unto whom the word of Jehovah hath been in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign,

Indeed, I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

They will come, and each king will set up his throne
at the entrance to Jerusalem’s gates.
They will attack all her surrounding walls
and all the other cities of Judah.

They will fight against you but never prevail over you, since I am with you to rescue you.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

"Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: 'This is what the Lord says: "I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

Therefore, I will bring a case against you again.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will bring a case against your children’s children.

For go over [to] the coasts of Cyprus and look, and send [to] Kedar and consider very closely, and see if there has been [a thing] like this:

Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

Against him roar do young lions, They have given forth their voice, And make his land become a desolation, His cities have been burnt without inhabitant.

Even the sons of Noph and Tahpanhes have been crushing the crown of the head.

Your own evil will discipline you;
your own apostasies will reprimand you.
Think it over and see how evil and bitter it is
for you to abandon the Lord your God
and to have no fear of Me.
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

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?

Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.

How sayest thou, 'I have not been defiled, After the Baalim I have not gone?' See thy way in a valley, know what thou hast done, A swift dromedary winding her ways,

Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

Like the shame of a thief when he is caught,
so the house of Israel has been put to shame.
They, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets

Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have given me life: for their backs have been turned to me, not their faces: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Up! and be our saviour.

And where are thy gods, that thou hast made to thyself? Let them arise, if they may save thee, In the time of thy vexation, For -- the number of thy cities have been thy gods, O Judah,

Why do you bring a case against Me?
All of you have rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

O generation, you see the word of Yahweh. Have I been a desert to Israel? Or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, 'We roam about freely, we will not come again to you'?

Also in thy skirts hath been found the blood of innocent needy souls, Not by digging have I found them, but upon all these.

And thou sayest, 'Because I have been innocent, Surely turned back hath His anger from me?' Lo, I have been judged with thee, Because of thy saying, 'I have not sinned.'

What? thou art very vile to repeat thy way, Even of Egypt thou art ashamed, As thou hast been ashamed of Asshur,

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

"Lift up your eyes at [the] barren heights, and see where you have not been ravished. Beside the roads you sat for them like an Arab in the desert, and you have defiled [the] land with your fornication and with your wickedness.

Therefore rain showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come. Yet {you have} [the] forehead of a woman prostitute, you refuse to be ashamed.

Even now you say to me, 'You are my father! You have been my faithful companion ever since I was young.

And I said, after she had been doing all these things, Unto me, shall thou return? and she returned not, - and her treacherous sister Judah saw it!

And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away from me, had been untrue to me, I had put her away and given her a statement in writing ending the relation between us, still Judah, her false sister, had no fear, but went and did the same.

Yet in spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah didn’t return to Me with all her heart—only in pretense.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

And it hath come to pass, when ye are multiplied, And have been fruitful in the land, In those days -- an affirmation of Jehovah, They say not any more, 'The ark of the covenant of Jehovah,' Nor doth it go up on the heart, Nor do they remember concerning it, Nor do they inspect, nor is it made again.

At that time they cry to Jerusalem, 'O throne of Jehovah,' And gathered unto her hath been all the nations, For the name of Jehovah, to Jerusalem, Nor do they go any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

Truly, as a wife is false to her husband, so have you been false to me, O Israel, says the Lord.

Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

“But the shameful act [of idolatry] has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth—their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Let us be stretched on the earth in our downfall, covering ourselves with our shame: for we have been sinners against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our earliest years even till this day: and we have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God.

If you return, Israel—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will return to Me,
if you remove your detestable idols
from My presence
and do not waver,

And it hath come to pass, in that day, An affirmation of Jehovah: 'Perish doth the heart of the king, And the heart of the princes, And astonished have been the priests, And the prophets do wonder.'

Lo, as clouds he cometh up, And as a hurricane his chariots, Lighter than eagles have been his horses, Woe to us, for we have been spoiled.

As keepers of a field are they against her round about, because she hath been rebellious against me, saith Jehovah.

Destruction on destruction is proclaimed, For spoiled hath been all the land, Suddenly spoiled have been my tents, In a moment -- my curtains.

I beheld, The mountains, and lo! they were trembling, - And all the hills, had been violently moved:

I have looked, and lo, The fruitful place is a wilderness, And all its cities have been broken down, Because of Jehovah, Because of the fierceness of His anger.

For this doth the land mourn, And black have been the heavens above, because I have spoken -- I have purposed, And I have not repented, Nor do I turn back from it.

All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

What wilt thou now do, thou being destroyed? For though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, and deckest thee with gold. Though thou paintest thy face with colors, yet shalt thou trim thyself in vain. For those that hitherto have been thy great favorers, shall abhor thee, and go about to slay thee.

And I -- I said, 'Surely these are poor, They have been foolish, For they have not known the way of Jehovah, The judgment of their God.

Therefore smitten them hath a lion out of the forest, A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them, A leopard is watching over their cities, Every one who is going out of them is torn, For many have been their transgressions, Mighty have been their backslidings.

Fed horses -- they have been early risers, Each to the wife of his neighbour they neigh.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have been very false to me, says the Lord.

I am about to bring a nation
from far away against you,
house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
It is an established nation,
an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know
and whose speech you do not understand.

They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

Do you not fear Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Do you not tremble before Me,
the One who set the sand as the boundary of the sea,
an enduring barrier that it cannot cross?
The waves surge, but they cannot prevail.
They roar but cannot pass over it.

Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

For the wicked have been found among My people. It looketh about the covering of snares, They have set up a trap -- men they capture.

As a cage full of fowls, So their houses are full of deceit, Therefore they have been great, and are rich.

They have been fat, they have shone, Yea, they have overpassed the acts of the evil, Judgment they have not judged, The judgment of the fatherless -- and they prosper, And the judgment of the needy they have not judged.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

An astonishing and horrible thing hath been in the land.

Strengthen yourselves, sons of Benjamin, From the midst of Jerusalem, And in Tekoa blow ye a trumpet, And over Beth-Haccerem lift ye up a flame, For evil hath been seen from the north, And great destruction.

To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may take note? see, their ears are stopped, and they are not able to give attention: see, the word of the Lord has been a cause of shame to them, 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.

Hear thou earth also: behold, I will cause a plague come upon this people, even the fruit of their own imaginations. For they have not been obedient unto my words and to my law, but abhorred them.

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.

'We have heard its sound, feeble have been our hands, Distress hath seized us, pain as of a travailing woman.

The bellows have been burnt, By fire hath the lead been consumed, In vain hath a refiner refined, And the wicked have not been drawn away.

The word that hath been unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying,

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.

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 den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Therefore will I do to the house Whereon my Name hath been called Wherein, ye, are trusting, Even to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, - Just as I did unto Shiloh;

But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to My voice, And I have been to you for God, And ye -- ye are to Me for a people, And have walked in all the way that I command you, So that it is well for you.

And thou hast said unto them: This is the nation that hath not hearkened, To the voice of Jehovah its God, Nor have they accepted instruction, Perished hath stedfastness, Yea, it hath been cut off from their mouth.

For the sons of Judah, have done, that which was wicked in mine eyes, Declareth Yahweh, - They have set their abominations in the house whereon my Name hath been called to defile it;

And the carcase of this people hath been for food To a fowl of the heavens, and to a beast of the earth, And there is none troubling.

And they will put them out before the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, whose lovers and servants they have been, after whom they have gone, to whom they have made prayers, and to whom they have given worship: they will not be put together or placed in the earth; they will be waste on the face of the earth.

Ashamed have been the wise, They have been affrighted, and are captured, Lo, against a word of Jehovah they kicked, And the wisdom of what -- have they?

I will gather them and bring them to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
There will be no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the fig tree,
and even the leaf will wither.
Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.

From Dan hath been heard the snorting of his horses, From the voice of the neighings of his mighty ones, Trembled hath all the land, And they come in and consume the land and its fulness, The city and the inhabitants in it.

Harvest has passed, summer has ended,
but we have not been saved.

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

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healer there? Why, then, has the healing of the daughter of my people not been restored?

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.

I wish I had a lodging place in the desert where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. Then I would desert my people and walk away from them because they are all unfaithful to God, a congregation of people that has been disloyal to him.

And they bend their tongue, their bow is a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah!

Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,
everything has fled—they have gone away.

Who is the wise man? and he understandeth this, And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah spake? And he doth declare it, For what hath the land perished? It hath been burnt up as a wilderness, Without any passing through.

But they have been walking in the pride of their hearts, going after the Baals, as their fathers gave them teaching.

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.

Tell your daughters and neighbors, 'The Lord says, "The dead bodies of people will lie scattered everywhere like manure scattered on a field. They will lie scattered on the ground like grain that has been cut down but has not been gathered."'"

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.

Every son of earth hath become too brutish to discern, Every goldsmith, hath been put to shame by a graven image, - For a falsehood, is his molten image, Seeing there is no breath in them.

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.

Woe to me for my breaking, Grievious hath been my smiting, And I said, Only, this is my sickness, and I bear it.