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¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, basilisks, among you,

Which will not be charmed;

And they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

 

¹⁸Though I would take comfort against sorrow,

My heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people

From a land far off:

'Is not the Lord in Zion?

Is not her King in her?'—

'Why have they provoked Me with their graven images,

And with strange vanities?'—

²⁰'The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

And we are not saved.'

²¹For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I seized with anguish;

I am black, appalment hath taken hold on me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is not the health

Of the daughter of my people recovered?

²³Oh that my head were waters,

And mine eyes a fountain of tears,

That I might weep day and night

For the slain of the daughter of my people!

 

9Oh that I were in the wilderness,

In a lodging-place of wayfaring men,

That I might leave my people,

And go from them!

For they are all adulterers,

An assembly of treacherous men.

²And they bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood;

And they are grown mighty in the land, but not for truth;

For they proceed from evil to evil,

And Me they know not,

Saith the Lord.

³Take ye heed every one of his neighbour,

And trust ye not in any brother;

For every brother acteth subtly,

And every neighbour goeth about with slanders.

⁴And they deceive every one his neighbour,

And truth they speak not;

They have taught their tongue to speak lies,

They weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁵Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit;

Through deceit they refuse to know Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

⁶Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Behold, I will smelt them, and try them;

For how else should I do,

Because of the daughter of My people?

⁷Their tongue is a sharpened arrow,

It speaketh deceit;

One speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth,

But in his heart he layeth wait for him.

⁸Shall I not punish them for these things?

Saith the Lord;

Shall not My soul be avenged

On such a nation as this?

 

⁹For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing,

And for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation,

Because they are burned up, so that none passeth through,

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