1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so I could weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh that someone would give me in the wilderness a lodging for travelers, so that I could leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a crowd of traitors.
3 "They bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood; and not for truth have they grown strong in the land; for from evil to evil they go on, and me they do not know," declares the LORD.
4 "Each of you, be on guard against his neighbor, and trust no brother; for every brother is a cheating supplanter, and every neighbor goes around slandering.
5 Each deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have trained their tongue to speak falsehood; they wear themselves out doing wrong.
6 Your dwelling is in the middle of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me," declares the LORD.
7 So thus says the LORD of hosts: "See, I will smelt them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of my people?
8 Their tongue is a murderous arrow; it speaks deceit. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but inside he sets an ambush for him.
9 Shall I not punish for these things?" declares the LORD. "On a nation such as this shall my soul not take vengeance?
10 For the mountains I will raise weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lament, for they are scorched, with no one passing through, and the sound of livestock is not heard; from the birds of the heavens to the beasts, they have fled; they are gone.
11 I will make Jerusalem rubble heaps, a lair of jackals, and the cities of Judah I will make a waste with no inhabitant."
12 Who is the wise man who can understand this, and to whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, so that he can explain it? Why has the land perished, scorched like a desert with no one passing through?
13 The LORD said, "Because they have abandoned my law that I put before them, and have not listened to my voice or walked by it,
14 but have gone after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,
15 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: See, I am feeding them, this people, with wormwood, and I will make them drink poisoned water.
16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have finished them off."
17 Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Take note, and call for the women who keen, that they may come; send for the skilled women, that they may come;
18 let them hurry and raise a lament over us, so that our eyes run with tears and our eyelids flow with water.
19 For a sound of lament is heard from Zion: 'How we are devastated! We are deeply ashamed, for we have left the land, for they have thrown down our dwellings.'"
20 Hear, you women, the word of the LORD, and let your ear take in the word of his mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each woman her neighbor a dirge.
21 For death has climbed in through our windows; it has come into our strongholds, to cut off the child from the street, the young men from the squares.
22 Speak: "Thus declares the LORD: The dead bodies of men will fall like dung on the face of the field, like a sheaf behind the reaper, and no one gathers it."
23 Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, let not the strong man boast of his strength, let not the rich man boast of his wealth;
24 but let the one who boasts boast of this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I take delight," declares the LORD.
25 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish everyone who is circumcised only in the foreskin:
26 Egypt and Judah and Edom, the children of Ammon and Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut, who live in the desert; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart."