Jeremiah 9-11

1Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

2If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

3“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.

4“Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.

5Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.

6You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

7Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?

8Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.

9Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”

10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.

11“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

12Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?

13And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.

14Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

15Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

16I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

17This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.

18Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

19For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

20Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.

21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

22Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”

23This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.

24But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth— for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

25“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—

26Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

1Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel.

2This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the heavens, though the nations themselves are terrified by them.

3For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.

4They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.

5Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, and neither can they do any good.”

6There is none like You, O LORD. You are great, and Your name is mighty in power.

7Who would not fear You, O King of nations? This is Your due. For among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.

8But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

9Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz— the work of a craftsman from the hands of a goldsmith. Their clothes are blue and purple, all fashioned by skilled workers.

10But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.

11Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.”

12The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

13When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

14Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

15They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

16The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance— the LORD of Hosts is His name.

17Gather up your belongings from this land, you who live under siege.

18For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, at this time I will sling out the inhabitants of the land and bring distress upon them so that they may be captured.”

19Woe to me because of my brokenness; my wound is grievous! But I said, “This is truly my sickness, and I must bear it.”

20My tent is destroyed, and all its ropes are snapped. My sons have departed from me and are no more. I have no one left to pitch my tent or set up my curtains.

21For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

22Listen! The sound of a report is coming— a great commotion from the land to the north. It will make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

23I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps.

24Correct me, O LORD, but only with justice— not in Your anger, or You will bring me to nothing.

25Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

1This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

2“Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

3You must tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,

4which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.’

5This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.” “Amen, LORD,” I answered.

6Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

7For from the time I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt until today, I strongly warned them again and again, saying, ‘Obey My voice.’

8Yet they would not obey or incline their ears, but each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant I had commanded them to follow but they did not keep.”

9And the LORD told me, “There is a conspiracy among the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

10They have returned to the sins of their forefathers who refused to obey My words. They have followed other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their fathers.

11Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to bring upon them a disaster that they cannot escape. They will cry out to Me, but I will not listen to them.

12Then the cities of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to which they have been burning incense, but these gods certainly will not save them in their time of disaster.

13Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

14As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me in their time of disaster.

15What right has My beloved in My house, having carried out so many evil schemes? Can consecrated meat avert your doom? When you are wicked, then you rejoice.

16The LORD once called you a flourishing olive tree, beautiful with well-formed fruit. But with a mighty roar He will set it on fire, and its branches will be consumed.

17The LORD of Hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you on account of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have brought upon themselves, provoking Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.”

18And the LORD informed me, so I knew. Then You showed me their deeds.

19For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”

20O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

21Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the people of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, “You must not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand.”

22So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.

23There will be no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”