1Oh that my head were waters,
2Oh that I had in the wilderness
3“They bend their tongue,
4“Everyone beware of his neighbour,
5Friends deceive each other,
6Your habitation is in the middle of deceit.
7Therefore the LORD of Hosts says,
8Their tongue is a deadly arrow.
9Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD.
10I will weep and wail for the mountains,
11“I will make Jerusalem heaps,
12Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
13The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,
14but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”
15Therefore the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
16I will scatter them also amongst the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”
17The LORD of Hosts says,
18Let them make haste
19For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,
20Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women.
21For death has come up into our windows.
22Speak, “The LORD says,
23The LORD says,
24But let him who glories glory in this,
25“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:
26Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”