Then I said, “Alas, Lord God!
Behold, I do not know how to speak,
Because I am a youth.”

“Yet I planted you a choice vine,
A completely faithful seed.
How then have you turned yourself before Me
Into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine?

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled,
I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley!
Know what you have done!
You are a swift young camel entangling her ways,

“How well you prepare your way
To seek love!
Therefore even the wicked women
You have taught your ways.

“Then I said,
‘How I would set you among My sons
And give you a pleasant land,
The most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’
And I said, ‘You shall call Me, My Father,
And not turn away from following Me.’

Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,
That you may be saved.
How long will your wicked thoughts
Lodge within you?

“Your ways and your deeds
Have brought these things to you.
This is your evil. How bitter!
How it has touched your heart!”

How long must I see the standard
And hear the sound of the trumpet?

“Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done?
They were not even ashamed at all;
They did not even know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
At the time that I punish them,
They shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
Has made it into a lie.

“Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?
They certainly were not ashamed,
And they did not know how to blush;
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
At the time of their punishment they shall be brought down,”
Says the Lord.

“For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion,
‘How are we ruined!
We are put to great shame,
For we have left the land,
Because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

How long is the land to mourn
And the vegetation of the countryside to wither?
For the wickedness of those who dwell in it,
Animals and birds have been snatched away,
Because men have said, “He will not see our latter ending.”

“If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
Then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?

“As for your adulteries and your lustful neighings,
The lewdness of your prostitution
On the hills in the field,
I have seen your abominations.
Woe to you, O Jerusalem!
How long will you remain unclean?”

Should good be repaid with evil?
For they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
So as to turn away Your wrath from them.

This is how I will treat this place and its inhabitants,” declares the Lord, “so as to make this city like Topheth.

“You who dwell in Lebanon,
Nested in the cedars,
How you will groan when pangs come upon you,
Pain like a woman in childbirth!

How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart,

“How long will you go here and there,
O faithless daughter?
For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth—
A woman will encompass a man.”

And they asked Baruch, saying, “Tell us, please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation?”

“Baldness has come upon Gaza;
Ashkelon has been ruined.
O remnant of their valley,
How long will you gash yourself?

“Ah, sword of the Lord,
How long will you not be quiet?
Withdraw into your sheath;
Be at rest and stay still.

“How can it be quiet,
When the Lord has given it an order?
Against Ashkelon and against the seacoast—
There He has assigned it.”

“How can you say, ‘We are mighty warriors,
And men valiant for battle’?

“Mourn for him, all you who live around him,
Even all of you who know his name;
Say, ‘How has the mighty scepter been broken,
A staff of splendor!’

“How shattered it is! How they have wailed! How Moab has turned his back—he is ashamed! So Moab will become a laughingstock and an object of terror to all around him.”

“How boastful you are about the valleys!
Your valley is flowing away,
O backsliding daughter
Who trusts in her treasures, saying,
‘Who will come against me?’

“How the city of praise has not been deserted,
The town of My joy!

“How the hammer of the whole earth
Has been cut off and broken!
How Babylon has become
An object of horror among the nations!

“How Sheshak has been captured,
And the praise of the whole earth been seized!
How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!