2Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of travelers; that I might leave my people, and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a mob of treacherous liars. 3They bend their tongues like a bow to shoot lies; but do not take a stand for truth in the land; they just go from evil to evil, nor do they acknowledge Me, says the LORD. 4Beware of your neighbor, do not trust any of them; for everyone is a deceiver who will betray and slander. 5They will deceive each other, and not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to lie, and wear themselves out with their evil acts. 6You live in the midst of deceit; they delude themselves so that they refuse to acknowledge Me, says the LORD. 7Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, “Watch, I will refine and test them; for what else shall I do for My people? 8Their tongue is like a poisoned arrow; it speaks deceit. One speaks cordially to his neighbor, but in his heart he schemes against him. 9Shall I not punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Should I not punish them for this? 10I will weep and wail for the mountains and lament for the wilderness pastures, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; nor can you hear the lowing of the cattle; both the birds of the sky and the wild animals have fled. 11And I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, and a den for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without any inhabitant.

12Who is wise enough to understand this? And who has been taught by the LORD, that he can explain it? Why is the land ruined and become a wasteland, that none dares pass through? 13And the LORD says, “Because they have disobeyed My voice, and forsaken and disregarded My law which I set before them, 14Instead, they have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, as their fathers taught them.” 15Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood (bitter food), with water of gall to drink. 16I will also scatter them among nations that neither they, nor their fathers, have known; and I will cause the sword to pursue them, till I have made an end of them.”

17Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider now, and summon skillful mourning women; 18And let them come quickly, and wail for us, till our eyes overflow with tears, and our eyelids gush with water. 19For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded, because we must abandon the land, because our dwellings are destroyed.’ 20Yet hear the word of the LORD, O mourning women, and let His word sink in, and teach your daughters wailing, and your neighbors, lamentation. 21For death has climbed up and into our windows, and entered our palaces, to remove the children from outside, and the young men from the streets. 22Thus says the LORD, “Even the carcasses of men shall lie as refuse upon the open field, like a handful of grain left after the harvest and none shall gather them”.

23Thus says the LORD, “Let the wise man not glory in his wisdom, nor let the mighty man glory in his might, nor the rich man in his riches, 24But let him that glories, glory in this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD Who exercises loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight”, says the LORD.

25“The days are coming”, says the LORD, “that I will punish all the circumcised with the uncircumcised: 26Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and they that dwell in the most distant wildernesses; for all these nations are uncircumcised, even the people of Israel, who are uncircumcised in their heart.”