Jeremiah

Depravity of Jerusalem

Who will give me shelter in the desert so I can leave my people and go far from them? For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors.

They bend their tongues like bows. Deceit, not truth, prevails in the land. They commit crime after crime and do not know me.

Each person is suspicious of his friend and no one trusts his brother, brother deceives brother, friend slanders friend.

They deceive each other; no one tells the truth. Their tongues are addicted to lying; they are stubborn and too hardened to repent.

They live amid deceitfulness, and deceitfulness keeps them from knowing me.

Therefore, says the Lord: I will now refine and test them, for what else can I do for my people?

Their tongues are like deadly arrows, uttering deceitful words. They speak of peace with their friend, but in their hearts, they set a trap for him.

Isn’t that enough reason for me to punish them? Shouldn’t I take revenge on such a nation?

Lamenting and crying will echo on the mountains, and a funeral song will be heard across the wilderness plains because they have been burned and abandoned, and the sound of the flock will no longer be heard. The birds of the sky and the animals have all fled and disappeared.

I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins, a den of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah into a wasteland with no inhabitants.

Not Wise, But Mourners

Who is wise enough to understand these events? And who has been chosen by the Lord to reveal them? Why has the land perished and become a desolate wasteland where no one passes?

The Lord replied: “It is because they have forsaken the law I gave them. They have not listened to me,

but in the stubbornness of their hearts, they have followed the Baals as they were instructed by their ancestors.”

That is why the Lord, the God of Hosts and the God of Israel, says: “I will make this people eat bitter food, and I will give them poisoned water.

I will scatter them among nations they and their ancestors did not know, and I will send the sword after them until I have finished dealing with them.”

Listen! Call the wailing women to come; send for the most skilled!

Let them hurry to sing a funeral song, and let us cry, our eyes streaming with tears.

The sound of wailing echoes through Zion. A terrible disaster has befallen us! How ashamed we are to leave the land, to see our homes torn apart!

You women, heed what the Lord says and listen to his words. Teach this lament to your daughters and each of them to their friends:

“Death has entered through our windows and invaded our palaces, cutting down children in the street and young men in the squares!

The corpses are scattered in the fields like manure; like sheaves cut by the reaper with no one to gather them!”

It is the Lord who speaks: “Let not the wise boast of his wisdom, nor the valiant of his valor, nor the wealthy of his wealth!

But if someone wants to boast, let him boast about this: understanding and knowing me. I am the Lord, the merciful one; I carry out justice and govern the world with righteousness. For I take delight in these things,” this is the Lord’s word.

“The time is coming,” the Lord says: “when I will ask for an account from both those who are circumcised and those who are not:

Egypt, Judah, the Ammonites, and the Moabites, along with all the Arabs of the desert, are not circumcised, and the people of Israel are not circumcised in their hearts.”