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 in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
3. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me,
4. Take you heed everyone of his neighbor, and trust you not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders.
5. And they will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6. Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me,
7. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts,
8. Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lies in wait.
9. Shall I not visit them for these things?
10. For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beasts are fled; they are gone.
11. And I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, and a den of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it, for why is the land perished and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through?
13. And the LORD says,
14. But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:
15. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel;
16. I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
17. Thus says the LORD of hosts,
18. And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with water.
19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we plundered! we are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.
20. Yet hear the word of the LORD, O you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.
21. For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the squares.
22. Speak, Thus says the LORD,
23. Thus says the LORD,
24. But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight,
25. Behold, the days come,
26. Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the farthest corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.