Jeremiah 9:1-11

Grief over Zion

1Oh, that my head were waters

And my eyes a fountain of tears,

That I might weep day and night

For those slain of the daughter of my people!

2Oh that I had in the desert

A travelers’ lodging place;

So that I might leave my people

And go away from them!

For all of them are adulterers,

An assembly of treacherous people.

3“They bend their tongues like their bows;

Lies and not truth prevail in the land;

For they proceed from evil to evil,

And they do not know Me,” declares the Lord.

4“Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor,

And do not trust any brother;

Because every brother utterly betrays,

And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

5“Everyone deceives his neighbor

And does not speak the truth.

They have taught their tongue to speak lies;

They weary themselves committing wrongdoing.

6“Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit;

Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the Lord.

⁷Therefore this is what the Lord of armies says:

“Behold, I will refine them and put them to the test;

For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?

8“Their tongue is a deadly arrow;

It speaks deceit;

With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor,

But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.

9“Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the Lord.

“Shall I not avenge Myself

On a nation such as this?

10“I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains,

And for the pastures of the wilderness a song of mourning,

Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,

And the sound of the livestock is not heard;

Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled; they are gone.

11“I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,

A haunt of jackals;

And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.”