Jeremiah 9

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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¹If only I had a travelers’ shelter in the wilderness, \q so that I could leave my people and go far away from them! \q For they are all adulterers, \q a crowd of traitors. ²They bend their tongues like bows to shoot lies; \q they have grown strong in the land, but not by truth. \q For they go on from one evil to the next, and they do not know me, declares the LORD.

Do not trust any neighbor

³Be on guard, every one of you, against your neighbor, \q and put no trust in any brother. \q For every brother is a cheat like Jacob, \q and every neighbor goes around spreading slander. ⁴Everyone cheats their neighbor, \q and no one speaks the truth. \q They have trained their tongues to tell lies; they wear themselves out doing wrong. ⁵You live surrounded by deceit; \q in their deceit they refuse to know me, declares the LORD.

⁶Therefore the LORD of Armies says this: \q I am going to refine them and put them to the test, \q for how else can I deal with my dear people? ⁷Their tongue is a sharpened arrow; it speaks deceit. \q With their mouths they speak peace to their neighbors, \q but in their hearts they set an ambush for them. ⁸Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. \q On a nation such as this \q should I not take vengeance?

⁹I will weep and wail for the mountains, and raise a lament for the pastures in the wilderness, \q because they are scorched and no one travels through them, \q and no one hears the lowing of cattle. \q The birds of the sky and the animals \q have all fled and are gone. ¹⁰I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins, a den for jackals, \q and I will make the towns of Judah a wasteland where no one lives.

¹¹Who is wise enough to understand this? \q To whom has the LORD spoken, so that they can explain it? \q Why has the land been ruined \q and laid waste like a wilderness that no one crosses?

¹²And the LORD answered: \q It is because they have abandoned my instruction, which I set before them; \q they have not obeyed my voice or followed it, ¹³but have followed the stubbornness of their own hearts \q and gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.

¹⁴Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: \q I am going to feed this people bitter wormwood \q and give them poisoned water to drink. ¹⁵I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, \q and I will send the sword to pursue them until I have finished them off.

Call for the mourning women

¹⁶The LORD of Armies says this: \q Think about what is happening, and call for the mourning women; let them come. \q Send for the women who are skilled in lament; let them come, ¹⁷and let them hurry and raise a wailing over us, \q so that our eyes overflow with tears \q and water streams from our eyelids. ¹⁸For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: “How we are ruined! \q How deep is our shame! We have had to leave the land, \q because our homes have been torn down.”

¹⁹Now, you women, listen to the word of the LORD; \q let your ears take in the word from his mouth. \q Teach your daughters a song of mourning, \q and teach one another a lament. ²⁰For death has climbed in through our windows \q and entered our strongholds, \q to cut off the children from the streets \q and the young men from the public squares. ²¹Say this, declares the LORD: \q Human corpses will fall like dung on the open field, \q like cut grain left behind the reaper, with no one to gather them.

Let the one who boasts boast in this

²²The LORD says this: The wise must not boast about their wisdom, the strong must not boast about their strength, and the rich must not boast about their wealth. ²³Instead, whoever boasts should boast of this: that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD, who acts with loyal love, justice and righteousness on the earth. For these are what I delight in, declares the LORD.

²⁴The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will bring punishment on all who are circumcised yet uncircumcised, ²⁵Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all who clip the hair at their temples and live in the desert. For every one of these nations is uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.