Jeremiah 9:12-16

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹² Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?^{(A) 13} And the Lord says: Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accordance with it^{(B) 14} but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.^{(C) 15} Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am feeding this people with wormwood and giving them poisonous water to drink.^{(D) 16} I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.^(E)