1 ARST “I wish that my head could produce as many tears as water from a spring, and that my eyes were like a fountain of tears, since I cry night and day for all of my people who have been killed by their enemies. BSB BSB: Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
2 ARST I wish that I could leave my people and forget them, and go and live in a shack in the desert, because they have not remained faithful to Yahweh; they are a mob of people who deceive others. BSB BSB: If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
3 ARST They use their tongues to tell lies just as people shoot arrows with bows. They are powerful, but not because they are faithful, but they go about doing wicked things.“They do not know me,” Yahweh says. BSB BSB: “They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.
4 ARST Do not trust your neighbors and even your brothers! They all are as deceitful as Jacob was. They slander each other and tell lies about each other. BSB BSB: “Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.
5 ARST They deceive their friends and never tell the truth. They lie continually and, because of that, they have become skilled liars; they do one oppressive deed after another until they grow tired from sinning so much. BSB BSB: Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.
6 ARST Jeremiah, everyone living around you is a deceiver. Not one of them will admit that I am God. BSB BSB: You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
7 ARST Therefore I, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, say this: Listen carefully to what I say: I will test my people, like a metalworker puts metal in a hot fire to completely burn out the impure bits. Because of all the evil things that my people have done, there is absolutely nothing else that I can do. BSB BSB: Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?
8 ARST What they say injures people like poisoned arrows do. They say to their neighbors,‘I hope things will go well for you,’ while they are planning to kill them. BSB BSB: Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
9 ARST Should I not punish them for doing that? Yes, I should certainly get revenge on the people of a nation that does things like that!” BSB BSB: Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”
10 ARST So, I will weep and wail for the people who live in the mountains and in the pastures, because those areas will be desolate, and no one will live there. There will be no cattle there to call to each other, and all the birds and wild animals will have fled to other places. BSB BSB: I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
11 ARST Yahweh also says,“I will cause Jerusalem to become a heap of ruins, and only jackals will live there. I will destroy the towns of Judah, with the result that they will be completely deserted; no people will live there.” BSB BSB: “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
12 ARST I said,“Only people who are very wise can understand these things. Only those who have been taught by Yahweh can explain these things to others. The wise people are the only ones who can explain why the land will be completely ruined with the result that everyone will be afraid to travel through it.” BSB BSB: Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?
13 ARST Yahweh replied,“These things will happen because my people have rejected my laws which I gave to them; they have not obeyed me or my instructions. BSB BSB: And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.
14 ARST Instead, they have stubbornly done the things that they wanted in their inner beings to do. They have worshiped the idols that represent the god Baal, which is what their ancestors did. BSB BSB: Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”
15 ARST So now listen to what I, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, the God of the Israelites, say: What I will do will be like giving these people bitter things to eat and poison to drink: BSB BSB: Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
16 ARST I will scatter them to many nations which neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about; I will enable their enemies to strike them with swords until I have destroyed them.” BSB BSB: I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
17 ARST This is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says:“Think about what is happening, then summon those women who mourn when someone has died. BSB BSB: This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
18 ARST Tell them to come quickly and start to wail, with the result that tears will stream down from your eyes. BSB BSB: Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.
19 ARST Listen to the people of Jerusalem calling out, saying,‘We have been ruined! We have experienced a terrible disaster! Now we are very ashamed, because our houses have been destroyed by our enemies, and we are being forced to leave our land.’ BSB BSB: For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”
20 ARST You women, listen to what Yahweh says. Pay attention to his words. Teach your daughters to wail. Teach each other how to sing funeral songs. BSB BSB: Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.
21 ARST You must learn to sing funeral songs because people will be dying in your houses and in palaces. There will be no more children playing in the streets, there will be no more young men gathering in the city squares. BSB BSB: For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
22 ARST There will be corpses scattered across the fields like dung; their dead bodies will lie there like grain that has been cut by reapers, and there will be no one still alive to bury them. BSB BSB: Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”
23 ARST Yahweh says this:“Wise men should not boast about their being wise, strong men should not boast about their being strong; and rich people should not boast about their being rich. BSB BSB: This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.
24 ARST Instead, those who want to boast should boast about their knowing me and about understanding that I am Yahweh, that I am kind and just and righteous, that I faithfully love people, and that I am delighted with people who act that way. BSB BSB: But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
26 ARST There will be a time when I will punish all those people who have changed their bodies by circumcising them but who have not changed their inner beings: The Egyptian, the Moab, of Edom, and of the Ammon people groups, all those who live close to desert areas far from Judah. I will even punish the people of Israel because they are only circumcised on the outside, and physically, and not on the inside, in their inner self.” BSB BSB: Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
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