It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and told me:

I have now filled your mouth with My words.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”

The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I watch over My word to accomplish it.”

Again the word of the Lord came to me inquiring, “What do you see?”

And I replied, “I see a boiling pot, its lip tilted from the north to the south.”

Then the Lord said to me, “Disaster will be poured out from the north on all who live in the land.

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.

“Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the Lord says:

I remember the loyalty of your youth,
your love as a bride—
how you followed Me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.

Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of His harvest.
All who ate of it found themselves guilty;
disaster came on them.”
This is the Lord’s declaration.

This is what the Lord says:

What fault did your fathers find in Me
that they went so far from Me,
followed worthless idols,
and became worthless themselves?

I brought you to a fertile land
to eat its fruit and bounty,
but after you entered, you defiled My land;
you made My inheritance detestable.

Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?
(But they were not gods!)
Yet My people have exchanged their Glory
for useless idols.

Be horrified at this, heavens;
be shocked and utterly appalled.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The young lions have roared at him;
they have roared loudly.
They have laid waste his land.
His cities are in ruins, without inhabitants.

Now what will you gain
by traveling along the way to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
What will you gain
by traveling along the way to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

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.

How can you protest, “I am not defiled;
I have not followed the Baals”?
Look at your behavior in the valley;
acknowledge what you have done.
You are a swift young camel
twisting and turning on her way,

a wild donkey at home in the wilderness.
She sniffs the wind in the heat of her desire.
Who can control her passion?
All who look for her will not become tired;
they will find her in her mating season.

Keep your feet from going bare
and your throat from thirst.
But you say, “It’s hopeless;
I love strangers,
and I will continue to follow them.”

Can a young woman forget her jewelry
or a bride her wedding sash?
Yet My people have forgotten Me
for countless days.

Moreover, you will be led out from here
with your hands on your head
since the Lord has rejected those you trust;
you will not succeed even with their help.

Will He bear a grudge forever?
Will He be endlessly infuriated?”
This is what you have said,
but you have done the evil things
you are capable of.

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

I thought: After she has done all these things, she will return to Me. But she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

I observed that it was because unfaithful Israel had committed adultery that I had sent her away and had given her a certificate of divorce. Nevertheless, her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid but also went and prostituted herself.

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.

When you multiply and increase in the land, in those days”—the Lord’s declaration—“no one will say any longer, ‘The ark of the Lord’s covenant.’ It will never come to mind, and no one will remember or miss it. It will never again be made.

At that time Jerusalem will be called, Yahweh’s Throne, and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of Yahweh in Jerusalem. They will cease to follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

From the time of our youth
the shameful one has consumed
what our fathers have worked for—
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.

For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:

Break up the unplowed ground;
do not sow among the thorns.

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
men of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.
Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire
and burn with no one to extinguish it
because of your evil deeds.

Declare in Judah, proclaim in Jerusalem, and say:

Blow the ram’s horn throughout the land.
Cry out loudly and say:
Assemble yourselves,
and let’s flee to the fortified cities.

A lion has gone up from his thicket;
a destroyer of nations has set out.
He has left his lair
to make your land a waste.
Your cities will be reduced to uninhabited ruins.

I said, “Oh no, Lord God, You have certainly deceived this people and Jerusalem, by announcing, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to My dear people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

a wind too strong for this comes at My call. Now I will also pronounce judgments against them.’”

Your way of life and your actions
have brought this on you.
This is your punishment. It is very bitter,
because it has reached your heart!

“For My people are fools;
they do not know Me.
They are foolish children,
without understanding.
They are skilled in doing what is evil,
but they do not know how to do what is good.”

I looked at the earth,
and it was formless and empty.
I looked to the heavens,
and their light was gone.

I looked at the mountains,
and they were quaking;
all the hills shook.

For this is what the Lord says:

The whole land will be a desolation,
but I will not finish it off.

Because of this, the earth will mourn;
the skies above will grow dark.
I have spoken; I have planned,
and I will not relent or turn back from it.

Every city flees
at the sound of the horseman and the archer.
They enter the thickets
and climb among the rocks.
Every city is abandoned;
no inhabitant is left.

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.

I hear a cry like a woman in labor,
a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child.
The cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath,
stretching out her hands:
Woe is me, for my life is weary
because of the murderers!

Why should I forgive you?
Your children have abandoned Me
and sworn by those who are not gods.
I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;
they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.

They have contradicted the Lord
and insisted, “It won’t happen.
Harm won’t come to us;
we won’t see sword or famine.”

Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says:

Because you have spoken this word,
I am going to make My words
become fire in your mouth.
These people are the wood,
and the fire will consume them.

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.

When people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You will respond to them: Just as you abandoned Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

“Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah, saying:

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.

for wicked men live among My people.
They watch like fowlers lying in wait.
They set a trap;
they catch men.

The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests rule by their own authority.
My people love it like this.
But what will you do at the end of it?

“Run for cover, Benjaminites,
out of Jerusalem!
Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa;
raise a smoke signal over Beth-haccherem,
for disaster threatens from the north,
even great destruction.

Set them apart for war against her;
rise up, let’s attack at noon.
Woe to us, for the day is passing;
the evening shadows grow long.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Cut down the trees;
raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem.
This city must be punished.
There is nothing but oppression within her.

As a well gushes out its water,
so she pours out her evil.
Violence and destruction resound in her.
Sickness and wounds keep coming to My attention.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Glean the remnant of Israel
as thoroughly as a vine.
Pass your hand once more like a grape gatherer
over the branches.

Who can I speak to and give such a warning
that they will listen?
Look, their ear is uncircumcised,
so they cannot pay attention.
See, the word of the Lord has become contemptible to them—
they find no pleasure in it.

But I am full of the Lord’s wrath;
I am tired of holding it back.
Pour it out on the children in the street,
on the gang of young men as well.
For both husband and wife will be captured,
the old with the very old.

Their houses will be turned over to others,
their fields and wives as well,
for I will stretch out My hand
against the inhabitants of the land.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Were they ashamed when they acted so abhorrently?
They weren’t at all ashamed.
They can no longer feel humiliation.
Therefore, they will fall among the fallen.
When I punish them, they will collapse,
says the Lord.

This is what the Lord says:

Stand by the roadways and look.
Ask about the ancient paths:
Which is the way to what is good?
Then take it
and find rest for yourselves.
But they protested, “We won’t!”

Therefore listen, you nations
and you witnesses,
learn what the charge is against them.

What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba
or sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt offerings are not acceptable;
your sacrifices do not please Me.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:
I am going to place stumbling blocks before these people;
fathers and sons together will stumble over them;
friends and neighbors will also perish.

This is what the Lord says:

Look, an army is coming from a northern land;
a great nation will be awakened
from the remote regions of the earth.

We have heard about it,
and we are discouraged.
Distress has seized us—
pain like a woman in labor.

Don’t go out to the fields;
don’t walk on the road.
For the enemy has a sword;
terror is on every side.

The bellows blow,
blasting the lead with fire.
The refining is completely in vain;
the evil ones are not separated out.

“Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and there call out this word: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your deeds, and I will allow you to live in this place.

if you no longer oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow and no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves,

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.

“But return to My place that was at Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at first. See what I did to it because of the evil of My people Israel.

what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that is called by My name—the house in which you trust—the place that I gave you and your ancestors.

I will drive you from My presence, just as I drove out all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods so that they provoke Me to anger.

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

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Look, My anger—My burning wrath—is about to be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,

for when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifice.

However, I did give them this command: Obey Me, and then I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.

Yet they didn’t listen or pay attention but followed their own advice and according to their own stubborn, evil heart. They went backward and not forward.

Since the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent all My servants the prophets to you time and time again.

You must therefore declare to them: This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths.

Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under His wrath.

“For the Judeans have done what is evil in My sight.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “They have set up their detestable things in the house that is called by My name and defiled it.

“At that time”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of her officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the residents of Jerusalem will be brought out of their graves.

“You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says:

Do people fall and not get up again?
If they turn away, do they not return?

I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.

The wise will be put to shame;
they will be dismayed and snared.
They have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom do they really have?

Were they ashamed when they acted so abhorrently?
They weren’t at all ashamed.
They can no longer feel humiliation.
Therefore, they will fall among the fallen.
When I punish them, they will collapse,”
says the Lord.

From Dan the snorting of horses is heard.
At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,
the whole land quakes.
They come to devour the land and everything in it,
the city and all its residents.

Each one betrays his friend;
no one tells the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they wear themselves out doing wrong.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

I am about to refine them and test them,
for what else can I do
because of My dear people?

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.