Jeremiah · 26 verses
Jeremiah 9
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A traveler’s lodge in the wilderness appears as the speaker’s ideal escape plan: not a palace, not a fortress, but somewhere lonely enough to abandon the whole faithless crowd and depart. Later, when catastrophe arrives, the remedy is almost equally practical—summon the most skilled wailing women, and have them teach the daughters the trade.
A lodge in the wildernessvv. 1–11
The lament begins with a head wished into a spring and eyes turned into a fountain, then takes the surprising shape of a travel arrangement. The speaker longs for a wilderness lodge from which to leave adulterers and faithless people behind. Around him, tongues bend like bows, neighbours set traps behind peaceful mouths, and friendship has become a particularly industrious form of treachery. The LORD answers with refining, testing, punishment, and a landscape emptied of cattle, birds, beasts, and eventually inhabitants. Jerusalem is destined for rubble and jackals; the cities of Judah for desolation.
The country that needs professional mournersvv. 12–22
A question is put to the wise: why has the land become a scorched desert? The answer is blunt—people forsook the law, refused the voice of the LORD, followed stubborn hearts, and went after the Baals taught by their fathers. Then the funeral arrangements begin. The most skillful wailing women are summoned, and the women are told to teach their daughters to wail, as though national ruin required an apprenticeship. Death enters through windows and fortresses alike, while the dead lie across the open field with no gatherer in sight.
What may be boasted ofvv. 23–26
Wisdom, strength, and wealth are all dismissed as boast-worthy possessions. The permitted boast is to understand and know the LORD, whose delight is in loving devotion, justice, and righteousness on the earth. The final list is a curious gathering: Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, desert inhabitants who clip their temple hair, and the whole house of Israel. The bodily mark is not enough; the closing distinction is made in the heart.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Jer 9:1Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
Jer 9:2If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
Jer 9:3“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.
Jer 9:4“Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.
Jer 9:5Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.
Jer 9:6You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
Jer 9:7Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?
Jer 9:8Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
Jer 9:9Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”
Jer 9:10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
Jer 9:11“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
Jer 9:12Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?
Jer 9:13And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.
Jer 9:14Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”
Jer 9:15Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
Jer 9:16I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
Jer 9:17This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
Jer 9:18Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.
Jer 9:19For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”
Jer 9:20Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.
Jer 9:21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
Jer 9:22Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”
Jer 9:23This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.
Jer 9:24But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
Jer 9:25“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—
Jer 9:26Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 382 passages were voted onto 26 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 231 Corinthians 1:27–29But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
- 242 Corinthians 10:17Rather, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
- 23Isaiah 5:21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
- 23Ecclesiastes 9:11I saw something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither is the bread to the wise, nor the wealth to the intelligent, nor the favor to the skillful. For time and chance happen to all.
- 24Galatians 6:14But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
- 241 Corinthians 1:31Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
- 23Romans 1:22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
- 24Micah 6:8He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
- 23Psalms 49:6–13They trust in their wealth and boast in their great riches.
- 24Micah 7:18Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- 23Ezekiel 7:19They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.
- 24Psalms 44:8In God we have boasted all day long, and Your name we will praise forever. Selah
- 23Job 31:24–25If I have put my trust in gold or called pure gold my security,
- 23James 3:14–16But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth.
- 241 John 5:20And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true—in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
- 231 Kings 20:10–11Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”
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