Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, July 27th, 2025
the Week of Proper 12 / Ordinary 17
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Read the Bible

New Living Translation

Jeremiah 9:18

Quick! Begin your weeping! Let the tears flow from your eyes.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Israel, Prophecies Concerning;   War;   Thompson Chain Reference - Tears;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Burial;   Dead, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Mourning;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Funeral;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Minstrel;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Burial;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Mourning Customs;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Mourning;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Burial;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Minstrel;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Burial;   Eyelid;   Tears;   Woman;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Water;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for March 29;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Let them come quickly to raise a lament over usso that our eyes may overflow with tears,our eyelids be soaked with weeping.
Hebrew Names Version
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
King James Version
And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
English Standard Version
let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.
New American Standard Bible
"Have them hurry and take up a wailing for us, So that our eyes may shed tears, And our eyelids flow with water.
New Century Version
Let them come quickly and cry loudly for us. Then our eyes will fill with tears, and streams of water will flow from our eyelids.
Amplified Bible
"Let them hurry and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.
World English Bible
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Geneva Bible (1587)
And let them make haste, & let them take vp a lamentation for vs, that our eyes may cast out teares & our eye liddes gush out of water.
Legacy Standard Bible
Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us,That our eyes may shed tearsAnd our eyelids flow with water.
Berean Standard Bible
Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may stream with waters.
Contemporary English Version
The people answered, "Let them come quickly and cry for us, until our own eyes are flooded with tears.
Complete Jewish Bible
For the sound of wailing is heard from Tziyon: ‘We are utterly ruined, we are completely ashamed, because we have left the land, and our homes have been torn down!'"
Darby Translation
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids pour forth waters.
Easy-to-Read Version
The people say, ‘Let those women come quickly and cry for us. Then our eyes will fill with tears that flow over our eyelids like streams of water.'
George Lamsa Translation
And let them make haste and take up lamentations for us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Good News Translation
The people said, "Tell them to hurry and sing a funeral song for us, until our eyes fill with tears, and our eyelids are wet from crying."
Lexham English Bible
And let them hasten, and let them lift up wailing over us, so that our eyes may melt with tears, and our eyelids may flow with water.
Literal Translation
And let them make haste and take up a lament over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
and singe a mournynge songe of you: that the teares maye fall out of oure eyes, and that oure eye lyddes maye gushe out of water.
American Standard Version
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Bible in Basic English
Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion: 'How are we undone! We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.'
King James Version (1611)
And let them make haste, and take vp a wailing for vs, that our eyes may run down with teares, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And sing a mourning song of vs, that the teares may fall out of our eyes, and that our eye liddes may gushe out of water.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
and let them take up a lamentation for you, and let your eyes pour down tears, and your eyelids drop water.
English Revised Version
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Haste thei, and take thei weilynge on you; youre iyen brynge doun teeris, and youre iyelidis flowe with watris;
Update Bible Version
and let them hurry, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Webster's Bible Translation
And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
New English Translation
I said, "Indeed, let them come quickly and sing a song of mourning for us. Let them wail loudly until tears stream from our own eyes and our eyelids overflow with water.
New King James Version
Let them make haste And take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may run with tears, And our eyelids gush with water.
New Life Bible
Let them hurry and cry in a loud voice for us, that tears may come from our eyes, and that our eyes will flow with water.
New Revised Standard
let them quickly raise a dirge over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids flow with water.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Yea let them make haste, and lift up over us a wailing, - That our eyes, may run down, with tears, And, our eyelashes, stream down with water; -
Douay-Rheims Bible
Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.
Revised Standard Version
let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush with water.
Young's Literal Translation
And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.

Contextual Overview

12 Who is wise enough to understand all this? Who has been instructed by the Lord and can explain it to others? Why has the land been so ruined that no one dares to travel through it? 13 The Lord replies, "This has happened because my people have abandoned my instructions; they have refused to obey what I said. 14 Instead, they have stubbornly followed their own desires and worshiped the images of Baal, as their ancestors taught them. 15 So now, this is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies, the God of Israel, says: Look! I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. 16 I will scatter them around the world, in places they and their ancestors never heard of, and even there I will chase them with the sword until I have destroyed them completely." 17 This is what the Lord of Heaven's Armies says: "Consider all this, and call for the mourners. Send for the women who mourn at funerals. 18 Quick! Begin your weeping! Let the tears flow from your eyes. 19 Hear the people of Jerusalem crying in despair, ‘We are ruined! We are completely humiliated! We must leave our land, because our homes have been torn down.'" 20 Listen, you women, to the words of the Lord ; open your ears to what he has to say. Teach your daughters to wail; teach one another how to lament. 21 For death has crept in through our windows and has entered our mansions. It has killed off the flower of our youth: Children no longer play in the streets, and young men no longer gather in the squares.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

take: Jeremiah 9:10, Jeremiah 9:20

our eyes: Jeremiah 9:1, Jeremiah 6:26, Jeremiah 13:17, Jeremiah 14:17, Isaiah 22:4, Lamentations 1:2, Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 2:18, Luke 19:41

Reciprocal: 1 Samuel 15:11 - it grieved 2 Kings 8:11 - wept Ezra 2:65 - two hundred Job 3:8 - who are ready Psalms 119:136 - General Isaiah 15:5 - My heart Lamentations 3:48 - General Ezekiel 19:1 - take Ezekiel 24:16 - thy tears Ezekiel 32:2 - take up Amos 5:16 - Wailing

Cross-References

Genesis 9:23
Then Shem and Japheth took a robe, held it over their shoulders, and backed into the tent to cover their father. As they did this, they looked the other way so they would not see him naked.
Genesis 9:25
Then he cursed Canaan, the son of Ham: "May Canaan be cursed! May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives."
Genesis 9:27
May God expand the territory of Japheth! May Japheth share the prosperity of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant."
Genesis 10:1
This is the account of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah. Many children were born to them after the great flood.
Genesis 10:6
The descendants of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
1 Chronicles 1:4
and Noah. The sons of Noah were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us,.... Deliver out a mournful song, as the Arabic version; setting forth their miseries and distresses, and affecting their minds with them. The prophet puts himself among the people, as being a party concealed in their sufferings, and sympathizing with them, as well as to show the certainty of then and how soon they would be involved in them:

that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters; or balls of the eye, as the Targum and Kimchi; these hyperbolical expressions are used to express the greatness of the calamity, and that no mourning was equal to it; see Jeremiah 9:1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The punishment described in general terms in the preceding three verses is now detailed at great length.

Jeremiah 9:10

The habitations i. e - the temporary encampments of the shepherds (see Jeremiah 6:3).

So that none can ... - Or, “They are parched up, with no man to pass through them; neither do they hear the voice of cattle; from the birds of the heaven even to the beasts they “are fled, they are gone.”

Jeremiah 9:11

Dragons - Rather, jackals.

Jeremiah 9:12

For what the land perisheth ... - This is the question proposed for consideration. The prophet calls upon the wise man to explain his question; that question being, Wherefore did the land perish? He follows it by the assertion of a fact: “It is parched like the wilderness with no man to pass through.”

Jeremiah 9:13

The cause of the chastisement about to fall upon Jerusalem, was their desertion of the divine Law.

Jeremiah 9:14

Imagination - Or, as in the margin.

Which their fathers taught them - It was not the sin of one generation that brought upon them chastisement: it was a sin, which had been handed down from father to son.

Jeremiah 9:15

I will feed them ... - Rather, I am feeding them. The present participle used here, followed by three verbs in the future, shows that the judgment has beam, of which the successive stages are given in the next clause.

Wormwood - See Deuteronomy 29:18, note, and for “water of gall,” Jeremiah 8:14, note.

Jeremiah 9:16

This verse is taken from Leviticus 26:33. The fulfillment of what had been so long before appointed as the penalty for the violation of Yahweh’s covenant is one of the most remarkable proofs that prophecy was something more than human foresight.

Till I have consumed them - See Jeremiah 4:27 note. How is this “consuming” consistent with the promise to the contrary there given? Because it is limited by the terms of Jeremiah 9:7. Previously to Nebuchadnezzars destruction of Jerusalem God removed into safety those in whom the nation should revive.

Jeremiah 9:17

The mourning women - Hired to attend at funerals, and by their skilled wailings aid the real mourners in giving vent to their grief. Hence, they are called “cunning,” literally “wise” women, wisdom being constantly used in Scripture for anything in which people are trained.

Jeremiah 9:18

Take up a wailing for us - i. e., for the nation once God’s chosen people, but long spiritually dead.

Jeremiah 9:19

Forsaken - Or, left: forced to abandon the land.

Because our dwellings ... - Rather, “because they have east down our dwellings.” The whole verse is a description of their sufferings. See 2 Kings 25:1-12.

Jeremiah 9:20

The command is addressed to the women because it was more especially their part to express the general feelings of the nation. See 1 Samuel 18:6; 2 Samuel 1:24. The women utter now the death-wail over the perishing nation. They are to teach their daughters and neighbors the “lamentation, i. e., dirge,” because the harvest of death would be so large that the number of trained women would not suffice.

Jeremiah 9:21

Death is come up ... - i. e., death steals silently like a thief upon his victims, and makes such havoc that there are no children left to go “without,” nor young men to frequent the open spaces in the city.

Jeremiah 9:22

The “handful” means the little bundle of grain which the reaper gathers on his arm with three or four strokes of his sickle, and then lays down. Behind the reaper came one whose business it was to gather several of these bundles, and bind them into a sheaf. Thus, death strews the ground with corpses as thickly as these handfuls lie upon the reaped land, but the corpses lie there unheeded.


 
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