9 Who doth make my head waters, And mine eye a fountain of tears? And I weep by day and by night, For the wounded of the daughter of my people.

² Who doth give me in a wilderness A lodging-place of travellers? And I leave my people, and go from them, For all of them [are] adulterers, An assembly of treacherous ones.

³ And they bend their tongue, their bow [is] a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah!

⁴ Each of his friend -- beware ye, And on any brother, do not trust, For every brother doth utterly supplant, For every friend slanderously doth walk,

⁵ And each at his friend they mock, And truth they do not speak, They taught their tongue to speak falsehood, To commit iniquity they have laboured.

⁶ thy dwelling [is] in the midst of deceit, Through deceit they refused to know Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.

⁷ Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Lo, I am refining them, and have tried them, For how do I do because of the daughter of My people?

⁸ A slaughtering arrow [is] their tongue, Deceit it hath spoken in its mouth, Peace with its neighbour it speaketh, And in its heart it layeth its ambush,

⁹ For these things do not I see after them? An affirmation of Jehovah, Against a nation such as this doth not My soul avenge itself?

¹⁰ For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, And for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, For they have been burnt up without any passing over, Nor have they heard the voice of cattle, From the fowl of the heavens unto the beast they have fled, they have gone.

¹¹ And I make Jerusalem become heaps, A habitation of dragons, And the cities of Judah I make a desolation, Without inhabitant.

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.

²³ Thus said Jehovah: Let not the wise boast himself in his wisdom, Nor let the mighty boast himself in his might, Let not the rich boast himself in his riches,

²⁴ But -- in this let the boaster boast himself, In understanding and knowing Me, For I [am] Jehovah, doing kindness, Judgment, and righteousness, in the earth, For in these I have delighted, An affirmation of Jehovah.

²⁵ Lo, days are coming -- an affirmation of Jehovah, And I have laid a charge on all circumcised in the foreskin,

²⁶ On Egypt, and on Judah, and on Edom, And on the sons of Ammon, and on Moab, And on all cutting the corner [of the beard], Who are dwelling in the wilderness, For all the nations [are] uncircumcised, And all the house of Israel [are] uncircumcised in heart!

10 Hear ye the word, O house of Israel, That Jehovah hath spoken for you.

² Thus said Jehovah: Unto the way of the nations accustom not yourselves, And by the signs of the heavens be not affrighted, For the nations are affrighted by them.

³ For the statutes of the peoples are vanity, For a tree from a forest hath one cut, Work of the hands of an artificer, with an axe,

⁴ With silver and with gold they beautify it, With nails and with hammers they fix it, And it doth not stumble.

⁵ As a palm they [are] stiff, and they speak not, They are surely borne, for they step not, Be not afraid of them, for they do no evil, Yea, also to do good is not in them.

⁶ Because there is none like Thee, O Jehovah, Great [art] Thou, and great Thy name in might.

⁷ Who doth not fear Thee, king of the nations? For to Thee it is becoming, For among all the wise of the nations, And in all their kingdom there is none like Thee.

⁸ And in one they are brutish and foolish, An instruction of vanities [is] the tree itself.

⁹ Spread-out silver from Tarshish is brought, And gold from Uphaz, Work of an artizan, and of the hands of a refiner, Blue and purple [is] their clothing, Work of the skilful -- all of them.

¹⁰ And Jehovah [is] a God of truth, He [is] a living God, and a king age-during, From His wrath shake doth the earth, And nations endure not His indignation.

¹¹ Thus do ye say to them, The gods Who the heavens and earth have not made, They do perish from the earth, And from under these heavens.

¹² The maker of the earth by His power, The establisher of the world by His wisdom, Who, by His understanding, stretched forth the heavens,

¹³ At the voice He giveth forth, A multitude of waters [is] in the heavens, And He causeth vapours to come up from the end of the earth, Lightnings for rain He hath made, And bringeth out wind from His treasures.

¹⁴ Brutish is every man by knowledge, Put to shame is every refiner by a graven image, For false [is] his molten image. And there is no breath in them.

¹⁵ Vanity [are] they, work of erring ones, In the time of their inspection they perish.

¹⁶ Not like these [is] the Portion of Jacob, For framer of all things [is] He, And Israel [is] the rod of His inheritance, Jehovah of Hosts [is] His name.

¹⁷ Gather from the land thy merchandise, O dweller in the bulwark,

¹⁸ For thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time, And have been an adversary to them, So that they are found out.

¹⁹ Wo to me for my breaking, Grievious hath been my smiting, And I said, Only, this [is] my sickness, and I bear it.

²⁰ My tent hath been spoiled, And all my cords have been broken, My sons have gone out from me, and they are not, There is none stretching out any more my tent, And raising up my curtains.

²¹ For the shepherds have become brutish, And Jehovah they have not sought, Therefore they have not acted wisely, And all their flock is scattered.

²² A voice of a report, lo, it hath come, Even a great shaking from the north country, To make the cities of Judah a desolation, A habitation of dragons.

²³ I have known, O Jehovah, that not of man [is] his way, Not of man the going and establishing of his step.

²⁴ Chastise me, O Jehovah, only in judgment, Not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me small.

²⁵ Pour out Thy fury on the nations that have not known Thee, And on the families that have not called in Thy name, For they have eaten up Jacob, Yea, they have eaten him up, yea, they consume him, And his habitation they have made desolate!