The young lions have roared at him;
they have roared loudly.
They have laid waste his land.
His cities are in ruins, without inhabitants.

How can you protest, “I am not defiled;
I have not followed the Baals”?
Look at your behavior in the valley;
acknowledge what you have done.
You are a swift young camel
twisting and turning on her way,

say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their back to Me
and not their face,
yet in their time of disaster they beg,
“Rise up and save us!”

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.

Moreover, your skirts are stained
with the blood of the innocent poor.
You did not catch them breaking and entering.
But in spite of all these things

How unstable you are,
constantly changing your ways!
You will be put to shame by Egypt
just as you were put to shame by Assyria.

Will He bear a grudge forever?
Will He be endlessly infuriated?”
This is what you have said,
but you have done the evil things
you are capable of.

I will give you shepherds who are loyal to Me, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and skill.

Return, you faithless children.
I will heal your unfaithfulness.
“Here we are, coming to You,
for You are the Lord our God.

Look, he advances like clouds;
his chariots are like a storm.
His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are ruined!

Warn the nations: Look!
Proclaim to Jerusalem:
Those who besiege are coming
from a distant land;
they raise their voices
against the cities of Judah.

Disaster after disaster is reported
because the whole land is destroyed.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed,
my tent curtains, in a moment.

“For My people are fools;
they do not know Me.
They are foolish children,
without understanding.
They are skilled in doing what is evil,
but they do not know how to do what is good.”

And you, devastated one, what are you doing
that you dress yourself in scarlet,
that you adorn yourself with gold jewelry,
that you enlarge your eyes with paint?
You beautify yourself for nothing.
Your lovers reject you;
they want to take your life.

When they say, “As the Lord lives,”
they are swearing falsely.

Then I thought:

They are just the poor;
they have played the fool.
For they don’t understand the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.

Therefore, a lion from the forest will strike them down.
A wolf from an arid plain will ravage them.
A leopard keeps watch over their cities.
Anyone who leaves them will be torn to pieces
because their rebellious acts are many,
their unfaithful deeds numerous.

Why should I forgive you?
Your children have abandoned Me
and sworn by those who are not gods.
I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;
they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.

They are well-fed, eager stallions,
each neighing after someone else’s wife.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says:

Because you have spoken this word,
I am going to make My words
become fire in your mouth.
These people are the wood,
and the fire will consume them.

Their quiver is like an open grave;
they are all mighty warriors.

Like a cage full of birds,
so their houses are full of deceit.
Therefore they have grown powerful and rich.

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.

They grasp bow and javelin.
They are cruel and show no mercy.
Their voice roars like the sea,
and they ride on horses,
lined up like men in battle formation
against you, Daughter Zion.

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

All are stubborn rebels
spreading slander.
They are bronze and iron;
all of them are corrupt.

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

They are called rejected silver,
for the Lord has rejected them.

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’?

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

“Therefore, take note! Days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. Topheth will become a cemetery, because there will be no other burial place.

“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?

Even the stork in the sky
knows her seasons.
The turtledove, swallow, and crane
are aware of their migration,
but My people do not know
the requirements of the Lord.

“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.

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.

If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

Their tongues are deadly arrows—
they speak deception.
With his mouth
a man speaks peaceably with his friend,
but inwardly he sets up an ambush.

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.

“The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when I will punish all the circumcised yet uncircumcised:

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.

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

They are both stupid and foolish,
instructed by worthless idols
made of wood!

You are to say this to them, “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

When He thunders,
the waters in the heavens are in turmoil,
and He causes the clouds to rise
from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
and brings the wind from His storehouses.

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.

They are worthless, a work to be mocked.
At the time of their punishment
they will be destroyed.

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.

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.

The Lord named you
a flourishing olive tree,
beautiful with well-formed fruit.
He has set fire to it,
and its branches are consumed
with a great roaring sound.

You planted them, and they have taken root.
They have grown and produced fruit.
You are ever on their lips,
but far from their conscience.

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.

“Take the underwear that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to the Euphrates and hide it in a rocky crevice.”

The cities of the Negev are under siege;
no one can help them.
All of Judah has been taken into exile,
taken completely into exile.

Can the Cushite change his skin,
or a leopard his spots?
If so, you might be able to do what is good,
you who are instructed in evil.

Your adulteries and your lustful neighing,
your heinous prostitution
on the hills, in the fields—
I have seen your detestable acts.
Woe to you, Jerusalem!
You are unclean—
for how long yet?

Judah mourns;
her gates languish.
Her people are on the ground in mourning;
Jerusalem’s cry rises up.

Their nobles send their servants for water.
They go to the cisterns;
they find no water;
their containers return empty.
They are ashamed and humiliated;
they cover their heads.

The ground is cracked
since no rain has fallen on the land.
The farmers are ashamed;
they cover their heads.

Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights
panting for air like jackals.
Their eyes fail
because there are no green plants.

Though our guilt testifies against us,
Yahweh, act for Your name’s sake.
Indeed, our rebellions are many;
we have sinned against You.

Hope of Israel,
its Savior in time of distress,
why are You like a foreigner in the land,
like a traveler stopping only for the night?

Why are You like a helpless man,
like a warrior unable to save?
Yet You are among us, Yahweh,
and we are called by Your name.
Don’t leave us!

And I replied, “Oh no, Lord God! The prophets are telling them, ‘You won’t see sword or suffer famine. I will certainly give you true peace in this place.’”

But the Lord said to me, “These prophets are prophesying a lie in My name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, worthless divination, the deceit of their own minds.

The people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. There will be no one to bury them—they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will pour out their own evil on them.”

You are to speak this word to them:
Let my eyes overflow with tears;
day and night may they not stop,
for the virgin daughter of my people
has been destroyed by a great disaster,
an extremely severe wound.

Can any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain?
Or can the skies alone give showers?
Are You not the Lord our God?
We therefore put our hope in You,
for You have done all these things.

So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.

“However, take note! The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’

for My gaze takes in all their ways. They are not concealed from Me, and their guilt is not hidden from My sight.

Can one make gods for himself?
But they are not gods.

Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me, and I will be saved,
for You are my praise.

Don’t become a terror to me.
You are my refuge in the day of disaster.

Then people will come from the cities of Judah and from the area around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the Judean foothills, from the hill country and from the Negev bringing burnt offerings and sacrifice, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

“House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.

Pay attention to me, Lord.
Hear what my opponents are saying!

“Therefore, take note! The days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

“Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the people traveling with you,

and you are to proclaim to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: I will shatter these people and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be mended. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there is no other place for burials.

But Jeremiah answered, “This is what you are to say to Zedekiah:

‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will repel the weapons of war in your hands, those you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall, and I will bring them into the center of this city.

Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, and plague, but whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live and will retain his life like the spoils of war.

You are to say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David—you, your officers, and your people who enter these gates.

For this is what the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

You are like Gilead to Me,
or the summit of Lebanon,
but I will certainly turn you into a wilderness,
uninhabited cities.

Are you a king because you excel in cedar?
Didn’t your father eat and drink
and administer justice and righteousness?
Then it went well with him.

Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered pot,
a jar no one wants?
Why are he and his descendants hurled out
and cast into a land they have not known?

“The days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—
“when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David.
He will reign wisely as king
and administer justice and righteousness in the land.

“The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’

because both prophet and priest are ungodly,
even in My house I have found their evil.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Among the prophets of Jerusalem also
I saw a horrible thing:
They commit adultery and walk in lies.
They strengthen the hands of evildoers,
and none turns his back on evil.
They are all like Sodom to Me;
Jerusalem’s residents are like Gomorrah.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are making you worthless. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the Lord’s mouth.

I am against those who prophesy false dreams”—the Lord’s declaration—“telling them and leading My people astray with their falsehoods and their boasting. It was not I who sent or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs! The good figs are very good, but the bad figs are extremely bad, so bad they are inedible.”

“But as for the bad figs, so bad they are inedible, this is what the Lord says: in this way I will deal with king Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem—those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt.

When the 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation’—this is the Lord’s declaration—‘the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, and I will make it a ruin forever.

all the kings of the north, both near and far from one another;
that is, all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth.
Finally, the king of Sheshach will drink after them.

“Then you are to say to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk, and vomit. Fall down and never get up again, as a result of the sword I am sending among you.