Jeremiah 9:17-22
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The People Mourn in Judgment
17 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
Consider and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skilled women to come;(A)
18 let them quickly raise a dirge over us,
so that our eyes may run down with tears
and our eyelids flow with water.(B)
19 For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
“How we are ruined!
We are utterly shamed
because we have left the land,
because they have cast down our dwellings.”(C)
20 Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,
and let your ears receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a dirge
and each to her neighbor a lament.(D)
21 “Death has come up into our windows;
it has entered our palaces
to cut off the children from the streets
and the young men from the squares.”(E)
22 Speak! Thus says the Lord:
“Human corpses shall fall
like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves behind the reaper,
and no one shall gather them.”(F)
Jeremiah 9:17-22
New Living Translation
Weeping in Jerusalem
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[a] 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.
22 This is what the Lord says:
“Bodies will be scattered across the fields like clumps of manure,
like bundles of grain after the harvest.
No one will be left to bury them.”
Footnotes
- 9:19 Hebrew Zion.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
