18
My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
19
Hark, the cry of my poor people
from far and wide in the land:
"Is the
Is her King not in her?"
("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their foreign idols?")
20
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved."
21
For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
22
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?
1
1 O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my poor people!
2
2 O that I had in the desert
a traveler's lodging place,
that I might leave my people
and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers,
a band of traitors.
3
They bend their tongues like bows;
they have grown strong in the land for falsehood, and not for truth;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
and they do not know me, says the
4
Beware of your neighbors,
and put no trust in any of your kin; 3
for all your kin 4 are supplanters,
and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer.
5
They all deceive their neighbors,
and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. 5
6
Oppression upon oppression, deceit 6 upon deceit!
They refuse to know me, says the
7
Therefore thus says the
I will now refine and test them,
for what else can I do with my sinful people? 7
8
Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
it speaks deceit through the mouth.
They all speak friendly words to their neighbors,
but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.
9
Shall I not punish them for these things? says the
and shall I not bring retribution
on a nation such as this?
10
Take up 8 weeping and wailing for the mountains,
and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness,
because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
both the birds of the air and the animals
have fled and are gone.
11
I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
a lair of jackals;
and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation,
without inhabitant.
12
Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the
17
Thus says the
Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skilled women to come;
18
let them quickly raise a dirge over us,
so that our eyes may run down with tears,
and our eyelids flow with water.
19
For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
"How we are ruined!
We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land,
because they have cast down our dwellings."
20
Hear, O women, the word of the
and let your ears receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a dirge,
and each to her neighbor a lament.
21
"Death has come up into our windows,
it has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets
and the young men from the squares."
22
Speak! Thus says the
"Human corpses shall fall
like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves behind the reaper,
and no one shall gather them."
23
Thus says the
25
The days are surely coming, says the