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

⁴ Take heed everyone of his neighbor, and don't trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. ⁵ They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. ⁶ Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says Yahweh.

⁷ Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how [else] should I do, because of the daughter of my people? ⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lays wait for him. ⁹ Shall I not visit them for these things? says Yahweh; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁰ For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone. ¹¹ I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

¹² Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and [who is] he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?