Jeremiah 9: All hearts – Jew and Gentile – are uncircumcised – says Jesus, our coming Judge. Know Yehoweh who makes and delights in loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.  

1: Who gives (makes) my head water (swim)?

And my eyes a fountain of tears

And I weep day and night for the pierced daughter of my people.

2: Who gives me a traveller’s inn in the wilderness?

And I forsake my people and walk (away) from them

for they are all adulterers and a treacherous assembly (church).

3: And they make their tongues strung as bows – for a lie.

And truth they did not strenghten in the land (eretz).

For they extracted / pulled out trouble from trouble (Ra).

And they did not discern Me – Word Yehoweh!

Stop and think about that!

4: A man is listened to by his neighbour and does not trust any brother for any brother supplantingly supplants (jacobs) and every neighbour walks with slander.

5: And a man makes fun of his neighbour and he does not speak truth. They taught their tongues to speak lies. They were exhausted by futile sin (Aven).

6: Your permanent residence is in the middle of deceit.  In deceit they refused to be acquainted with me, Word Yehoweh. .

Pause and think about that!

7: So thus says Yehoweh of Parliaments, refining and testing. For what shall I make of the face of a daughter of my people?

8: Their Slaughtering-arrow tongues spoke deceit. He exclaims peace with his mouth to his neighbour and deep within he sets up an ambush.

9: For these things, shall I, Word Yehoweh,

not appoint them, an unbelieving nation such as this, call them to account?

not make my soul avenge myself of her?

10: On the mountains I raise up a weep and a wail.  

And on the wilderness pastures, a dirge.

For they are burnt up. Without anyone crossing over. And no voice heard. Possessions, birds of the heavens and the cattle fled – walked!

11: And I gave Jerusalem to a rubble heap, a monster house.

And I give Judah’s cities to waste – without an inhabitant.

Pause and think!

12: Who is the wise man who understands this, who speaks to Yehoweh’s mouth?

And makes a declaration of why the land was destroyed and burnt like a wilderness and noone crossing over?

13: And Yehoweh says – on forsaking my instructions which I gave to their faces and have not heard my voice and not walked in it.

14: And they walk after stubbornness of their hearts, and after the masters (baals) who taught their fathers.

Pause and think!

15: And so, thus said Yehoweh of Parliaments, Israel’s God, “Behold I cause the people the eating of this with bitterness and caused them to drink polluted water.

16: And I scattered them among Gentiles whom they knew not – they and their fathers. And I sent a sword after them until I finished them off.”

Phew!

17:  Thus said Yehoweh of Parliaments, “Make yourselves discern and cry out for lamentresses – and they come.  And send  for wise women – and they come.”

18: And they hasten and raise up a wail for us.

And they bring down tears from our eyes, and our eyelashes stream water. 

19: For a cry, a wail was heard from Zion:

How we are ravaged (Shuddad)!

Greatly ashamed are we!

For we departed a land,

for we were made to be cast out of our homes!

Pause and think

20: For hear, women, Yehoweh’s speech and take the speech of His mouth to your ears and teach your daughters a wail, and a woman her neighbour a dirge.

21: For death ascended (aliyah) through our windows, traversed our fortresses, to cut (as in a covenant) a child outside, young men in the squares.

22: Speak this, Word Yehoweh, and the corpses of man fell as dung on the face of the field, and like the sheaves after the harvester. And not a gatherer (to remove them – asaph).  

Pause and think!

23: And Yehoweh said,

“(Let) no wise man make himself praise (hallel) himself in his wisdom

And (let) no great man make himself praise (hallel) himself in his greatness

And (let) no rich man make himself praise (hallel) himself in his riches.  

24: For if in this he makes himself praise himself, (let) him make himself praise himself that he made a success and knows Me –

that I am Yehoweh, making loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth for in these I, Word Yehoweh, have been delighted.”

Pause and think!

25:  Behold in coming days, I, Word Yehoweh, appointed to hold to account all circumcised with foreskins –

26: over Egypt and over Judah and over Edom and over sons of Ammon and over Moab and over all dwellers in cut off corners of the wilderness.

For all the foreskinned unbelieving nations and all the house of Israel (are) heart foreskinned.  

Pause and think!

Prayer: Circumcize my heart O Word of God, Yshua, that I may glory in Yehoweh, maker of loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth even if all the believing and unbelieving exiled nations and churches are treacherous, uncircumcised, rebellious liars who learnt from their fathers’ Masters, rather than You. For Jesus, Word of God, You come to appoint to hold us all to account. Amen.  

(This is a reading for Tisha b’av (August 3, 2025) – the day when both temples were destroyed – a cautionary tale from Jews for today’s apostate church)