Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.
Parallel translations
- WEB Everyone will deceive their neighbors, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves commiting iniquity.
- KJV And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
- NKJV Everyone will deceive his neighbor, And will not speak the truth; They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves to commit iniquity.
- NASB “Everyone deceives his neighbor And does not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves committing wrongdoing.
- NLT They all fool and defraud each other; no one tells the truth. With practiced tongues they tell lies; they wear themselves out with all their sinning.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Everyone deceives and refuses to speak truth, having trained their tongues to lie until exhausted by sin. Deception has become a wearisome way of life.
Overview
The people are so practiced in falsehood that lying is second nature, and they 'weary themselves' committing iniquity. The picture is of a community enslaved to deceit, expending real effort in doing evil. The verse reveals the exhausting bondage of sin and the futility of a life devoted to falsehood, contrasting with the rest and freedom found in the truth of Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 21
- Job 15:5For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
- Mic 6:12For the wealthy of the city are full of violence, and its residents speak lies; their tongues are deceitful in their mouths.
- Isa 57:10You are wearied by your many journeys, but you did not say, “There is no hope!” You found renewal of your strength; therefore you did not grow weak.
- Isa 59:13–15rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.
- Hab 2:13Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
- Job 11:3Should your babbling put others to silence? Will you scoff without rebuke?
- 1 Tim 4:2influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
- Isa 5:18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit and pull sin along with cart ropes,
- Ps 50:19You unleash your mouth for evil and unharness your tongue for deceit.
- Ps 64:3who sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows,
- Ps 140:3They sharpen their tongues like snakes; the venom of vipers is on their lips. Selah
- Isa 41:6–7Each one helps the other and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
- Isa 44:12–14The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms. Yet he grows hungry and loses his strength; he fails to drink water and grows faint.
- 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.
- Ps 7:14Behold, the wicked man travails with evil; he conceives trouble and births falsehood.
- Prov 4:16For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.
- Eph 4:25Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another.
- Ezek 24:12It has frustrated every effort; its thick rust has not been removed, even by the fire.
- 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.
- Mic 6:3‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!
- Gen 19:11And they struck the men at the entrance, young and old, with blindness, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the door.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 9:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.