9:1 *Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. / *In Hebrew texts 9:1 is numbered 8:23, and 9:2-26 is numbered 9:1-25.
9:2 Oh, that I had in the desert a lodging place for travelers, so that I might leave my people and go away from them; for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people.
9:3 “They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies; it is not by truth that they triumph* in the land. They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me,” declares the Lord. / *Or lies; / they are not valiant for truth
9:4 “Beware of your friends; do not trust anyone in your clan. For every one of them is a deceiver,* and every friend a slanderer. / *Or a deceiving Jacob
9:5 Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning.
9:6 You* live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the Lord. / *That is, Jeremiah (the Hebrew is singular)
9:7 Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says: “See, I will refine and test them, for what else can I do because of the sin of my people?
9:8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully. With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbors, but in their hearts they set traps for them.
9:9 Should I not punish them for this?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?”
9:10 I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands. They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. The birds have all fled and the animals are gone.
9:11 “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”
9:12 Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the Lord and can explain it? Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross?
9:13 The Lord said, “It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law.
9:14 Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.”
9:15 Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water.
9:16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them.”
9:17 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them.
9:18 Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids.
9:19 The sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How ruined we are! How great is our shame! We must leave our land because our houses are in ruins.’”
9:20 Now, you women, hear the word of the Lord; open your ears to the words of his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament.
9:21 Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses; it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares.
9:22 Say, “This is what the Lord declares: “‘Dead bodies will lie like dung on the open field, like cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather them.’”
9:23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches,
9:24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
9:25 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh -
9:26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places.* For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” / *Or wilderness and who clip the hair by their foreheads