Jeremiah Chapter 9 — The Prophet's Lament and Divine Judgment

¹Oh that my head were waters,

²Oh that I had in the wilderness

³“They bend their tongue,

⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbor,

⁵Friends deceive each other,

⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit.

⁷Therefore the LORD of Armies says,

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow.

⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD.

¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains,

¹¹“I will make Jerusalem heaps,

¹²Who 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 burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

¹³The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”

¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

¹⁷The LORD of Armies says,

¹⁸Let them make haste

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,

²⁰Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women.

²¹For death has come up into our windows.

²²Speak, “The LORD says,

²³The LORD says,

²⁴But let him who glories glory in this,

²⁵“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:

²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”