5. One cheats the other;no one tells the truth;they train themselves to lie;they wear themselves out by doing wrong.
6. You live in a world of deceit, and in their deceitthey refuse to know me,declares the Lord.
7. Therefore, the Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:I’m going to refine and test them,for what else can I do with my people?
8. Their tongue is a lethal arrow;their words are deceitful.They wish their neighbors well,but in their hearts plot their ruin.
9. Shouldn’t I punish them for this?declares the Lord;shouldn’t I avenge such a nation?
10. I will weep and wail for the mountains,and lament for the grazing lands in the wilderness.They are dried up and deserted;no sound of the flocks is heard;no sign of birds or animals is seen;all have vanished.
11. I will reduce Jerusalem to ruins,a den for wild dogs.I will make the towns of Judah a wasteland, without inhabitant.
12. Who is wise enough to understand this?Who has been taught by the Lordand can therefore explain it?Why has the land been reduced to rubbleand laid waste like a desert,with no one passing through?
13. The Lord says: It is because they have abandoned my Instruction that I gave them, and haven’t obeyed or followed it.
14. Instead, they have followed their own willful hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.
15. Therefore, this is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: I’m going to feed this people bitter food and give them poison to drink.
16. I will scatter them among nations about whom neither they nor their ancestors have ever heard. I will pursue them with the sword until all are gone.
17. The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:Pay attention!Summon the women who mourn,let them come;send for those best trained,let them come.
18. Hurry!Let them weep for usso that our eyes fill up with tearsand water streams down.
19. The sound of sobbingis heard from Zion:"We’re devastated!We’re so ashamed!We have to leave the landand abandon our homes!"
20. Women, hear the Lord’s word. Listen closely to the wordfrom his mouth:teach your daughters to mourn;teach each other to grieve.
21. Death has climbed through our windows;it has entered our fortressesto eliminate children from the streets,the youth from the squares.
22. Declare what the Lord says:Dead bodies will lielike dung on the fields,like bundles of grain after the harvest,with no one to pick them up.