Jeremiah 9:4-12 - A Nation Characterized By Deceit

⁴ "Let everyone be on your guard against his neighbor, and you must not trust in any brother, for everyone surely betrays, and every neighbor goes about [with] slander. ⁵ And everyone deceives his neighbor, and they do not speak [the] truth, they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are tired [from] going astray. ⁶ Your dwelling [is] in the midst of deceit, upon deceit they refuse to know me," {declares} Yahweh.

⁷ Therefore, thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Look, I [am] about to refine them, and I will test them, for what else can I do, because of the {presence} of the daughter of my people? ⁸ Their tongue [is] a murderous arrow, it speaks deceit. With his mouth he speaks peace with his neighbor, but in his inner parts he sets up his ambush. ⁹ Because of these [things] shall I not punish them?" {declares} Yahweh, "On a nation that [is] like this shall I not take revenge?

¹⁰ For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, and for [the] pastures of [the] desert a lament, because they are laid waste so that no man passes through. And [the] sounds of cattle are not heard, from [the] birds of heaven to [the] animals they have fled, they are gone. ¹¹ And I will make Jerusalem as heaps [of ruins], a lair of jackals, and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation, {without inhabitants}.

¹² Who [is] the wise man that can understand this? And to whom has the mouth of Yahweh spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed? It is laid waste like the desert so that no one passes through."