The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

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- Chapter 9 -

“I wish that my head could produce as many tears as water from a spring, and that my eyes were like a fountain of tears, since I cry night and day for all of my people who have been killed by their enemies.

I wish that I could leave my people and forget them, and go and live in a shack in the desert, because they have not remained faithful to Yahweh; they are a mob of people who deceive others.

They use their tongues to tell lies just as people shoot arrows with bows. They are powerful, but not because they are faithful, but they go about doing wicked things. “They do not know me,” Yahweh says.

Do not trust your neighbors and even your brothers! They all are as deceitful as Jacob was. They slander each other and tell lies about each other.

They deceive their friends and never tell the truth. They lie continually and, because of that, they have become skilled liars; they do one oppressive deed after another until they grow tired from sinning so much.

Jeremiah, everyone living around you is a deceiver. Not one of them will admit that I am God.

Therefore I, Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, say this: Listen carefully to what I say: I will test my people, like a metalworker puts metal in a hot fire to completely burn out the impure bits. Because of all the evil things that my people have done, there is absolutely nothing else that I can do.

What they say injures people like poisoned arrows do. They say to their neighbors, ‘I hope things will go well for you,’ while they are planning to kill them.

Should I not punish them for doing that? Yes, I should certainly get revenge on the people of a nation that does things like that!”

So, I will weep and wail for the people who live in the mountains and in the pastures, because those areas will be desolate, and no one will live there. There will be no cattle there to call to each other, and all the birds and wild animals will have fled to other places.

Yahweh also says, “I will cause Jerusalem to become a heap of ruins, and only jackals will live there. I will destroy the towns of Judah, with the result that they will be completely deserted; no people will live there.”

I said, “Only people who are very wise can understand these things. Only those who have been taught by Yahweh can explain these things to others. The wise people are the only ones who can explain why the land will be completely ruined with the result that everyone will be afraid to travel through it.”

Yahweh replied, “These things will happen because my people have rejected my laws which I gave to them; they have not obeyed me or my instructions.

Instead, they have stubbornly done the things that they wanted in their inner beings to do. They have worshiped the idols that represent the god Baal, which is what their ancestors did.

So now listen to what I, Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, the God of the Israelites, say: What I will do will be like giving these people bitter things to eat and poison to drink:

I will scatter them to many nations which neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about; I will enable their enemies to strike them with swords until I have destroyed them.”

This is what Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, says: “Think about what is happening, then summon those women who mourn when someone has died.

Tell them to come quickly and start to wail, with the result that tears will stream down from your eyes.

Listen to the people of Jerusalem calling out, saying, ’We have been ruined! We have experienced a terrible disaster! Now we are very ashamed, because our houses have been destroyed by our enemies, and we are being forced to leave our land.’

You women, listen to what Yahweh says. Pay attention to his words. Teach your daughters to wail. Teach each other how to sing funeral songs.

You must learn to sing funeral songs because people will be dying in your houses and in palaces. There will be no more children playing in the streets, there will be no more young men gathering in the city squares.

There will be corpses scattered across the fields like dung; their dead bodies will lie there like grain that has been cut by reapers, and there will be no one still alive to bury them.

Yahweh says this: “Wise men should not boast about their being wise, strong men should not boast about their being strong; and rich people should not boast about their being rich.

Instead, those who want to boast should boast about their knowing me and about understanding that I am Yahweh, that I am kind and just and righteous, that I faithfully love people, and that I am delighted with people who act that way.

There will be a time when I will punish all those people who have changed their bodies by circumcising them but who have not changed their inner beings:

The Egyptian, the Moab, of Edom, and of the Ammon people groups, all those who live close to desert areas far from Judah. I will even punish the people of Israel because they are only circumcised on the outside, and physically, and not on the inside, in their inner self.”

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says the LORD.

“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer.

Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity.

Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”

Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.

Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Speak, “The LORD says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

The LORD says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for I delight in these things,” says the LORD.

“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:

Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”