Like a cage full of birds, so their houses [are] full of fraud. {Therefore} they have become great, and they have become rich.

They have grown fat, they have grown sleek, also, {their evil deeds have no limit}. They do not judge [with] justice, [the] legal cause of [the] orphan, or allow it to succeed, and [the] legal case of [the] poor, they do not defend.

the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

I have likened the daughter of Zion to a lovely and delicate woman.

Unto her come do shepherds and their droves, They have stricken tents by her round about, They have fed each in his own station.

To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of Jehovah is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

And with the fury of Jehovah I have been filled, (I have been weary of containing,) To pour it on the suckling in the street, And on the assembly of youths together, For even husband with wife are captured, An elder with one full of days,

And their houses have been turned to others, Fields and wives together, For I stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land, An affirmation of Jehovah.

And they have treated the wound of my people lightly, {saying}, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.

Have they acted ashamed, for they have committed a detestable thing? Not at all, nor were they ashamed; they did not know to feel humiliated. {Therefore} they will fall among [those who] fall at the time I punish them, they will stumble," says Yahweh.

This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it.

Also I have set watchmen over you: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

Hear therefore ye Gentiles; and thou, congregation, shalt know what I have devised for them.

Hear, O earth, look, I [am] about to bring disaster to this people, the fruit of their plans, because they have not listened attentively to my words, and my teaching, they have rejected it also.

Why is this to Me? frankincense from Sheba cometh, And the sweet cane from a land afar off, Your burnt-offerings are not for acceptance, And your sacrifices have not been sweet to Me.

Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I do give to this people stumbling blocks, And stumbled against them have fathers and sons together, The neighbour and his friend do perish.

They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as a man for the battle, against thee, daughter of Zion.

We have heard news of it, our hands grow slack, anxiety has grasped us, pain as a [woman who] gives birth.

"I have made you an assayer among my people, a fortification, so that you may know and put to the test their ways.

The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; they have melted, and melted in vain; and the bad are not plucked away.

'Silver rejected,' they have called to them, For Jehovah hath kicked against them!

"Stand in the gate of the Lord's temple and proclaim this message: 'Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. Hear what the Lord has to say.

The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land.

You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly.

Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin.

Then I have caused you to dwell in this place, In the land that I gave to your fathers, From age even unto age.

Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear {falsely}? And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known?

And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

Has this house, which is called {by my name}, become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen [it]," {declares} Yahweh.

But go ye, I pray you, Unto My place that is in Shiloh, Where I caused My name to dwell at first, And see that which I have done to it, For the wickedness of My people Israel.

And now, because of your doing all these things," {declares} Yahweh, "and {I have spoken to you over and over again}, and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered,

I will even do unto the house which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh;

and I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

And they have not hearkened, nor inclined their ear, And they walk in the counsels, In the stubbornness, of their evil heart, And are for backward, and not for forward.

From the day that your ancestors came out from the land of Egypt until this day I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, {sending again and again}.

Yet they have not listened to me and they have not inclined their ear, but they have hardened their neck, they did more evil than their ancestors.

"And you shall say to them, 'This [is] the nation that has not obeyed the voice of Yahweh their God, and they have not accepted discipline. The truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouths.

For the people of Judah have done evil in my eyes," {declares} Yahweh, "They have set their abominations in the house that is called {by my name}, to defile it.

And they built the high place of Topheth, which [is] in [the] Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, and it did not come into my mind.

Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And it is not said any more, 'The Tophet,' And 'Valley of the son of Hinnom,' But 'Valley of the slaughter,' And they have buried in Tophet -- without place.

And I have caused to cease from cities of Judah, And from streets of Jerusalem, The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, Voice of bridegroom, and voice of bride, For the land doth become a desolation!

And they shall spread them out before the sun, and before the moon, and before all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and which they have gone after, and which they have inquired about, and to which they have bowed in worship. They shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground.

And death will be preferred to life by all the remaining of this evil clan in all the remaining places where I have driven them away," {declares} Yahweh.

Why has this people, Jerusalem, turned away [in] enduring apostasy? They have kept hold of deceit, they have refused to return.

I have listened attentively, and I have listened. They do not speak honestly, there is no man [who] regrets his wickedness, saying, 'What have I done?' All of them [are] turning to their ways of running, like a horse plunging into battle.

Truly, the stork in the heavens is conscious of her fixed times; the dove and the swallow and the crane keep to the times of their coming; but my people have no knowledge of the law of the Lord.

How can you say, "We are wise! We have the law of the Lord"? The truth is, those who teach it have used their writings to make it say what it does not really mean.

[The] wise will be put to shame, they will be dismayed, and they will get taken. Look, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, and what [is] wisdom to them?

And they have treated the wound of the daughter of my people lightly, {saying}, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.

Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, and they know not how to blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall stumble, saith Jehovah.

I will utterly consume them, saith Jehovah: 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.

Why [are] we sitting? Gather, and let us go into the fortified cities, and let us perish there, for Yahweh our God has caused us to perish, and has provided drink for us, water of poison, because we have sinned against Yahweh.

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

For, lo, I am sending among you serpents, Vipers that have no charmer, And they have bitten you, an affirmation of Jehovah.

When I would have cheered myself against sorrow, Against me, mine own heart sickened: -

Look, the sound of the cry for help of the daughter of my people from a distant land, 'Is Yahweh not in Zion? Is her king not in her?' Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with idols of a foreign land?"

[The] harvest has passed, [the] summer has come to an end, and we have not received help.

For a breach of the daughter of my people have I been broken, I have been black, astonishment hath seized me.

Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no expert in medical arts? why then have my people not been made well?

I wish that my head were a well full of water and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people who have been killed.

Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

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.

There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Lo, I am refining them, and have tried them, For how do I do because of the daughter of My people?

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, and for [the] pastures of [the] desert a lament, because they are laid waste so that no man passes through. And [the] sounds of cattle are not heard, from [the] birds of heaven to [the] animals they have fled, they are gone.

And Yahweh said, "Because of their forsaking my law that I set {before} them, and they have not obeyed my voice, and have not walked in it,

but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them;

Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: Lo, I am causing them -- this people -- to eat wormwood, And I have caused them to drink water of gall,

and I will scatter them among the nations that they have not known, they and their ancestors, and I will send the sword after them until I bring them to an end."

For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, 'How we are devastated! We are very ashamed because we have left the land, because they have overthrown our dwelling places.'

But if any man has pride, let it be in this, that he has the wisdom to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord, working mercy, giving true decisions, and doing righteousness in the earth: for in these things I have delight, says the Lord.

See, the day is coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on all those who have circumcision in the flesh;

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, that dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

This is what the Lord has said: Do not go in the way of the nations; have no fear of the signs of heaven, for the nations go in fear of them.

It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.

Who would not have fear of you, O King of the nations? for it is your right: for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

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

He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out.

For thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time, And have been an adversary to them, So that they are found out.

My tent is devastated, and all my tent cords are torn. My children have gone out [from] me, and they are not. There is no [one who] pitches my tent again, or [one who] puts up my tent curtains.

For the shepherds have become stupid, they do not seek Yahweh. {Therefore} they do not have insight, and all of their flock are scattered.

I have known, O Jehovah, that not of man is his way, Not of man the going and establishing of his step.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on [the] peoples that do not call on your name, for they have devoured Jacob, they have devoured and consumed him, and they have caused his settlement to be desolate.

'Hear ye the words of this covenant, and ye have spoken unto the men of Judah, and unto the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them out of the land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron, saying, Give ear to my voice, and do all the orders I have given you: so you will be my people, and I will be your God:

that I may perform the oath that I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. And I answered and said, Amen, Jehovah!

And Jehovah saith unto me, 'Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of this covenant, And ye have done them.

For I have diligently exhorted your fathers, ever since the time that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt unto this day. I gave them warning betimes, saying, Hearken unto my voice.

But they have not hearkened, nor inclined their ear, but have walked every one in the stubbornness of their evil heart; and I have brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, and they have not done.

The Lord said to me, "The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against me!

They have turned back to the iniquities of their former ancestors, who refused to obey my words, and they have gone after other gods, to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I {made} with their ancestors."

Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am bringing in unto them evil, That they are not able to go out from, And they have cried unto Me, And I do not hearken unto them.

Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they have burned incense; but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

For the number of your towns are your gods, Judah, and the number of the streets of Jerusalem [are the] altars you have set up to the shameful things, to make smoke offerings to Baal.

About Judah. What have you to do in my house? is it your thought that oaths and holy flesh will get you out of your trouble? will you make yourself safe in this way?

'An olive, green, fair, of goodly fruit,' Hath Jehovah called thy name, At the noise of a great tumult He hath kindled fire against it, And broken have been its thin branches.

And Yahweh of hosts, the [one who] planted you, has spoken evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that they have done to themselves, to provoke me to anger by making smoke offerings to Baal."

The Lord gave me knowledge, that I might have understanding. Then he showed me what the people were doing.

And I am as a trained lamb brought to slaughter, And I have not known That against me they have devised devices: We destroy the tree with its food, and cut him off From the land of the living, And his name is not remembered again.