Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.

At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;

Even a full wind from those places shall come unto me: now also will I give sentence against them.

O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.

Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

Like watchers of a field they were against her from all around, because she has rebelled against me," {declares} Yahweh.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I saw, and behold, Carmel a desert, and all its cities were broken down from the face of Jehovah, from the face of the heat of his anger.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

From the voice of the horseman, And of him shooting with the bow, all the city is fleeing, They have come into thickets, And on cliffs they have gone up, All the city is forsaken, And there is no one dwelling in them.

A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

O Jehovah, are not thine eyes upon faithfulness? thou didst smite them, and they were not pained; thou didst consume them, they refused to take instruction: they made their faces firm above the rock; they refused to turn back.

Therefore a lion from [the] forest will kill them, A wolf [from the] desert plains will devastate them. A leopard [is] watching their cities, everyone [who] goes out from there will be torn, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.

Me do ye not fear, an affirmation of Jehovah? From My presence are ye not pained? Who hath made sand the border of the sea, A limit age-during, and it passeth not over it, They shake themselves, and they are not able, Yea, sounded have its billows, and they pass not over.

‘But this people has a stubborn heart and a rebellious will [that draws them away from Me];
They have turned away and have gone [into idolatry].

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

hereof are they fat and wealthy, and are run away from me with shameful blasphemies. They minister not the law, they make no end of the fatherless cause, they judge not the poor according to equity.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Flee for safety, ye children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth-haccherem; for evil looketh forth from the north, and a great destruction.

Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

To whom will I speak and give a warning so they'll listen? Look, their ears are closed, and they cannot hear. Look, this message from the LORD is contemptible to them; they don't delight in it.

For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

And therefore thus sayeth the LORD, 'Behold, I will make this people fall, and there shall fall from among them the father with the children; one neighbour shall perish with another.'"

Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.

Thou shalt not go forth to the field, and thou shalt not go by the way; for the sword to the enemy, fear from round about.

The bellows are burnt in the fire, the lead is consumed, the melter melteth in vain, for the evil is not taken away from them.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

"Stand at the gate of the LORD's Temple and proclaim this message there. Say, "Listen to this message from the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD.'"

If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country, and to the child without a father, and to the widow, and do not put the upright to death in this place, or go after other gods, causing damage to yourselves:

then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore.

But go now to my place which is in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell there at the first, and see what I did to it from the face of the evil of my people Israel.

And I have cast you from before My face, As I have cast out all your brethren, The whole seed of Ephraim.

For I did not speak with your ancestors, nor did I command them in the day of bringing them out from the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offering and sacrifice.

Even from the day when your fathers Went out of the land of Egypt till this day, I send to you all my servants the prophets, Daily rising early and sending,

But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

For this, behold, the days coming, says Jehovah, and it shall no more be said, Tophet, and The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: and they buried in Tophet, from not being place.

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

“At that time,” says the Lord, “they [the Babylonian army] will bring out from their graves the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. These are things they adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground.

And death was chosen above life to all the remnant of those being left from this evil family, in all the places being left where I cast them out there, says Jehovah of armies.

“Moreover [Jeremiah], you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord,

“Do men fall and not rise up again?
Does one turn away [from God] and not repent and return [to Him]?

“Why then has this people of Jerusalem
Turned away with a perpetual turning away [from Me]?
They hold tightly to deceit (idolatry);
They refuse to repent and return [to God].

The wise men will be put to shame. They'll be dismayed and taken captive. Look, they have rejected the message from the LORD! So what kind of wisdom do they have?

Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein.

"My comfort [is gone] from me, sorrow [is] on me, my heart [is] sick.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: is not Jehovah in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with foreign vanities?

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

Yea, one must keep himself from another; no man may safely trust his own brother. For one brother undermineth another, and one neighbour begileth another.

And everyone deceives his neighbor, and they do not speak [the] truth, they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are tired [from] going astray.

Their tongues are like deadly arrows. They are always telling lies. Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths. But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them.

Am I not to send punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, And for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, For they have been burnt up without any passing over, Nor have they heard the voice of cattle, From the fowl of the heavens unto the beast they have fled, they have gone.

And I gave Jerusalem for heaps and a dwelling of jackals; and the cities of Judah I will give a desolation from none inhabiting.

I said, "Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? Why does the land lie in ruins? Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?"

And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.

For -- a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.

"Now, you women, hear the message from the LORD; listen to what he has to say! Teach your daughters how to mourn, let every woman teach her friend how to lament.

For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

Thus said Jehovah, Ye shall not learn according to the way of the nations, and from the signs of the heavens ye shall not be terrified; for the nations will be terrified from them.

For the statutes of the peoples are vanity, For a tree from a forest hath one cut, Work of the hands of an artificer, with an axe,

With gold and with silver they will beautify; with nails and with hammers they will make firm and it will not move.

Who shall not fear thee, thou king of the nations? for to thee he shall come: for among all the wise of the nations, and among all their kings, from none like thee.

Everyone is stupid and senseless. They follow worthless instruction from a piece of wood!

Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.

And Jehovah is a God of truth, He is a living God, and a king age-during, From His wrath shake doth the earth, And nations endure not His indignation.

Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

Every man was brutish from knowledge: every founder was ashamed from his carved image; for his molten image a falsehood, and no spirit in them.

Gather from the land thy merchandise, O dweller in the bulwark,

For the Lord has said, I will send the people in flight like a stone from the land at this time, troubling them so that they will be conscious of it.

Sorrow is mine for I am wounded! my wound may not be made well; and I said, Cruel is my disease, I may not be free from it.

My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

A voice of a report, lo, it hath come, Even a great shaking from the north country, To make the cities of Judah a desolation, A habitation of dragons.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

for I solemnly admonished your ancestors in the day of my leading them out from the land of Egypt and up to this day, {admonishing persistently}, {saying}, "Obey my voice."

Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will bring evil upon them, from which they shall not be able to escape; and they will cry unto me, and I will not hearken unto them.

For from the numbering of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and from the numbering of the streets of Jerusalem, ye set up altars to shame, altars to burn incense to Baal.

What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

The Lord called your name,
“A green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form”;
With the noise of a great tumult
He has kindled fire on it,
And its branches are worthless.

But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

O Jehovah of armies, judging justice and trying the reins and the heart, I shall see thy vengeance from them, for to thee I uncovered my cause.

Then the Lord told me about some men from Anathoth who were threatening to kill me. They had threatened, "Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!"

Not one of them will survive. I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. A day of reckoning is coming for them."

Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.

How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds have been destroyed, because they said, He shall not see our last end.

The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the LORD shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh shall have peace.

My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it. They will be disappointed in their harvests because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger.

Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.