Jeremiah's Continual Tears

1Oh 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!

2Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

3And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth on the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, said the LORD.

4Take you heed every one of his neighbor, and trust you not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders.

5And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

6Your habitation is in the middle of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, said the LORD.

7Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

8Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he lays his wait.

9Shall I not visit them for these things? said the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

10For 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 beast are fled; they are gone.

11And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

12Who 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 what the land perishes and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through? 13And the LORD said, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; 14But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: 15Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

Weeping in Jerusalem

17Thus said the LORD of hosts, Consider you, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

18And 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.

19For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

20Yet 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 every one her neighbor lamentation.

21For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

22Speak, Thus said the LORD, Even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.

23Thus said the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, said the LORD.

25Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised; 26Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.