8:2. And they shall spread them abroad to the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom have walked, and whom they have sought, and adored: they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth.
8:3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all that shall remain of this wicked kindred in all places, which are left, to which I have cast them out, saith the Lord of hosts.
8:4. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Shall not he that falleth, rise again? and he that is turned away, shall he not turn again?
8:5. Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn revolting? they have laid hold on lying, and have refused to return.
8:6. I attended, and hearkened; no man speaketh what is good, there is none that doth penance for his sin, saying: What have I done? They are all turned to their own course, as a horse rushing to the battle.
8:7. The kite in the air hath known her time: the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord.
8:8. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?
Indeed the lying pens of the scribes hath wrought falsehood.
8:9. The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed, and taken: for they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.
8:10. Therefore will I give their women to strangers, their fields to others for an inheritance: because from the least even to the greatest all follow covetousness: from the prophet even to the priest all deal deceitfully.
8:11. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace.
8:12. They are confounded, because they have committed abomination: yea rather they are not confounded with confusion, and they have not known how to blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall fall, saith the Lord.
8:13. Gathering I will gather them together, saith the Lord, there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig tree, the leaf is fallen: and I have given them the things that are passed away.
8:14. Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord.
8:15. We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear.
8:16. The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan, all the land was moved at the sound of the neighing of his warriors: and they came and devoured the land, and all that was in it: the city and its inhabitants.
8:17. For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.
8:18. My sorrow is above sorrow, my heart mourneth within me.
8:19. Behold the voice of the daughter of my people from a far country: Is not the Lord in Sion, or is not her king in her? why then have they provoked me to wrath with their idols, and strange vanities?
8:20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
8:21. For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me.
8:22. Is there no balm in Galaad? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?
Jeremias Chapter 9
The prophet laments the miseries of his people: and their sins, which are the cause of them. He exhorts them to repentance.
9:1. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes?
and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
9:2. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors.
9:3. And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord.
9:4. Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully.
9:5. And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity.
9:6. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord.
9:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?
9:8. Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.
9:9. Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?
9:10. For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed.
9:11. And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.
9:12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?
9:13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.
9:14. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.
9:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
9:16. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them till they be consumed.
9:17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:
9:18. Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.
9:19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.
9:20. Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbour mourning.
9:21. For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.
9:22. Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.
9:23. Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches:
9:24. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.
9:25. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised.
9:26. Upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.