Jeremiah 9-10

Common English Bible

9 ^[a] If only my head were a spring of water,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
    for the wounds of my people.
²^[b] If only I could flee for shelter in the desert,
    to leave my people
        and forget them—
    for they are all adulterers,
        a bunch of crooks.
³They bend their tongues like bows
        to spew out lies;
    they are renowned in the land,
        but not for truth.
They go from bad to worse.
    They don’t know me!
        declares the Lord.
⁴Be wary of your friends!
    Don’t trust your sibling!^[c]
    Every sibling is a cheater,
        and every friend traffics in slander.
⁵One cheats the other;
    no one tells the truth;
        they train themselves to lie;
        they wear themselves out by doing wrong.
⁶You live in a world of deceit,
    and in their deceit
    they refuse to know me,^[d]
        declares the Lord.
⁷Therefore, the Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:
I’m going to refine and test them,
    for what else can I do with my people?
⁸Their tongue is a lethal arrow;
    their words are deceitful.
They wish their neighbors well,
    but in their hearts plot their ruin.
⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for this?
        declares the Lord;
    shouldn’t I avenge such a nation?
¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains,
    and lament for the grazing lands in the wilderness.
They are dried up and deserted;
    no sound of the flocks is heard;
    no sign of birds or animals is seen;
        all have vanished.
¹¹I will reduce Jerusalem to ruins,
    a den for wild dogs.
I will make the towns of Judah a wasteland, without inhabitant.
¹²Who is wise enough to understand this?
    Who has been taught by the Lord
    and can therefore explain it?
Why has the land been reduced to rubble
    and laid waste like a desert,
        with no one passing through?

¹³The Lord says: It is because they have abandoned my Instruction that I gave them, and haven’t obeyed or followed it. ¹⁴Instead, they have followed their own willful hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them. ¹⁵Therefore, this is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: I’m going to feed this people bitter food and give them poison to drink. ¹⁶I will scatter them among nations about whom neither they nor their ancestors have ever heard. I will pursue them with the sword until all are gone.

¹⁷The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:
Pay attention!
Summon the women who mourn,
        let them come;
    send for those best trained,
        let them come.
¹⁸Hurry!
Let them weep for us
    so that our eyes fill up with tears
        and water streams down.
¹⁹The sound of sobbing
    is heard from Zion:
    “We’re devastated!
    We’re so ashamed!
    We have to leave the land
        and abandon our homes!”
²⁰Women, hear the Lord’s word.
    Listen closely to the word
    from his mouth:
        teach your daughters to mourn;
        teach each other to grieve.
²¹Death has climbed through our windows;
    it has entered our fortresses
        to eliminate children from the streets,
        the youth from the squares.
²²Declare what the Lord says:
Dead bodies will lie
    like dung on the fields,
    like bundles of grain after the harvest,
        with no one to pick them up.
²³The Lord proclaims:
    the learned should not boast of their knowledge,
        nor warriors boast of their might,
        nor the rich boast of their wealth.
²⁴No, those who boast should boast in this:
    that they understand and know me.
I am the Lord who acts with kindness,
    justice, and righteousness in the world,
        and I delight in these things,
            declares the Lord.

²⁵The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will deal with everyone who is physically circumcised: ²⁶whether they are Egyptians or Judeans, Edomites or Ammonites, Moabites or the desert dwellers who cut the hair on their foreheads. All these nations are really uncircumcised; even the people of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

Living God or human handiwork

10 Listen to the word that the Lord has spoken to you, people of Israel!
²The Lord proclaims:
Don’t follow the ways of the nations
    or be troubled by signs in the sky,
        even though the nations are troubled by them.
³The rituals of the nations are hollow:
    a tree from the forest is chopped down
        and shaped by the craftsman’s tools.
⁴It’s overlaid with silver and gold,
    and fastened securely with hammer and nails
        so it won’t fall over.
⁵They are no different than a scarecrow
    in a cucumber patch:
    they can’t speak;
    they must be carried
        because they can’t walk.
Don’t be afraid of them,
    because they can’t do harm or good.
⁶Lord, no one is like you!
    You are great,
    and great is your mighty name.
⁷Who wouldn’t fear you,
    king of the nations?
That is your due;
    among all the wise of the nations
    and in all their countries,
        there is no one like you!
⁸But they are both foolish and silly;
    they offer nothing
        because they are mere wood.
⁹Covered with silver from Tarshish
    and gold from Uphaz,
        they are the work of a craftsman
        and the hands of a goldsmith.
Clothed in blue and purple,
    all of them nothing more than the work of artisans.
¹⁰But the Lord is the true God!
    He’s the living God and the everlasting king!
When he’s angry, the earth quakes;
    the nations can’t endure his rage.

¹¹Tell them this: The gods who didn’t make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.^[e]

¹²But God made the earth by his might;
    he shaped the world by his wisdom,
    crafted the skies by his knowledge.
¹³At the sound of his voice,
    the heavenly waters roar.
    He raises the clouds from the ends of the earth.
He sends the lightning with the rain,
    the wind from his treasuries.
¹⁴Everyone is too foolish to understand;
    every goldsmith is dishonored by his idols,
        for their images are shams;
        they aren’t alive.
¹⁵They are a delusion, a charade;
        at the appointed time they will vanish!
¹⁶Jacob’s portion is utterly different
    because God has formed all things,
        including Israel, his very own people—
        the Lord of heavenly forces is his name!

Get ready for exile!

¹⁷Pack your bags and get ready to leave,
you who live under siege.^[f]
¹⁸The Lord proclaims:
I’m going to eject those who live in the land at this time;
I will badger them until they leave.^[g]

¹⁹How terrible for me, due to my injury;
    my wound is terrible.
Yet I said to myself:
    This is my sickness,
        and I must bear it.
²⁰But now my tent is destroyed;
    all its ropes are cut,
        and my children are gone for good.
    There’s no one left to set up my tent frame
        and to attach the fabric.
²¹The shepherd kings have lost their senses
    and don’t seek answers from the Lord.
That is why they have failed
    and their flock is scattered.
²²Listen! The sound is getting louder,
    a mighty uproar from the land of the north;
    it will reduce the towns of Judah to ruins,
        a den for wild dogs.
²³I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own,
    that we’re not able to direct our paths.
²⁴So correct me, Lord, but with justice,
    not in your anger,
        or else you will reduce me to nothing.
²⁵Pour out your wrath on the nations
        that ignore you
    and on the people
        who don’t call on you,
        since they have devoured Jacob;
        they have devoured him completely
            and ruined his country.