It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.

See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what see you? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.

Then said the LORD unto me, You have well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What see you? And I said, I see a boiling pot; and it is facing away from the north.

Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.

For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set everyone his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls round about, and against all the cities of Judah.

You therefore prepare yourself, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command you: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound you before them.

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?

Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

Therefore I will yet plead with you, says the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

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

Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be you very desolate, says the LORD.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed themselves out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

And now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what have you to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

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?

For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord GOD.

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;

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

Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but plainly upon all these things.

Yet you say, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with you, because you say, I have not sinned.

They say, If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man's, may he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, says the LORD.

Will he reserve his anger forever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and done all the evil things that you could.

And I said after she had done all these things, Turn you unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

And I saw, when for all the causes for which backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

And it came to pass through the lightness of her harlotry, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with trees.

And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned unto me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD.

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.

At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil hearts.

In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.

If you will return, O Israel, says the LORD, return unto me: and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight, then shall you not be moved.

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

And it shall come to pass at that day, says the LORD, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.

At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places blows in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,

Your way and your doings have procured these things unto you; this is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reaches unto your heart.

My soul, my soul! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

For thus has the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not relent, neither will I turn back from it.

The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell in it.

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.

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its broad places, if you can find a man, if there is any that executes justice, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it.

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.

They have lied about the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine:

And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.

Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from afar, O house of Israel, says the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you know not, neither understand what they say.

And they shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat: they shall eat up your flocks and your herds: they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees: they shall impoverish your fortified cities, in which you trusted, with the sword.

And it shall come to pass, when you shall say, Why does the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shall you answer them, Like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,

Fear you not me? says the LORD: will you not tremble at my presence, who has placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though its waves toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?

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

They have grown fat, they shine: yea, they pass over the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not defend.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their own power; and my people love to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

O you children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a signal of fire in Beth-haccherem: for evil appears out of the north, and great destruction.

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

Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.

And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, says the LORD.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I punish them they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

Thus says the LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it.

Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.

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.

We have heard the report of it: our hands grow feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.

Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD.

But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole descendants of Ephraim.

See you not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Add your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

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.

Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there is no room.

At that time, says the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:

I hearkened and heard, but they spoke not aright: no man repented himself of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle.

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?

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

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.

Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lies in wait.

Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it, for why is the land perished and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through?

And the LORD says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked in it;

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with water.

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.

Yet hear the word of the LORD, O you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.

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.