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For behold, I send among you serpents, vipers against which there is no charm, and they shall bite you, saith Jehovah.

—For the breach of the daughter of my people am I crushed; I go mourning; astonishment hath taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why then is there no dressing applied for the healing of the daughter of my people?

Oh that my head were waters, and mine eye a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the wilderness a traveller's lodging-place, that I might leave my people, and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood, and not for fidelity are they valiant in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah.

Take ye heed every one of his friend, and confide not in any brother; for every brother only supplanteth, and every friend goeth about with slander.

Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else could I do for the daughter of my people?

Shall I not visit them for these [things]? saith Jehovah; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

For the mountains will I take up weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness, a lamentation; for they are burnt up, so that none passeth through them; and the voice of the cattle is not heard. Both the fowl of the heavens and the beasts are fled; they are gone.

Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come, and send for the skilful women, that they may come;

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.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled, sorely put to shame! For we have forsaken the land, for they have cast down our dwellings.

For death is come up through our windows, is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the broadways.

but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I [am] Jehovah, who exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith Jehovah.

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners [of their beard] cut off, that dwell in the wilderness: for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

Thus saith Jehovah: Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.

For the statutes of the peoples are vanity; for [it is] a tree cut out of the forest, worked with a chisel by the hands of the artizan;

They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? For to thee doth it appertain; for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.