They have become fat and sleek.
They have also excelled in evil matters.
They have not taken up cases,
such as the case of the fatherless, so they might prosper,
and they have not defended the rights of the needy.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

Though she is beautiful and delicate,
I will destroy Daughter Zion.

Set them apart for war against her;
rise up, let’s attack at noon.
Woe to us, for the day is passing;
the evening shadows grow long.

Rise up, let’s attack by night.
Let us destroy her fortresses.”

For this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Cut down the trees;
raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem.
This city must be punished.
There is nothing but oppression within her.

As a well gushes out its water,
so she pours out her evil.
Violence and destruction resound in her.
Sickness and wounds keep coming to My attention.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Glean the remnant of Israel
as thoroughly as a vine.
Pass your hand once more like a grape gatherer
over the branches.

Who can I speak to and give such a warning
that they will listen?
Look, their ear is uncircumcised,
so they cannot pay attention.
See, the word of the Lord has become contemptible to them—
they find no pleasure in it.

But I am full of the Lord’s wrath;
I am tired of holding it back.
Pour it out on the children in the street,
on the gang of young men as well.
For both husband and wife will be captured,
the old with the very old.

Their houses will be turned over to others,
their fields and wives as well,
for I will stretch out My hand
against the inhabitants of the land.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is making profit dishonestly.
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.

They have treated My people’s brokenness superficially,
claiming, “Peace, peace,”
when there is no peace.

This is what the Lord says:

Stand by the roadways and look.
Ask about the ancient paths:
Which is the way to what is good?
Then take it
and find rest for yourselves.
But they protested, “We won’t!”

Therefore listen, you nations
and you witnesses,
learn what the charge is against them.

What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba
or sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt offerings are not acceptable;
your sacrifices do not please Me.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:
I am going to place stumbling blocks before these people;
fathers and sons together will stumble over them;
friends and neighbors will also perish.

This is what the Lord says:

Look, an army is coming from a northern land;
a great nation will be awakened
from the remote regions of the earth.

We have heard about it,
and we are discouraged.
Distress has seized us—
pain like a woman in labor.

Don’t go out to the fields;
don’t walk on the road.
For the enemy has a sword;
terror is on every side.

My dear people, dress yourselves in sackcloth
and roll in the dust.
Mourn as you would for an only son,
a bitter lament,
for suddenly the destroyer will come on us.

I have appointed you to be an assayer among My people—
a refiner—
so you may know and assay their way of life.

The bellows blow,
blasting the lead with fire.
The refining is completely in vain;
the evil ones are not separated out.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your deeds, and I will allow you to live in this place.

Do not trust deceitful words, chanting: This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

Then do you come and stand before Me in this house called by My name and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts’?

Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Now, because you have done all these things”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and because I have spoken to you time and time again but you wouldn’t listen, and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer,

what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that is called by My name—the house in which you trust—the place that I gave you and your ancestors.

I will drive you from My presence, just as I drove out all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not offer a cry or a prayer on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.

But are they really provoking Me?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Isn’t it they themselves being provoked to disgrace?”

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Look, My anger—My burning wrath—is about to be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,

You must therefore declare to them: This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths.

“For the Judeans have done what is evil in My sight.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “They have set up their detestable things in the house that is called by My name and defiled it.

“At that time”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of her officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the residents of Jerusalem will be brought out of their graves.

Death will be chosen over life by all the survivors of this evil family, those who remain wherever I have banished them.” This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

“You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says:

Do people fall and not get up again?
If they turn away, do they not return?

Why have these people turned away?
Why is Jerusalem always turning away?
They take hold of deceit;
they refuse to return.

I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.

“How can you claim, ‘We are wise;
the law of the Lord is with us’?
In fact, the lying pen of scribes
has produced falsehood.

The wise will be put to shame;
they will be dismayed and snared.
They have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom do they really have?

Therefore, I will give their wives to other men,
their fields to new occupants,
for from the least to the greatest,
everyone is making profit dishonestly.
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.

They have treated superficially the brokenness
of My dear people,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.

I will gather them and bring them to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
There will be no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the fig tree,
and even the leaf will wither.
Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.

Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let us enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.

From Dan the snorting of horses is heard.
At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,
the whole land quakes.
They come to devour the land and everything in it,
the city and all its residents.

Indeed, I am about to send snakes among you,
poisonous vipers that cannot be charmed.
They will bite you.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

My joy has flown away;
grief has settled on me.
My heart is sick.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?

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They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take Me into account.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

You live in a world of deception.
In their deception they refuse to know Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

I am about to refine them and test them,
for what else can I do
because of My dear people?

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,
everything has fled—they have gone away.

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.

Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts and followed after the Baals as their fathers taught them.”

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Consider, and summon the women who mourn;
send for the skillful women.

Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us
so that our eyes may overflow with tears,
our eyelids soaked with weeping.

For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.

Speak as follows:

This is what the Lord says:

Human corpses will fall
like manure on the surface of the field,
like newly cut grain after the reaper
with no one to gather it.

This is what the Lord says:

The wise man must not boast in his wisdom;
the strong man must not boast in his strength;
the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth.

But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me—
that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love,
justice, and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair on their temples. All these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

This is what the Lord says:

Do not learn the way of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
although the nations are terrified by them,

for the customs of the peoples are worthless.
Someone cuts down a tree from the forest;
it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.

He decorates it with silver and gold.
It is fastened with hammer and nails,
so it won’t totter.

Yahweh, there is no one like You.
You are great;
Your name is great in power.

Who should not fear You,
King of the nations?
It is what You deserve.
For among all the wise people of the nations
and among all their kingdoms,
there is no one like You.

Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Uphaz
from the hands of a goldsmith,
the work of a craftsman.
Their clothing is blue and purple,
all the work of skilled artisans.

But Yahweh is the true God;
He is the living God and eternal King.
The earth quakes at His wrath,
and the nations cannot endure His rage.

Everyone is stupid and ignorant.
Every goldsmith is put to shame
by his carved image,
for his cast images are a lie;
there is no breath in them.

Jacob’s Portion is not like these
because He is the One who formed all things.
Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;
Yahweh of Hosts is His name.

For this is what the Lord says:

Look, I am slinging out
the land’s residents at this time
and bringing them such distress
that they will feel it.

Woe to me because of my brokenness—
I am severely wounded!
I exclaimed, “This is my intense suffering,
but I must bear it.”

My tent is destroyed;
all my tent cords are snapped.
My sons have departed from me and are no more.
I have no one to pitch my tent again
or to hang up my curtains.

For the shepherds are stupid:
they don’t seek the Lord.
Therefore they have not prospered,
and their whole flock is scattered.

Listen! A noise—it is coming—
a great commotion from the land to the north.
The cities of Judah will be made desolate,
a jackals’ den.

I know, Lord,
that a man’s way of life is not his own;
no one who walks determines his own steps.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

You must tell them: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let a curse be on the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,

in order to establish the oath I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is today.”

I answered, “Amen, Lord.”

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I am about to bring on them disaster that they cannot escape. They will cry out to Me, but I will not hear them.

Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, Judah, and the altars you have set up to Shame—altars to burn incense to Baal—as numerous as the streets of Jerusalem.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me at the time of their disaster.

Therefore, here is what the Lord says concerning the people of Anathoth who want to take your life. They warn, “You must not prophesy in the name of Yahweh, or you will certainly die at our hand.”

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “I am about to punish them. The young men will die by the sword; their sons and daughters will die by famine.

As for You, Lord, You know me; You see me.
You test whether my heart is with You.
Drag the wicked away like sheep to slaughter
and set them apart for the day of killing.

Is My inheritance like a hyena to Me?
Are birds of prey circling her?
Go, gather all the wild animals;
bring them to devour her.

They have made it a desolation.
It mourns, desolate, before Me.
All the land is desolate,
but no one takes it to heart.

This is what the Lord says: “Concerning all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people, Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from them.

If they will diligently learn the ways of My people—to swear by My name, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ just as they taught My people to swear by Baal—they will be built up among My people.

However, if they will not obey, then I will uproot and destroy that nation.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen undergarment and put it on, but do not put it in water.”

So I bought underwear as the Lord instructed me and put it on.