Jeremiah 9:10

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh.

Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

We traveled from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw, by the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Yahweh our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh Barnea.

He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.

Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her craving. When she is in heat, who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves. In her month, they will find her.

For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. I have planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.”

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 are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it will become a desolate heap, and her daughters will be burned with fire: then Israel will possess those who possessed him,” says Yahweh.

She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’ ”

I will destroy also all its animals from beside many waters. The foot of man won’t trouble them any more, nor will the hoofs of animals trouble them.

so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth will shake at my presence. Then the mountains will be thrown down, the steep places will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, yes, the fish of the sea also die.

Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the surface of the earth, says Yahweh.

I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and there won’t be room enough for them.

For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint;

His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.

My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on me.

Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

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

For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares.

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

“You shall say this word to them: “ ‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

saying, “No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:” ’

Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it.

“Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death.

“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest.

My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim.

Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.

‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, “You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.”

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and tell them, even the shepherds, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shouldn’t the shepherds feed the sheep?

“Yet I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt; and you shall acknowledge no god but me, and besides me there is no savior.

The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.

He said: “Yahweh will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Carmel will wither.”

Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me and behold, the Lord Yahweh called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land.

Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it.

My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows old because of all my adversaries.

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

Shepherds with their flocks will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

“Therefore now Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child out of the middle of Judah, to leave yourselves no one remaining;

Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

“If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the animals;

“You, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre;

No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years.

I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.

Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways; and they will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.”

For if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who would prepare himself for war?

My heart cries out for Moab! Her nobles flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for on the way to Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

“For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

They didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no one passed through, and where no man lived?’

I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.

I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled.

Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us.

Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

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.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.

“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!” Because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, and moan like the daughters of owls.