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9. Sin and Punishment

¹ In Hebrew texts 9:1 is numbered 8:23, and 9:2-26 is numbered 9:1-25. Oh, that my head were a spring of water
   and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
   for the slain of my people.
² Oh, that I had in the desert
   a lodging place for travelers,
so that I might leave my people
   and go away from them;
for they are all adulterers,
   a crowd of unfaithful people.

    ³ “They make ready their tongue
   like a bow, to shoot lies;
it is not by truth
   that they triumph Or lies; / they are not valiant for truth in the land.
They go from one sin to another;
   they do not acknowledge me,” declares the LORD.
⁴ “Beware of your friends;
   do not trust anyone in your clan.
For every one of them is a deceiver, Or a deceiving Jacob
   and every friend a slanderer.
⁵ Friend deceives friend,
   and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie;
   they weary themselves with sinning.
⁶ You That is, Jeremiah (the Hebrew is singular) live in the midst of deception;
   in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the LORD.

⁷ Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says:

   “See, I will refine and test them,
   for what else can I do
   because of the sin of my people?
⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
   it speaks deceitfully.
With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbors,
   but in their hearts they set traps for them.
⁹ Should I not punish them for this?”
   declares the LORD.
“Should I not avenge myself
   on such a nation as this?”

    ¹⁰ I will weep and wail for the mountains
   and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands.
They are desolate and untraveled,
   and the lowing of cattle is not heard.
The birds have all fled
   and the animals are gone.

    ¹¹ “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
   a haunt of jackals;
and I will lay waste the towns of Judah
   so no one can live there.”

¹² Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the LORD and can explain it? Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross?

¹³ The LORD said, “It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. ¹⁴ Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water. ¹⁶ I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them.”

¹⁷ This is what the LORD Almighty says:

   “Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come;
   send for the most skillful of them.
¹⁸ Let them come quickly
   and wail over us
till our eyes overflow with tears
   and water streams from our eyelids.
¹⁹ The sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
   ‘How ruined we are!
   How great is our shame!
We must leave our land
   because our houses are in ruins.’”

    ²⁰ Now, you women, hear the word of the LORD;
   open your ears to the words of his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail;
   teach one another a lament.
²¹ Death has climbed in through our windows
   and has entered our fortresses;
it has removed the children from the streets
   and the young men from the public squares.

²² Say, “This is what the LORD declares:

   “‘Dead bodies will lie
   like dung on the open field,
like cut grain behind the reaper,
   with no one to gather them.’”

²³ This is what the LORD says:

   “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
   or the strong boast of their strength
   or the rich boast of their riches,
²⁴ but let the one who boasts boast about this:
   that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
   justice and righteousness on earth,
   for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.

²⁵ “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— ²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. Or wilderness and who clip the hair by their foreheads For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

This is a remarkable passage, and often found in the mouth of men, as other notable sentences, which are known as proverbial sayings: but yet few rightly consider how these words are connected with the previous context. Hence there are many who are satisfied with a simple explanation, as though it were a subject abruptly introduced, and as though the Prophet commenced something new; and they confine themselves to those words: and thus they misrepresent the meaning of the Prophet, or at least diminish much of the force of what is taught.

The Prophet no doubt has a regard to what has gone before. He saw, as I have often said, that he addressed the deaf; for the Jews were so swollen with false confidence, that the word of God was regarded worthless by them. As then some were proud for their riches, and others thought themselves more prudent than that they could by any means be taken, and others thought themselves so fortified by wealth and power, that they could easily resist any evil, — as then the minds of all were possessed with so much pride, the Prophet, in order to confirm what he had said, declares here that men foolishly gloried, while they set up their riches, or their strength, or their wisdom, in opposition to God; for all these things would vanish away like smoke.

We now then perceive why the Prophet forbids here any to glory except in God alone, and how the passage ought not to be deemed as abrupt, but connected with what he said, when he denounced destruction on the Jews, which yet they dreaded not, because they were filled with this ungodly and foolish conceit, — that they had more than a sufficient protection in their own strength, or riches, or wisdom. The rest to-morrow.