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¹⁸My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. ¹⁹Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”) ²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” ²¹For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. ²²Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

9O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! ²O that I had in the desert a traveler’s lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors. ³They bend their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land for falsehood, and not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord. ⁴Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer. ⁵They all deceive their neighbors, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. ⁶Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They refuse to know me, says the Lord. ⁷Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: I will now refine and test them, for what else can I do with my sinful people? ⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit through the mouth. They all speak friendly words to their neighbors, but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush. ⁹Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this? ¹⁰Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the animals have fled and are gone. ¹¹I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.