1. Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2. Oh, that I had a lodging place for travelers in the wilderness, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous ones.
3. And they bend their tongues, their bow is a lie. And they are not mighty for the truth on the earth, for they go from evil to evil. They also do not know Me, says Jehovah.
4. Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, and do not trust any brother. For every brother will supplant, and every neighbor will walk as a slanderer.
5. And everyone will deceive his neighbor, and they will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6. Your home is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me, says Jehovah.
7. For this reason, so says Jehovah of Hosts, Behold, I will refine them and test them. For what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?
8. Their tongue is a murdering arrow; it speaks deceit. One speaks peace with his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he sets his ambush.
9. Shall I not visit them for these things? says Jehovah. Or shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10. I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness. For they are burned up, without a man passing through. Yea, they do not hear the voice of cattle. From the fowl of the heavens and to the beast, they have fled; they are gone.
11. And I will make Jerusalem ruins, a den of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.
12. Who is the wise man that can understand this? And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah has spoken, that he may declare it? Why does the land perish? It is burned up like the wilderness, so that no one passes through.
13. And Jehovah says, Because they have forsaken My Law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it;
14. but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them;
15. so Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, says this: Behold, I will feed them, this people with wormwood, and make them drink poison waters.
16. I will also scatter them among the nations which they have not known, nor their fathers. And I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.
17. So says Jehovah of Hosts, Consider and call for the wailers, that they may come. And send for the wise women, that they may come.
18. And let them make haste and take up a lament over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.
19. For the voice of lament is heard from Zion. How we are ravaged! We are greatly ashamed because we have forsaken the land; because they have thrown down our dwellings.
20. Yet hear the Word of Jehovah, women. And let your ear receive the Word of His mouth, and teach your daughters a lament, and each one her neighbor a dirge.
21. For death has come into our windows, entering into our fortresses, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the plazas.
22. Speak, So says Jehovah, Even the bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the swath after the reaper, and no one shall gather them.
23. So says Jehovah, Do not let the wise glory in his wisdom, and do not let the mighty glory in his might. Do not let the rich glory in his riches.
24. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am Jehovah, doing kindness, justice and righteousness in the earth; for I delight in these, says Jehovah.
25. Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will punish all the circumcised with foreskin:
26. Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and all those trimmed on the edges of their beards, who dwell in the wilderness. For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel, those uncircumcised of heart.