| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Christian Standard Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1If my head were a flowing spring, my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night over the slain of my dear people. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2If only I had a traveler's lodging place in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a solemn assembly of treacherous people. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3They bent their tongues like their bows; lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land, for they proceed from one evil to another, and they do not take me into account. This is the LORD's declaration. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4Everyone has to be on guard against his friend. Don't trust any brother, for every brother will certainly deceive, and every friend spread slander. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they wear themselves out doing wrong. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6You live in a world of deception. In their deception they refuse to know me. This is the LORD's declaration. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies says: I am about to refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of my dear people? |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Their tongues are deadly arrows--they speak deception. With his mouth one speaks peaceably with his friend, but inwardly he sets up an ambush. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9Should I not punish them for these things? This is the LORD's declaration. Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10I will raise weeping and a lament over the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness grazing land, for they have been so scorched that no one passes through. The sound of cattle is no longer heard. From the birds of the sky to the animals, everything has fled--they have gone away. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a jackals' den. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, an uninhabited place. |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12Who is the person wise enough to understand this? Who has the LORD spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through? |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13The LORD said, "It is because they abandoned my instruction, which I set before them, and did not obey my voice or walk according to it. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts and followed the Baals as their fathers taught them." |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: "I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16I will scatter them among the nations that they and their fathers have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off." |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17This is what the LORD of Armies says: Consider, and summon the women who mourn; send for the skillful women. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us so that our eyes may overflow with tears, our eyelids be soaked with weeping. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion: How devastated we are. We are greatly ashamed, for we have abandoned the land; our dwellings have been torn down. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20Now hear the word of the LORD, you women. Pay attention to the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters a lament and one another a dirge, |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21for Death has climbed through our windows; it has entered our fortresses, cutting off children from the streets, young men from the squares. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22"Speak as follows: 'This is what the LORD declares: Human corpses will fall like manure on the surface of the field, like newly cut grain after the reaper with no one to gather it. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23"'This is what the LORD says: The wise person should not boast in his wisdom; the strong should not boast in his strength; the wealthy should not boast in his wealth. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24But the one who boasts should boast in this: that he understands and knows me--that I am the LORD, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the LORD's declaration. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25"'Look, the days are coming--this is the LORD's declaration--when I will punish all the circumcised yet uncircumcised: |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair on their temples. All these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.'" |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. |
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