1. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2. Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
3. And they bend their tongue as it were their bow for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.
4. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will go about with slanders.
5. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.
7. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, 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 speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth wait for him.
9. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: 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 passeth through; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled, they are gone.
11. And 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 the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it? wherefore is the land and perished burned up like a wilderness, so that none passeth through?
13. And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;
14. but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them:
15. therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.