Jeremiah 9:20
◄  Jeremiah 9:20  ►
New International Version (©2011)
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.

New Living Translation (©2007)
Listen, you women, to the words of the LORD; open your ears to what he has to say. Teach your daughters to wail; teach one another how to lament.

English Standard Version (©2001)
Hear, O women, the word of the LORD, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a lament, and each to her neighbor a dirge.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Now hear the word of the LORD, O you women, And let your ear receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And everyone her neighbor a dirge.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
Now hear the word of the LORD, you women. Pay attention to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters a lament and one another a dirge,

International Standard Version (©2012)
"Now, you women, hear the message from the LORD; listen to what he has to say! Teach your daughters how to mourn, let every woman teach her friend how to lament.

NET Bible (©2006)
I said, "So now, you wailing women, hear what the LORD says. Open your ears to the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters this mournful song, and each of you teach your neighbor this lament.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Listen to the word of the LORD, you women, and open your ears to hear his words. Teach your daughters how to cry. Teach your neighbors funeral songs.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Yet 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.

American King James Version
Yet 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.

American Standard Version
Yet hear the word of Jehovah, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbor mourning.

Darby Bible Translation
Hear then the word of Jehovah, ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and each one her companion lamentation.

English Revised Version
Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

Webster's Bible Translation
Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation.

World English Bible
Yet hear the word of Yahweh, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.

Young's Literal Translation
But hear, ye women, a word of Jehovah, And your ear receiveth a word of His mouth, And teach ye your daughters wailing, and each her neighbour lamentation.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:12-22 In Zion the voice of joy and praise used to be heard, while the people kept close to God; but sin has altered the sound, it is now the voice of lamentation. Unhumbled hearts lament their calamity, but not their sin, which is the cause of it. Let the doors be shut ever so fast, death steals upon us. It enters the palaces of princes and great men, though stately, strongly built, and guarded. Nor are those more safe that are abroad; death cuts off even the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Hearken to the word of the Lord, and mourn with godly sorrow. This alone can bring true comfort; and it can turn the heaviest afflictions into precious mercies.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - Yet hear; rather, for hear.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women,.... Not the mourning women, but others who had lost their husbands and their children, and had just reason for real mourning; and therefore they are called upon to it, not only because they were more tenderhearted than men, as Kimchi observes; or because they were more attentive to the hearing of the word of God than men; but because of the paucity of men, such numbers being slain in the siege, and by the sword; and of the loss the women had sustained, see Jeremiah 9:22,

and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; by his prophets; so the Targum,

"let your ear hearken to the words of his prophets:''

and teach your daughters wailing. The Arabic version, "a mournful song"; but not the daughters of the mourning women are meant; but the real daughters of those who had lost their husbands or children; since it follows:

and everyone her neighbour lamentation; signifying that the mortality among them would be very universal, not a family escaping; which is described in the next verses. This wailing and lamentation was made by responses, according to the Jews; for they say (d),

"what is lamentation? when one speaks, and all the rest answer after her, as it is written in Jeremiah 9:20.''

(d) Misn. Moed Katon, c. 3. sect. 9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. Yet—rather, "Only" [Henderson]. This particle calls attention to what follows.

teach … daughters wailing—The deaths will be so many that there will be a lack of mourning women to bewail them. The mothers, therefore, must teach their daughters the science to supply the want.

Jeremiah 9:20 Parallel Commentaries

Jeremiah 9:20 NIV
Jeremiah 9:20 NLT
Jeremiah 9:20 ESV
Jeremiah 9:20 NASB
Jeremiah 9:20 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible


Weeping in Jerusalem
…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. …

Isaiah 32:9 You women who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me; you daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say!
Jeremiah 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?
Jeremiah 23:16 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.
Jeremiah 23:28 Let the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?" declares the LORD.