Jeremiah 8–9

Chapter 8

¹At that time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring forth the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; ²and they shall spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to all the host of the heavens, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the ground. ³And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, in all the places whither I have driven those that remain, saith Jehovah of hosts.

⁴And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah: Do men fall, and not rise up? Doth one turn away, and not return? ⁵Why hath this people of Jerusalem slidden back with a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. ⁶I hearkened and heard: they speak not what is right; there is no man who repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turneth to his course, like a horse rushing into the battle. ⁷Even a stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle-dove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of Jehovah. ⁸How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of Jehovah is with us? Behold, certainly the lying pen of the scribes hath made it falsehood. ⁹The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected Jehovah’s word; and what wisdom is in them? ¹⁰Therefore will I give their wives unto others, their fields to those that shall possess them; for every one, from the least even unto the greatest, is given to covetousness; from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely. ¹¹And they have healed the breach of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace. ¹²Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, and they know not how to blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall stumble, saith Jehovah.

¹³I will utterly take them away, saith Jehovah: there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree; and the leaf is faded: and I will give them up to those that shall pass over them. ¹⁴Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced cities, and let us be silent there: for Jehovah our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Jehovah. ¹⁵Peace is looked for, and there is no good; a time of healing, and behold, terror. ¹⁶The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: the whole land trembleth at the sound of the neighing of his steeds, and they come, and devour the land, and all it contains, the city and those that dwell therein. ¹⁷For behold, I send among you serpents, vipers against which there is no charm, and they shall bite you, saith Jehovah. ¹⁸My comfort in my sadness! my heart is faint in me! ¹⁹Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, from a very far country: Is not Jehovah in Zion? Is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, with foreign vanities? ²⁰The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. ²¹—For the breach of the daughter of my people am I crushed; I go mourning; astonishment hath taken hold of me. ²²Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why then is there no dressing applied for the healing of the daughter of my people?

Chapter 9

¹Oh that my head were waters, and mine eye a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! ²Oh that I had in the wilderness a traveller’s lodging-place, that I might leave my people, and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. ³And they bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood, and not for fidelity are they valiant in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah. ⁴Take ye heed every one of his friend, and confide not in any brother; for every brother only supplanteth, and every friend goeth about with slander. ⁵And they act deceitfully every one with his neighbour, and speak not the truth: they teach their tongue to speak falsehood, they weary themselves with perverse dealing. ⁶Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith Jehovah. ⁷Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else could I do for the daughter of my people? ⁸Their tongue is a murderous arrow; it speaketh deceit. A man speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth his ambush. ⁹Shall I not visit them for these things? saith Jehovah; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? ¹⁰For the mountains will I take up weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness, a lamentation; for they are burnt up, so that none passeth through them; and the voice of the cattle is not heard. Both the fowl of the heavens and the beasts are fled; they are gone. ¹¹And I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling-place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

¹²Who is a wise man, that he may understand this? and he to whom the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land perished, burnt up like a wilderness, so that none passeth through? ¹³And Jehovah saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not hearkened unto my voice, nor walked in it, ¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them; ¹⁵therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink, ¹⁶and will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them. ¹⁷Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come, and send for the skilful women, that they may come; ¹⁸and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids pour forth waters. ¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled, sorely put to shame! For we have forsaken the land, for they have cast down our dwellings. ²⁰Hear then the word of Jehovah, ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and each one her companion lamentation. ²¹For death is come up through our windows, is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the broadways. ²²Speak, Thus saith Jehovah: Yea, the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the reaper, and there shall be none to gather.

²³Thus saith Jehovah: Let not the wise glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty glory in his might; let not the rich glory in his riches: ²⁴but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah, who exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith Jehovah. ²⁵Behold, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when I will visit all them that are circumcised with the uncircumcised; ²⁶Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their beard cut off, that dwell in the wilderness: for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.