CHAPTER 9
1Would that I were in the wilderness, at a wayfarers’ camp.
I would forsake my people and go off from them.
an assembly of traitors.
2They have drawn their tongue back
on their bow of lies and not of truth.
They have prevailed in the land,
for they have gone on from evil to evil,
and Me they have not known, said the LORD.
3Each man, beware of his fellow,
and trust not in any brother,
for every brother deals crookedly,
and every fellow man spreads slander.
4And each man tricks his fellow,
and truth they do not speak.
They have taught their tongue to speak lies,
they are worn out from wrongdoing.
5Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit.
In deceit they refused to know Me, said the LORD.
6Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies:
I am about to smelt them and assay them,
for what else would I do because of my People’s Daughter?
7Their tongue is a well-honed arrow,
deceit they speak with their mouths.
Peace a man speaks to his fellow,
and inwardly lays an ambush.
8For these shall I not reckon with them, said the LORD,
from a nation like this shall I not be avenged?
9Over the mountains I raise weeping and wailing,
and over the wilderness pastures, lament,
for they are laid waste, with no man passing through,
and they do not hear the sound of cattle.
From the fowl of the heavens to the beasts,
all have wandered off, gone away.
10And I will make Jerusalem heaps of stones,
a den of jackals,
and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation
with no dweller there.
11Who is the wise man who would understand this, what the mouth of the LORD spoke to him, that he might tell it?
laid waste like the wilderness with none passing through?
12And the LORD said, “Because they forsook My teaching that I set before them and did not heed My voice and did not go according to it. 13And they went after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baalim that their fathers had taught them. 14Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to feed this people wormwood and make them drink venom-water. 15And I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have made an end of them.”
16Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Look to it and call to the keening women that they come
and to the wise women send that they come.
17Let them hurry and raise wailing for us,
and let our eyes shed tears
and our eyelids flow with water.
18For the sound of wailing is heard in Zion:
“How we are ruined,
we are gravely shamed!
For we forsook the land,
they have flung us from our dwellings.”
19For hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
and let your ear catch the word of His mouth,
and teach your daughters wailing,
and each woman her friend teach lament.
20For death has come up through our windows,
has entered our citadels,
to cut off the babe from the street,
the young man from the squares.
21Speak thus, said the LORD:
And the human corpses shall fall
like manure on the face of the fields,
and like the sheaf behind the reaper
with none to gather it.
22Thus said the LORD,
Let the wise man not boast of his wisdom,
nor the warrior boast of his might.
Let the rich man not boast of his riches.
23But in this may he who boasts boast:
understanding and knowing Me,
for I am the LORD doing kindness,
justice and righteousness in the land,
for in these I delight, said the LORD.
24Look, a time is coming, said the LORD, when I will make a reckoning with all who have circumcised foreskins, 25with Egypt and with Judah and with Edom and with the Ammonites and with Moab and with all the desert dwellers who have trimmed beards. For all the nations are uncircumcised, but the house of Israel has an uncircumcised heart.