Jeremiah 26

1 Gathering I will gather them together, saith the Lord, there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig tree, the leaf is fallen: and I have given them the things that are passed away. 2 Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord. 3 We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear. 4 The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan, all the land was moved at the sound of the neighing of his warriors: and they came and devoured the land, and all that was in it: the city and its inhabitants. 5 For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, saith the Lord. 6 My sorrow is above sorrow, my heart mourneth within me. 7 Behold the voice of the daughter of my people from a far country: Is not the Lord in Sion, or is not her king in her? why then have they provoked me to wrath with their idols, and strange vanities? 8 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 9 For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me. 10 Is there no balm in Galaad? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed? 12 Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. 13 Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors. 14 And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord. 15 Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully. 16 And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity. 17 Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord. 18 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people? 19 Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him. 20 Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation? 21 For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed. 22 And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant. 23 Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through? 24 And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.