1. Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people.
2. Oh that I had in the desert a place of overnight lodging for travelers, that I may leave my people and go from them, for all of them are adulterers, a band of traitors.
3. And they bend their tongue like their bow, for falsehood and not truth is superior in the land, for they go forth from evil to evil, and they do not know me,” declares Yahweh.
4. “Let everyone be on your guard against his neighbor, and you must not trust in any brother, for everyone surely betrays, and every neighbor goes about with slander.
5. And everyone deceives his neighbor, and they do not speak the truth, they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are tired from going astray.
6. Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit, upon deceit they refuse to know me,” declares Yahweh.
7. Therefore, thus says Yahweh of hosts: “Look, I am about to refine them, and I will test them, for what else can I do, because of the presence of the daughter of my people?
8. Their tongue is a murderous arrow, it speaks deceit. With his mouth he speaks peace with his neighbor, but in his inner parts he sets up his ambush.
9. Because of these things shall I not punish them?” declares Yahweh, “On a nation that is like this shall I not take revenge?
10. For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the desert a lament, because they are laid waste so that no man passes through. And the sounds of cattle are not heard, from the birds of heaven to the animals they have fled, they are gone.
11. And I will make Jerusalem as heaps of ruins, a lair of jackals, and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation, without inhabitants.
12. Who is the wise man that can understand this? And to whom has the mouth of Yahweh spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed? It is laid waste like the desert so that no one passes through.”