1. Oh that my head were waters,and my eyes a spring of tears,that I might weep day and nightfor the slain of the daughter of my people!
2. Oh that I had in the wildernessa lodging place of wayfaring men;that I might leave my people,and go from them!For they are all adulterers,an assembly of treacherous men.
3. “They bend their tongue,as their bow, for falsehood.They have grown strong in the land,but not for truth;for they proceed from evil to evil,and they don’t know me,” says the Lord.
4. “Everyone beware of his neighbour,and don’t trust in any brother;for every brother will utterly supplant,and every neighbour will go around with slanders.
5. Everyone will deceive their neighbours,and will not speak the truth.They have taught their tongue to speak lies.They weary themselves commiting iniquity.
6. Your habitation is in the middle of deceit.Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the Lord.
7. Therefore the Lord of Hosts says,“Behold, I will melt them and test them;for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?
8. Their tongue is a deadly arrow.It speaks deceit.One speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth,but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.
9. Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the Lord.“Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this?
10. I will weep and wail for the mountains,and lament for the pastures of the wilderness,because they are burnt up, so that no one passes through;Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock.Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled.They are gone.
11. “I will make Jerusalem heaps,a dwelling place of jackals.I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,without inhabitant.”
12. Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
13. The Lord says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein,
14. but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”
15. Therefore the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
16. I will scatter them also amongst the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”
17. the Lord of Hosts says,“Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come;and send for the skilful women, that they may come.
18. 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 waters.
19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,‘How we are ruined!We are greatly confounded,because we have forsaken the land,because they have cast down our dwellings.’”