Jeremiah 9:12-22

Ruin and Exile Threatened

¹² Who is the wise man able to see this? who is he to whom the word of the Lord has come, so that he may make it clear? why is the land given to destruction and burned up like a waste place, so that no one goes through? ¹³ And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law which I put before them, giving no attention to my voice and not being guided by it; ¹⁴ But they have been walking in the pride of their hearts, going after the Baals, as their fathers gave them teaching. ¹⁵ So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, I will give them, even this people, bitter plants for food and bitter water for drink. ¹⁶ And I will send them wandering among the nations, among people strange to them and to their fathers: and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them. ¹⁷ This is what the Lord of armies has said: Take thought and send for the weeping women, so that they may come; and send for the wise women, so that they may come: ¹⁸ Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water. ¹⁹ For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How has destruction come on us? we are overcome with shame because we have gone away from our land; he has sent us out from our house. ²⁰ But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief. ²¹ For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way into our great houses; cutting off the children in the streets and the young men in the wide places. ²² The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.