Jeremiah 12:5-17 - The Lord's Reply

⁵ If you have raced with runners
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in a peaceful land,
what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?
⁶ Even your brothers—your own father’s household—
even they were treacherous to you;
even they have cried out loudly after you.
Do not have confidence in them,
though they speak well of you.

⁷ I have abandoned My house;
I have deserted My inheritance.
I have given the love of My life
into the hands of her enemies.
⁸ My inheritance has acted toward Me
like a lion in the forest.
She has roared against Me.
Therefore, I hate her.
⁹ 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.
¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard;
they have trampled My plot of land.
They have turned My desirable plot
into a desolate wasteland.
¹¹ They have made it a desolation.
It mourns, desolate, before Me.
All the land is desolate,
but no one takes it to heart.
¹² Over all the barren heights in the wilderness
the destroyers have come,
for the Lord has a sword that devours
from one end of the earth to the other.
No one has peace.
¹³ They have sown wheat but harvested thorns.
They have exhausted themselves but have no profit.
Be put to shame by your harvests
because of the Lord’s burning anger.

¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ After I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ However, if they will not obey, then I will uproot and destroy that nation.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.