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1How I wish my head were a reservoir
that could weep a fountain of tears.
I would weep day and night
for my beloved ones who have been slain!
2If only I had a shelter in the wilderness,
a place for weary travelers to spend the night.
Then I could leave my people
and go away from them
because they’re all unfaithful to God —
a company of corrupters.
3Yahweh says:
“They shoot out lies with their tongues,
just as an archer uses a bow to shoot arrows .
Their lies have prevailed in the land,
but they are not faithful to Yahweh .
My people go from one evil thing to another
because they do not know my heart .
4Beware of your neighbor
and do not even trust your brother,
for every brother is a cheater,
and every friend is a slanderer.
5They all are professional liars who lie to their neighbors.
They are completely dishonest,
and have trained their tongues to lie.
They weary themselves doing wrong.
6Jeremiah , you live surrounded by oppression,
deceit heaped upon deceit,
and the people refuse to intimately know me,” says Yahweh .
7Therefore, Yahweh , Commander of Angel Armies, says:
“Listen! I will refine my dear people by fire and test them
because of what they have done.
I have no other choice.
8Their words are deadly arrows poisoned with deceit.
Each one greets his neighbor with ‘Shalom,’
but deep in his heart, he secretly sets a trap for him.
9I, Yahweh , will hold them accountable for these things.
And I will take vengeance to punish a nation such as this.”
10I will weep and wail for the mountains
and sing mournful songs for the pasturelands,
for they are burned, with no one passing through.
No one hears the lowing of cattle;
birds and beasts of the field have fled—they are gone.
11“I, Yahweh , will turn Jerusalem into rubble,
a den of jackals.
And I will turn the cities of Judah into ghost towns where no one lives.”
12Why is the land burned and destroyed, left like an uninhabited wilderness? Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is the prophet with a word from Yahweh to explain it?[#9:12 See Ps. 107:43; Eccl. 8:1; Hos. 14:9; 1 Cor. 1:20; James 3:13.]
13Yahweh himself supplies the answer: “Because they have rejected my laws, which I gave them, they refused to live as I told them, and they have not listened to my voice.[#9:13 Or “my law I put before their faces.”]
14Instead, they stubbornly followed their hearts’ desires and chased after the Baals, just like their ancestors taught them.[#9:14 See Ex. 20:5.]
15Therefore I, Yahweh , the God of Israel and Commander of Angel Armies, say to you:
“Look! I will feed them bitter wormwood,
and give them poisonous water to drink.
16I will also scatter them among the nations.
They will live as exiles among people they and their fathers have never known.
I will send the sword after them
until I have made an end of them.”
17Yahweh , Commander of Angel Armies, says:[#9:17 A few translations have not included this line, with some commentators in agreement, because they view Jeremiah as the speaker in vv. 16–18 instead of . Others see three speakers in this passage: in v. 16, Jeremiah in v. 17, and the people of Jerusalem in v. 18.]
“Look around you and discern. Summon the wailing women.
Call for those most skilled at mourning .
18Let them hurry and wail over us
that our eyes may overflow with tears
and our eyelids gush with water.
19For the voice of wailing is heard from Zion:
‘We are so ruined and shamed!
We have had to leave our land
because enemies have demolished our homes.’ ”
20Women, listen to the word of Yahweh
and take to heart the word he speaks.
Teach your daughters to mourn;
teach your neighbor a funeral song.
21For Death has crept in through our windows,[#9:21 Death is personified in this verse. See Job 18:13; 28:22; Ps. 49:14; Hos. 13:14; Hab. 2:5; Rev. 6:8; 20:13–14.; #9:21 Or “come up.” Usually, death is seen as taking one down to the underworld; here it is coming up.]
forcing its way past our fortified defenses,
cutting down the child playing outside
and the young men in the streets.
22Tell everyone: “This is the prophecy of Yahweh :
‘Corpses will lie unburied like dung on the open field,
like stalks of grain after the reaper,
with no one to gather them up.’ ”
23Yahweh says:
“The wise must not boast in their wisdom,
the mighty must not boast in their power,
and the wealthy must not boast in their riches.
24If you’re going to boast, then boast about this:
that you understand my ways and know my heart,
and you know that I am Yahweh .
Let the wise boast in knowing how I demonstrate
infinite love, true justice, and righteousness,
for these are the things that delight my heart,”
declares Yahweh .
25“Look,” Yahweh says, “the day is coming when I will punish all who are circumcised in the flesh only:
26the Egyptians, the people of Judah, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the tribes in the desert who shave their heads bald. The men in all those lands are uncircumcised. And the Israelites are just like them because their hearts are uncircumcised.”[#9:26 That is, they were disobedient to God and had broken the covenant that circumcision symbolized. See Rom. 2:25–29; 1 Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:6; Phil. 3:2–3; Col. 2:11–12; 3:11.]