[Is] Israel a slave? Or {a slave born in a house}? Why has he become plunder?

But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine, in every way a true seed: how then have you been changed into the branching plant of a strange vine?

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled,
I have not gone after [man-made gods like] the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley;
Know [without any doubt] what you have done!
You are a swift and restless young [female] camel [in the heat of her passion] running here and there,

But where are your gods you made for yourself?
Let them rise up and save you
in your time of disaster if they can,
for your gods are as numerous as your cities, Judah.

O generation, see ye the word of Jehovah. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? or a land of thick darkness? wherefore say my people, We are broken loose; we will come no more unto thee?

Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

God says, “If a husband divorces his wife
And she goes from him
And belongs to another man,
Will he still return to her?
Will not that land be completely polluted?
But you are a harlot with many lovers;
Yet you turn to Me,” declares the Lord.

Truly, the hills, and the noise of an army on the mountains, are a false hope: truly, in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

Behold, he cometh up as clouds, and his chariots are as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are destroyed.

Where as thou, O LORD, lookest only upon faith and truth. Thou hast scourged them, but they took no repentance: thou hast corrected them for amendment, but they refused thy correction. They made their faces harder than stone, and would not amend.

They were as fed horses roaming at large; every one neighed after his neighbor's wife.

“The prophets are as wind,
And the word is not in them.
Thus it will be done to them!”

This is what the Lord who rules over all said to me: "Those who remain in Israel will be like the grapes thoroughly gleaned from a vine. So go over them again, as though you were a grape harvester passing your hand over the branches one last time."

They shall 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 men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

I reported, "All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! They are as hard as bronze or iron. They go about telling lies. They all deal corruptly.

"And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I [will] not hear you.

"Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, for then I would cry day and night for those of my people who have been killed.

Oh that I had in the wilderness
A lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men,
That I might leave my people
And go away from them!
For they are all adulterers [worshiping idols instead of the Lord],
[They are] an assembly of treacherous men [of weak character, men without integrity].

They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

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.

For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah; and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

Therefore you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty, or a prayer, for I [will] not listen in the time of their calling to me, in the time of their trouble.

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 its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

So I said to the Lord, "O Lord who rules over all, you are a just judge! You examine people's hearts and minds. I want to see you pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause."

You [will be] in the right, Yahweh, when I complain to you. Even so, let me speak [my] claims with you. Why does [the] way of [the] wicked succeed? All those who deal treacherously with treachery are at ease.

Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

Thou Hope of Israel, His Saviour in the time of distress, - Wherefore shouldst thou be as a sojourner in the and? Or as a wayfarer, who hath turned aside to lodge for the night?

Why wilt thou make thyself a coward, and as it were a giant that yet may not help? For thou art ours, O LORD, and we bear thy name; therefore forsake us not."

‘If I go out into the field,
Then I gaze on those slaughtered with the sword!
And if I enter the city,
Then I gaze on [those tormented with] the diseases of famine!
For both prophet and priest [who should have guided the people]
Go about [bewildered and exiled] in a land (Babylon) that they do not know or understand.’”

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

“For he will be like a shrub in the [parched] desert;
And shall not see prosperity when it comes,
But shall live in the rocky places of the wilderness,
In an uninhabited salt land.

At one moment I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it.

At another time I announce that I will build and plant a nation or a kingdom.

Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or an oracle from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.”

Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, 'I will do just as Jeremiah has done. I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter's vessel which is broken beyond repair. The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.'

Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were at the upper Benjamin Gate by the house of the Lord.

And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain .

For thus says the Lord in regard to the house of the king of Judah:

“You are [as valuable] to Me as [the green pastures of] Gilead [east of the Jordan]
Or as the [plentiful] summit of Lebanon [west of the Jordan],
Yet most certainly [if you will not listen to Me] I will make you a wilderness,
And uninhabited cities.

Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!

As I live, saith Jehovah, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a signet upon my right hand, yet will I pluck thee thence;

[Is] this man Coniah a despised, shattered vessel? Or a vessel [in which] there is no delight? Why are he and his offspring thrown far, and cast away to the land that they do not know?"

And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD.

But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to him. I, the Lord, affirm that I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it with war, starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it.

And it was in that [same] year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azzur, the prophet who [was] from Gibeon, said to me in the house of Yahweh before the eyes of the priests and all the people, {saying},

Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, Because thou hast sent letters in thine own name unto all the people that are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying,

And their sons were as of old, and their testimony shall be prepared before me, and I reviewed upon all pressing them,

I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and will rebuild them as they were at first.

“This is what the Lord says: In this place, which you say is a ruin, without man or beast—that is, in Judah’s cities and Jerusalem’s streets that are a desolation without man, without inhabitant, and without beast—there will be heard again

the sounds of rejoicing and gladness, the sounds of the bridegroom and the bride, and the sounds of those saying, "Give thanks to the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, for the LORD is good, and his gracious love lasts forever," as they bring thanksgiving offerings to the LORD's Temple. For I'll restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first,' declares the LORD.

The word that came unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people that were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother.

Then the king ordered Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: "Thirty men are at your disposal. Take them with you and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies."

and they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are at Gibeon.

So all the people who {are determined} to go [to] Egypt to dwell as aliens there will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, and there will not be for them an escapee or a survivor from the disaster that I [am] bringing upon them."

Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein,

And there will not be a survivor or an escapee of the remnant of Judah, those who have come to dwell as an alien there in the land of Egypt, to return [to] the land of Judah where they [are] {longing} to return to dwell there, for they will not turn back, {but only} [some] survivors.'"

But what is he, this that swelleth up as it were a flood, roaring and raging like the streams of water?

Even her hired ones in her midst are as calves of the stall, For even they have turned, They have fled together, they have not stood, For the day of their calamity hath come on them, The time of their inspection.

Flee ye, deliver yourselves, Ye are as a naked thing in a wilderness.

Those inhabiting Moab, forsook the cities and dwelt in the rock, and they were as the dove, she will nest in the regions beyond the mouth of the pit

Thy high stomach and the pride of thy heart have deceived thee; Because thou wilt dwell in the holes of stony rocks, and have the high mountains in possession. Nevertheless, though thy nest were as high as the Eagles, yet will I cast thee down, sayeth the LORD.

Behold, the enemy shall come and flee up hither, like as it were an Eagle and spread his wings upon Bozrah. Then shall the hearts of the worthies in Edom be as the heart of a woman travailing of child."

For, lo, I am stirring up, And am causing to come up against Babylon, An assembly of great nations from a land of the north, And they have set in array against her, From thence she is captured, Its arrow -- as a skilful hero -- returneth not empty,

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, every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

Every man has become stupid and brutelike, without knowledge [of God];
Every goldsmith is shamed by the cast images he has made;
For his molten idols are a lie,
And there is no breath [of life] or spirit in them.

Vanity, they are, A handiwork of mockeries, - In the time of their visitation, shall they perish.

[He says], "You [are] a war club for me, a weapon of battle, and I smash nations with you, and I destroy kingdoms with you.

No one will be able to retrieve a cornerstone
or a foundation stone from you,
because you will become desolate forever.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

And lest your heart shall be faint and ye be afraid for the report being heard in the land; and a report came in a year, and after it in a year a report, and violence in the land, dominion against dominion.

And after reading them, say, O Lord, you have said about this place that it is to be cut off, so that no one will be living in it, not a man or a beast, but it will be unpeopled for ever.

Then the city was breached, and all {the soldiers} fled and went out from the city [by] night [by the] way of [the] gate between the two walls that [are] at the garden of the king, though [the] Chaldeans [were] all around the city. And they went [in] the direction of the Jordan Valley.

And there were ninety and six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were a hundred upon the network round about.