1
If only my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for those pierced of the daughter of my people.
2
If only I had in the wilderness a lodging place for travelers, that I might leave my people and go away from them. For all of them are adulterers, an assembly of treacherous ones.
3
“They bend their tongue like their bow for falsehood, and they have not grown mighty for truth in the land. For from evil to evil they go forth, and Me they do not know,” declares Yahuah.
4
“Each ish, guard yourself from your companion, and do not trust any brother. For every brother, supplanting, supplants; and every companion walks as a slanderer.
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Each ish deceives his companion, and they do not speak truth. They have taught their tongue to speak falsehood; they weary themselves doing crookedness.
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Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares Yahuah.
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Therefore thus says Yahuah of Hosts: “See, I shall refine them and test them, for what else shall I do because of the daughter of My people?
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Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow; it speaks deceit. With his mouth an ish speaks shalom to his companion, but within himself he sets his ambush.
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Shall I not visit concerning these?” declares Yahuah. “Upon a nation such as this, shall My being not avenge itself?”
10
Over the mountains I shall lift weeping and lamentation, and over the pastures of the wilderness a lament, for they are burned so that no ish passes through; the voice of livestock is not heard. From the birds of the heavens even to the beast, they have fled; they have gone.
11
“And I shall make Yerushalayim heaps, a dwelling of jackals. And the cities of Yehudah I shall make a waste, without inhabitant.”
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Who is the wise ish who understands this? And to whom has the Mouth of Yahuah spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed and burned like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
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And Yahuah says, “Because they forsook My Torah that I set before their faces, and did not hear My voice nor walk in it;
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but walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them.”
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Therefore thus says Yahuah of Hosts, Elohim of Yisra’el: “See, I am feeding this people wormwood and giving them poisoned water to drink.
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And I shall scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their fathers knew. And I shall send the sword after them until I have consumed them.”
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Thus says Yahuah of Hosts: “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skilled women, that they may come.
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Let them hurry and lift a lamentation over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with waters.
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For a voice of lamentation is heard from Tziyon: ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly ashamed, for we have forsaken the land, because they cast down our dwellings.’”
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Yet hear the Word of Yahuah, women, and let your ear receive the Word of His Mouth. Teach your daughters lamentation, and each ishah her companion a mourning song.
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For death has ascended through our windows; it has entered our palaces to cut off the child from the street and the young men from the squares.
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Speak: “Thus declares Yahuah: ‘The corpses of Adam shall fall like dung upon the face of the field, and like a handful after the reaper, with no one gathering.’”
23
Thus says Yahuah: “Let not the wise boast in his wisdom; let not the mighty boast in his might; let not the rich boast in his riches.
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But let the one who boasts boast in this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am Yahuah, doing covenant-faithfulness, Judgment, and Righteousness in the earth; for in these I delight,” declares Yahuah.
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“See, days are coming,” declares Yahuah, “when I shall visit all those circumcised in uncircumcision—
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Mitzrayim, Yehudah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moav, and all those with the corners of the hair cut, who dwell in the wilderness. For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the House of Yisra’el are uncircumcised of heart.”