Jeremiah 9:12-16

Revised Standard Version

¹² Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? ¹³ And the Lord says: “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in accord with it, ¹⁴ but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Ba′als, as their fathers taught them. ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them poisonous water to drink. ¹⁶ I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”