Jeremiah's Tears Day and Night

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 for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are 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 upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, says the LORD.

4Take 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.

5And 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.

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

7Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will refine them, and test them; for how shall I deal with 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 his heart he lies in wait.

9Shall I not visit them for these things? says 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 beasts are fled; they are gone.

11And 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.

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 why is the land perished and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through?

13And the LORD says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked in it;

14But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:

15Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water poisonous to drink.

16I 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.

17Thus says the LORD of hosts, Consider you, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for skillful 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 water.

19For 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.

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 everyone her neighbor lamentation.

21For 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.

22Speak, Thus says the LORD, Even the dead bodies of men shall fall as refuse upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.

23Thus says 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 who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the LORD.

25Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will punish all them who are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

26Egypt, 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.