6. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: Through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord.
7. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?
8. Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.
9. Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?
10. For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed.
11. And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.
12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?
13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.
14. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.