Jeremiah 9:12-22

Ruin and Exile Threatened

¹² Who 'is' the wise man? and he understandeth this, And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah spake? And he doth declare it, For what hath the land perished? It hath been burnt up as a wilderness, Without any passing through. ¹³ And Jehovah saith: Because of their forsaking My law that I set before them, And they have not hearkened to My voice nor walked in it, ¹⁴ And they walk after the stubbornness of their heart, And after the Baalim, that their fathers taught them, ¹⁵ Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: Lo, I am causing them—this people—to eat wormwood, And I have caused them to drink water of gall, ¹⁶ And I have scattered them among nations Which they knew not, they and their fathers, And have sent after them the sword, Till I have consumed them. ¹⁷ Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come, ¹⁸ And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow. ¹⁹ For—a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles. ²⁰ 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. ²¹ For death hath come up into our windows, It hath come into our palaces, To cut off the suckling from without, Young men from the broad places. ²² Speak thus—an affirmation of Jehovah, And fallen hath the carcase of man, As dung on the face of the field, And as a handful after the reaper, And there is none gathering.