I planted you, a choice vine
from the very best seed.
How then could you turn into
a degenerate, foreign 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.

Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You have scattered your favors to strangers
under every green tree
and have not obeyed My voice.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

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.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?

>

He decorates it with silver and gold.
It is fastened with hammer and nails,
so it won’t totter.

Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Uphaz
from the hands of a goldsmith,
the work of a craftsman.
Their clothing is blue and purple,
all the work of skilled artisans.

And when you ask yourself,
“Why have these things happened to me?”
It is because of your great guilt
that your skirts have been stripped off,
your body exposed.

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

This is what the Lord says concerning these people:

Truly they love to wander;
they never rest their feet.
So the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins.

We acknowledge our wickedness, Lord,
the guilt of our fathers;
indeed, we have sinned against You.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

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

I will first repay them double for their guilt and sin because they have polluted My land. They have filled My inheritance with the lifelessness of their detestable and abhorrent idols.”

Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave the highland crags?
Or does cold water flowing from a distance ever fail?

But You, Lord, know
all their deadly plots against me.
Do not wipe out their guilt;
do not blot out their sin before You.
Let them be forced to stumble before You;
deal with them in the time of Your anger.

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.

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.

For I am already bringing disaster on the city that bears My name, so how could you possibly go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

All your lovers have forgotten you;
they no longer look for you,
for I have struck you as an enemy would,
with the discipline of someone cruel,
because of your enormous guilt
and your innumerable sins.

Why do you cry out about your injury?
Your pain has no cure!
I have done these things to you
because of your enormous guilt
and your innumerable sins.

Go up to Gilead and get balm,
Virgin Daughter Egypt!
You have multiplied remedies in vain;
there is no healing for you.

I will return Israel to his grazing land,
and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan;
he will be satisfied
in the hill country of Ephraim and of Gilead.

In those days and at that time—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
one will search for Israel’s guilt,
but there will be none,
and for Judah’s sins,
but they will not be found,
for I will forgive those I leave as a remnant.

For Israel and Judah are not left widowed
by their God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land is full of guilt
against the Holy One of Israel.

Leave Babylon;
save your lives, each of you!
Don’t perish because of her guilt.
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance—
He will pay her what she deserves.

We tried to heal Babylon,
but she could not be healed.
Abandon her!
Let each of us go to his own land,
for her judgment extends to the sky
and reaches as far as the clouds.

The commander of the guards took away the bowls, firepans, sprinkling basins, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—whatever was gold or silver.