depart from them, for all of them are adulterers, a band of traitors.

3They bend their tongues like their bows for deceit, yet they prevail in the land not for faithfulness; for they go from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares Yahweh.

4Everyone, beware of your neighbor and trust no brother at all; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about as a slanderer.

5Everyone will deceive his neighbor and not speak truth; they have trained their tongue to speak falsehood, wearing themselves out to do wrong.

6You live amid deceit; through deceit they utterly refuse to know me, says Yahweh.

7Therefore Yahweh of hosts declares: "Look, I will refine them and test them, for how can I act on account of the daughter of my people?"

8Their tongue is a deadly shooting arrow; it speaks deceit. With his mouth he speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.

9Should I not punish them for these? declares Yahweh. Should not my soul take vengeance on a nation like this?

10I will raise weeping and wailing over the mountains, and lamentation over the pastures of the wilderness, for they lie desolated, lacking any passerby; no one hears the voice of the livestock—from the birds of the sky to the beasts, they have fled away, they are gone.

11I will reduce Jerusalem to heaps, a lair for jackals, and turn Judah's cities into desolation, devoid of dwellers.

12Who is the wise man who may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and been laid waste like a wilderness, with no one passing through?

13Yahweh said, "Because they forsook my law that I put before them, and did not heed my voice or walk in it."

14they walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals that their fathers taught them

15Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink water of gall.

16I will disperse them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I consume them.

17Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Consider diligently, call the mourning women that they come, and send for the wise women that they come.

18Let them hasten and lift up a wailing over us, that tears may stream from our eyes and waters pour from our eyelids.

19For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion—how we have been devastated! We are greatly ashamed, because we forsook the land, because they hurled down our dwellings.

20Indeed, hear Yahweh's word, women, and receive with your ear the word from his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and each woman her neighbor lamentation.

21For death has climbed through our windows and entered our palaces to cut off children from outside and young men from the streets.

22Speak: Thus says Yahweh, "Human carcasses will fall like dung upon the surface of the field, and like a handful after the harvester, with no one to gather."

23Thus says Yahweh: Let not the wise boast in his wisdom, nor the mighty in his might, nor the rich in his riches.

24But let whoever boasts boast in this: understanding and knowing me, that I am Yahweh who practices lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth—for in these I delight, says Yahweh.

25See, the days are coming, says Yahweh, when I will visit punishment upon all the circumcised in uncircumcision.

26Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who cut the corners of their hair—who dwell in the wilderness—for all nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.