Thus says the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

Has a nation changed its gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

The young lions roared upon him, and growled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a wild vine unto me?

How can you say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see your way in the valley, know what you have done: you are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;

Saying to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.

But where are your gods that you have made yourself? let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.

O generation, see you the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto you?

Will you not from this time cry unto me, My father, you are the guide of my youth?

And it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto you; for you are the LORD our God.

Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are ruined.

Like keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she has been rebellious against me, says the LORD.

Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is plundered: suddenly are my tents plundered, and my curtains in a moment.

For my people are foolish, they have not known me; they are stupid children, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but how to do good they have no knowledge.

And when you are plundered, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain shall you make yourself fair; your lovers will despise you, they will seek your life.

O LORD, are not your eyes upon the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the law of their God.

Therefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the desert shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: everyone that goes out there shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.

How shall I pardon you for this? your children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

Go you up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her branches; for they are not the LORD's.

Their quiver is as an open sepulcher, they are all mighty men.

For among my people are found wicked men: they lie in wait, as he that sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they have become great, and grown rich.

Prepare you war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goes away, for the shadows of the evening are lengthening.

As a fountain casts out her waters, so she casts out her wickedness: violence and plundering are heard in her; before me continually are grief and wounds.

To what purpose comes 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.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against you, O daughter of Zion.

They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are bronze and iron; they are all corrupters.

The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain: for the wicked are not removed.

Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

How do you say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly he made it falsely; the pen of the scribes made it a lie.

The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in 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 in it.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are 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, says the LORD.

For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beasts are fled; they are gone.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we plundered! we are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will punish all them who are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the farthest corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Thus says the LORD, Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the nations are dismayed at them.

For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

Since as there is none like unto you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might.

But they are altogether senseless and foolish: the wooden idol is a doctrine of vanities.

Silver beaten into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the craftsman, and of the hands of the goldsmith: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of skillful men.

They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their judgment they shall perish.

My tent is plundered, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent anymore, and to set up my curtains.

They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

The LORD called your name, A green olive tree, fair, and with good fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.

Righteous are you, O LORD, when I plead with you: yet let me talk with you of your judgments: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

You have planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: you are near in their mouth, and far from their heart.

How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell in it? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our latter end.

My heritage is unto me like a speckled bird of prey, the birds round about are against her; come you, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.

And if you say in your heart, Why come these things upon me? For the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and your heels made bare.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do good, that are accustomed to doing evil.

O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for your name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you.

Why should you be as a man confused, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet you, O LORD, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; leave us not.

If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.

Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? are not you he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon you: for you have made all these things.

And it shall come to pass, if they say unto you, Where shall we go forth? then you shall tell them, Thus says the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.

You have forsaken me, says the LORD, you are gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against you, and destroy you; I am weary of relenting.

Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.

For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land;

For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from my eyes.

Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for you are my praise.

Be not a terror unto me: you are my hope in the day of evil.

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? says the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived: you are stronger than I, and have prevailed: I am in derision daily, everyone mocks me.

Thus says the LORD God of Israel; Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, who besiege you outside the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city.

And afterward, says the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.

For thus says the LORD unto the king's house of Judah; You are Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make you a wilderness; and cities which are not inhabited.

But your eyes and your heart are for nothing but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from the passes: for all your lovers are destroyed.

Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel in which is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his descendants, and are cast into a land which they know not?

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their might is not right.

For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, says the LORD.

I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.

How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;

One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

Then said the LORD unto me, What see you, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad.

Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.

And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad; surely thus says the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the rest of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:

And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that are written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.

And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are beyond the sea,

Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the farthest corners,

And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.

A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, says the LORD.

Wail, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, you leaders of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are come; and you shall fall like a choice vessel.

And the peaceful habitations are cut down because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed right unto me.

But if they are prophets, and if the word of the LORD is with them, let them now make intercession to the LORD of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon.

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the rest of the elders who were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;

For thus says the LORD, That after seventy years are accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

Know that thus says the LORD of the king that sits upon the throne of David, and of all the people that dwell in this city, and of your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity;