Jeremiah - The Old Testament

¹ Who will find me a wayfarer's shelter in the desert, for me to quit my people, and leave them far behind? For all of them are adulterers, a conspiracy of traitors.

² They bend their tongues like a bow; not truth but falsehood holds sway in the land; yes, they go from crime to crime, but me they do not know, Yahweh declares.

³ Let each be on his guard against his friend; do not trust a brother, for every brother aims but to supplant, and every friend is a peddler of slander.

⁴ Each one cheats his friend, never telling the truth; they have trained their tongues to lie and devote all their energies to doing wrong.

⁵ You live in a world of bad faith! Out of bad faith, they refuse to know me, Yahweh declares.

⁶ And, so, Yahweh Sabaoth declares, now I shall purge them and test them, no other way to treat the daughter of my people!

⁷ Their tongue is a deadly arrow, their words are in bad faith; with his mouth each wishes his neighbour peace, while in his heart plotting a trap for him.

⁸ Shall I fail to punish them for this, Yahweh demands, or on such a nation fail to exact vengeance?

⁹ I raise the wail and lament for the mountains, the dirge for the desert pastures, for they have been burnt: no one passes there, the sound of flocks is heard no more. Birds of the sky and animals, all have fled, all are gone.

¹⁰ I shall make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair for jackals, and the towns of Judah an uninhabited wasteland.

¹¹ Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has Yahweh's mouth spoken to explain it? Why is the country annihilated, burnt like the desert where no one passes?

¹² Yahweh says, 'This is because they have forsaken my Law which I gave them and have not listened to my voice or followed it,

¹³ but have followed their own stubborn hearts, have followed the Baals as their ancestors taught them.'

¹⁴ So Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this, 'Now I shall give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.

¹⁵ I shall scatter them among nations unknown to their ancestors or to them; and I shall pursue them with the sword until I have annihilated them.'

¹⁶ Yahweh Sabaoth says this, 'Prepare to call for the mourning women! Send for those who are best at it!

¹⁷ Let them lose no time in raising the lament over us! Let our eyes rain tears, our eyelids run with weeping!

¹⁸ A lament makes itself heard in Zion, "What ruin is ours, what utter shame! For we must leave the country, our homes have been knocked down!" '

¹⁹ Now listen, you women, to Yahweh's word, let your ears take in the word his own mouth speaks. Teach your daughters how to wail and teach one another this dirge,

²⁰ 'Death has climbed in at our windows, and made its way into our palaces; it has cut down the children in the street, the young people in the squares-

²¹ Speak! Yahweh declares this -- human corpses are strewn like dung in the open field, like sheaves left by the reaper, with no one to gather them.'

²² Yahweh says this, 'Let the sage not boast of wisdom, nor the valiant of valour, nor the wealthy of riches!

²³ But let anyone who wants to boast, boast of this: of understanding and knowing me. For I am Yahweh, who acts with faithful love, justice, and uprightness on earth; yes, these are what please me,' Yahweh declares.

²⁴ 'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh:

²⁵ Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the men with shaven temples who live in the desert. For all those nations, and the whole House of Israel too, are uncircumcised at heart.'