Jeremiah 9-10

Jeremiah 9

¹Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

²Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

³“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says the LORD.

⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer.

⁵Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity.

⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

⁷Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?

¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

¹¹“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

¹²Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

¹³The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”

¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

¹⁷The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.

¹⁸Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

²⁰Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.

²¹For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

²²Speak, “The LORD says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

²³The LORD says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

²⁴But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things,” says the LORD.

²⁵“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:

²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

Jeremiah 10

¹Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, house of Israel!

²The LORD says, “Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them.

³For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

⁴They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

⁵They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

⁶There is no one like you, LORD. You are great, and your name is great in might.

⁷Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.

⁸But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

⁹There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men.

¹⁰But the LORD is the true God. He is the living God, and an everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth trembles. The nations aren’t able to withstand his indignation.

¹¹“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’”

¹²God has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens.

¹³When he utters his voice, the waters in the heavens roar, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁴Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation 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 Armies is his name.

¹⁷Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege.

¹⁸For the LORD says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.”

¹⁹Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

²⁰My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

²¹For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

²²The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

²³LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

²⁴LORD, correct me, but gently; not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.

²⁵Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.