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

But if you will not listen,
my innermost being will weep in secret
because of your pride.
My eyes will overflow with tears,
for the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.

Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of these people.

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd,
and I have not longed for the fatal day.
You know my words were spoken in Your presence.

Isn’t Ephraim a precious son to Me,
a delightful child?
Whenever I speak against him,
I certainly still think about him.
Therefore, My inner being yearns for him;
I will truly have compassion on him.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The officials then said to the king, “This man ought to die, because he is weakening the morale of the warriors who remain in this city and of all the people by speaking to them in this way. This man is not seeking the well-being of this people, but disaster.”

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, released him at Ramah. When he found him, he was bound in chains with all the exiles of Jerusalem and Judah who were being exiled to Babylon.

As when Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the Lord, “no one will live there; no human being will even stay in it as a temporary resident.

Hazor will become a jackals’ den,
a desolation forever.
No one will live there;
no human being will even stay in it as a temporary resident.

Just as God demolished Sodom and Gomorrah
and their neighboring towns—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
so no one will live there;
no human being will even stay in it
as a temporary resident.

Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry and arid land,
a land where no one lives,
where no human being passes through.