VIN(i)
1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for traveling men, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
3 They use their tongues like a bow. Lies rather than truth fly throughout the land. They progress from one evil to another, and they don't know me," declares the LORD.
4 Everyone beware of his neighbor, and do not trust any brother! For every brother will supplant his neighbor, and will walk with slanders.
5 Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves commiting iniquity.
6 "You live in the middle of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to know me," says the LORD.
7 Therefore so says the LORD Almighty, Behold, I will melt them and try them; for what else can I do for the daughter of My people?
8 "Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit! With the mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor, but inwardly he sets an ambush for him."
9 Should I not punish them for these things?," asks the LORD, "and should I not avenge myself on a nation like this?"
10 I'll weep and mourn for the mountains, and lament for the desert pastures, because they are desolate and no one passes through them. They don't hear the lowing of the cattle. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They're gone!
11 "I'll make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a refuge for jackals. I'll make the towns of Judah desolate, without inhabitants."
12 "Who is the wise man that may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken? Let him declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through?"
13 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,
14 »They have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals as their fathers taught them.
15 Therefore, this is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: "Look, I'll make these people eat wormwood and drink poisoned water.
16 I'll scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I'll pursue them with the sword until I've finished them off."
17 Thus says the LORD Almighty: "Consider closely, and call for the wailing women, so that they come, and for the skillful women, so that they come.
18 And let them make haste and take up a lament over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.
19 For a sound of mourning is heard from Zion: 'How we're ruined! Our shame is very great, because we have left the land, because our houses are torn down.'"
20 For hear, O women, the word of the LORD, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters a lamentation, and each woman her neighbor a lament.
21 For death has come into our windows, it has entered into our fortresses, to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the public squares.
22 Speak, So says the LORD, Even the bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the swath after the reaper, and no one shall gather them .
23 [J] Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom: nor the mighty man boast of his strength; neither let the rich man boast of his riches:
24 but let him who boasts boast 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 in these things I delight," says the LORD.
25 "Look, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I'll punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh:
26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, all those who live in the desert and shave the corners of their beard; indeed all the other nations that are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel that is uncircumcised of heart."