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Chapter Summary
No one speaks the truth. I will scatter these people, says the LORD. The sound of wailing is heard from Zion. I act with justice.
1“Who will provide water for my head, and a fount of tears for my eyes? And then I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. 2Who will provide me, in the wilderness, with a lodging place along the road? And then I will forsake my people, and withdraw from them. For they are all adulterers, a union of transgressors. 3And they have bent their tongue, like a bow, to send forth lies and not the truth. They have been strengthened upon the earth. And they have gone from one evil to another. But they have not known me, says the Lord. 4Let each one guard himself against his neighbor, and let him have no trust in any brother of his. For every brother will utterly overthrow, and every friend will advance deceitfully. 5And a man will deride his brother, and they will not speak the truth. For they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they have labored to commit iniquity. 6Your habitation is in the midst of deceit. In their deceitfulness, they have refused to know me, says the Lord.” 7Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them, and I will test them. For what else can I do before the face of the daughter of my people? 8Their tongue is a wounding arrow; it has spoken deceit. With his mouth, he speaks peace with his friend, and then he secretly lies in ambush for him. 9Shall I not visit upon them concerning these things, says the Lord? Or shall my soul not take vengeance on a nation of this kind? 10I will take up weeping and lamentation over the mountains, and mourning over the beautiful places in the desert. For they have been scorched because no man is passing through them. And they have not heard the voice of any occupant. From the birds of the air, even to the cattle, they have migrated and withdrawn. 11And I will make Jerusalem into piles of sand and into a lair for serpents. And I will make the cities of Judah desolate, so much so that there will be no inhabitant. 12Who is the wise man who understands this, and to whom a word from the mouth of the Lord may be given, so that he may announce this: why the land has perished, and has been scorched like a desert, so much so that no one passes through it?” 13And the Lord said: “It is because they have abandoned my law, which I gave to them, and they have not listened to my voice, and they have not walked by it. 14And they have gone after the depravity of their own heart, and after Baal, which they learned from their fathers.” 15For this reason, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will feed this people with absinthe, and I will give them the water of gall to drink. 16And I will disperse them among nations, which they and their fathers have not known. And I will send the sword after them, until they are consumed.” 17Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Consider and call upon the women mourners, and let them approach. And send to those women who are wise, and let them hurry. 18‘Let them hasten to take up a lamentation over us. Let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run with water.’ 19For a voice of lamentation has been heard from Zion: ‘How is it that we have been devastated and greatly confounded? Our tabernacles have been thrown down because we have forsaken the land.’” 20“Therefore, listen, O women, to the word of the Lord! And let your ears take up the word of his mouth. And teach your daughters to lament. And let each one teach her neighbor to mourn: 21‘For death has climbed through our windows. It has entered our houses to perish the little children from the outdoors, the youths from the streets.’” 22“Speak: Thus says the Lord: And the corpses of men will fall like manure over the face of the countryside, and like hay behind the back of the reaper, and there will be no one to gather it.” 23Thus says the Lord: “The wise man should not glory in his wisdom, and the strong man should not glory in his strength, and the rich man should not glory in his riches. 24But he who glories should glory in this: to know me and to know me well. For I am the Lord, who accomplishes mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth. For these things are pleasing to me, says the Lord. 25Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will visit upon all who are uncircumcised: 26upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the sons of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who have shaved off their hair, living in the desert. For all the nations are uncircumcised in body, but all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”