Before you were formed in the body of your mother I had knowledge of you, and before your birth I made you holy; I have given you the work of being a prophet to the nations.

But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am a child: for wherever I send you, you are to go, and whatever I give you orders to say, you are to say.

Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me.

Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted."

Then the Lord said to me, You have seen well: for I keep watch over my word to give effect to it.

And I will give my decision against them on account of all their evil-doing; because they have given me up, burning perfumes to other gods and worshipping the works of their hands.

So make yourself ready, and go and say to them everything I give you orders to say: do not be overcome by fear of them, or I will send fear on you before them.

And I, lo, I have given thee this day for a fenced city, and for an iron pillar, and for brazen walls over all the land, to the kings of Judah, to its heads, to its priests, and to the people of the land;

They will be fighting against you, but they will not overcome you: for I am with you, says the Lord, to give you salvation.

Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and all the families of Israel:

“[Even] the priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
And those who deal with the law [given to Moses] did not know Me.
The rulers and shepherds also transgressed against Me,
And the prophets prophesied by [the authority and in the name of] Baal
And walked after [idolatrous] things that did not benefit [them].

For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to Kedar and give deep thought to it; and see if there has ever been such a thing.

Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though they are no gods? but my people have given up their glory in exchange for what is of no profit.

For my people have done two evils; they have given up me, the fountain of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water.

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.

Has not this come on you because you have given up the Lord your God, who was your guide by the way?

The evil you yourselves have done will be your punishment, your errors will be your judge: be certain then, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing to give up the Lord your God, and no longer to be moved by fear of me, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

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.

But where are the gods you have made for yourselves? let them come, if they are able to give you salvation in the time of your trouble: for the number of your gods is as the number of your towns, O Judah.

Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your head: for the Lord has given up those in whom you have put your faith, and they will be of no help to you.

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he may not take her back again. Doing that would utterly defile the land. But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. So what makes you think you can return to me?" says the Lord.

When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, "Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods.

And I saw [that even though Judah knew] that for all the acts of adultery (idolatry) of faithless Israel, I [the Lord] had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid; but she went and was a prostitute also [following after idols].

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.

However, you must confess that you have done wrong, and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God. You must confess that you have given yourself to foreign gods under every green tree, and have not obeyed my commands,' says the Lord.

“Then [in the final time] I will give you [spiritual] shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and [true] understanding.

Then those that be of the house of Judah shall go into the house of Israel: and they shall come together out of the North, into the same land that I have given your fathers.

“Then I said,

‘How [gloriously and honorably] I would set you among My children
And give you a pleasant land—a wonderful heritage,
The most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’
And I said, ‘You shall call Me, My Father
And not turn away from following Me.’

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.

Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say, Let the horn be sounded in the land: crying out in a loud voice, Come together, and let us go into the walled towns.

A full wind will come for me: and now I will give my decision against them.

make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

They shall give them warning in every place, like as the watchmen in the field. For they have provoked me to wrath, sayeth the LORD.

News is given of destruction on destruction; all the land is made waste: suddenly my tents, straight away my curtains, are made waste.

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.

O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

How is it possible for you to have my forgiveness for this? your children have given me up, taking their oaths by those who are no gods: when I had given them food in full measure, they were false to their wives, taking their pleasure in the houses of loose women.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Their arrows give certain death, they are all men of war.

Say this openly in Jacob and give it out in Judah, saying,

Give ear now to this, O foolish people without sense; who have eyes but see nothing, and ears without the power of hearing:

‘They do not say in their heart,
“Let us now fear and worship the Lord our God [with profound awe and reverence],
Who gives rain in its season,
Both the autumn and the spring rain,
Who keeps for us
The appointed weeks of the harvest.”

They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in works of evil: they give no support to the cause of the child without a father, so that they may do well; they do not see that the poor man gets his rights.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

The prophets give false words and the priests give decisions by their direction; and my people are glad to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

To whom shall I (Jeremiah) speak and give warning
That they may hear?
Behold, their ears are closed [absolutely deaf to God]
And they cannot listen.
Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reprimand and an object of scorn to them;
They have no delight in it.

“For from the least of them even to the greatest of them,
Everyone is greedy for [unfair] gain;
And from the prophet even to the priest
Everyone deals deceitfully.

And I put watchmen over you, saying, Give attention to the sound of the horn; but they said, We will not give attention.

So then, give ear, you nations, and ...

Give ear, O earth: see, I will make evil come on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not given attention to my words, and they would have nothing to do with my law.

To what purpose does sweet perfume come to me from Sheba, and spices from a far country? your burned offerings give me no pleasure, your offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.

Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I do give to this people stumbling blocks, And stumbled against them have fathers and sons together, The neighbour and his friend do perish.

We have heard news of it, our hands grow slack, anxiety has grasped us, pain as a [woman who] gives birth.

O daughter of my people, put on haircloth, rolling yourself in the dust: give yourself to sorrow, as for an only son, with most bitter cries of grief; for he who makes waste will come on us suddenly.

A watch-tower I have given thee, Among My people a fortress, And thou knowest, and hast tried their way.

They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has given them up.

Take your place in the doorway of the Lord's house, and give out this word there, and say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who come inside these doors to give worship to the Lord.

For if your ways and your doings are truly changed for the better; if you truly give right decisions between a man and his neighbour;

Then come ye, and stand before me in this house, which hath my name given unto it, and say 'Tush, we are absolved quite, though we have done all these abominations.'

And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I sent my word to you, getting up early and sending, but you did not give ear; and my voice came to you, but you gave no answer:

And therefore even as I have done to Shiloh, so will I do to this house that my name is given unto, and that ye put your trust in: yea, unto the place that I have given to you and your fathers.

And as for you (Jeremiah), make no prayers for this people, send up no cry or prayer for them, make no request for them to me: for I will not give ear.

Consider this: When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

But this was the order I gave them, saying, Give ear to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people: go in all the way ordered by me, so that all may be well for you.

But they took no note and did not give ear, but were guided by the thoughts and the pride of their evil hearts, going back and not forward.

But still they took no note and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff, doing worse than their fathers.

And you are to say all these words to them, but they will not give ear to you: you will send out your voice to them, but they will give no answer.

And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

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.

Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever turning away? they will not give up their deceit, they will not come back.

I have given attention, yea, I hearken, They do not speak right, No man hath repented of his wickedness, Saying, What have I done? Every one hath turned to his courses, As a horse is rushing into battle.

The wise men are shamed, they are overcome with fear and taken: see, they have given up the word of the Lord; and what use is their wisdom to them?

“Therefore I will give their wives to others
And their fields to new owners;
Because from the least even to the greatest
Everyone is greedy for [unjust] gain;
From the prophet even to the priest
Everyone practices deceit and deals in corruption.

“I will gather and snatch them away [utterly consuming them],” says the Lord.
“There will be no grapes on the vine,
Nor figs on the fig tree,
And even the leaf will wither;
And the things that I have given them will pass away [by the hand of those whom I have appointed].”’”

Why are we sitting still [the people wonder]?
Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities
And let us die there,
For the Lord our God has decreed our ruin
And given us bitter and poisonous water to drink,
Because we have sinned against the Lord.

See, I will send snakes and poison-snakes among you, against which the wonder-worker has no power; and they will give you wounds which may not be made well, says the Lord.

O Who will give my head water enough, and a well of tears for mine eyes, that I may weep night and day for the slaughter of my people?

Who doth give me in a wilderness A lodging-place of travellers? And I leave my people, and go from them, For all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous ones.

There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

Thus will I give up Jerusalem To heaps, A habitation for jackals, - And the cities of Judah, will I give up to desolation, without inhabitant.

Who is the wise man able to see this? who is he to whom the word of the Lord has come, so that he may make it clear? why is the land given to destruction and burned up like a waste place, so that no one goes through?

And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law which I put before them, giving no attention to my voice and not being guided by it;

therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink.

Thus said Jehovah of armies, Give heed, and call ye for the wailing women, and they shall come forth; and send ye to the wise women, and they shall come forth.

But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief.

Give ear to the word which the Lord says to you, O people of Israel:

But they are altogether irrational and stupid and foolish
In their discipline of delusion—their idol is [only] wood [it is ridiculous, empty and worthless]!

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an eternal king: when he is angry, the earth is shaking with fear, and the nations give way before his wrath.

My tent is pulled down and all my cords are broken: my children have gone from me, and they are not: no longer is there anyone to give help in stretching out my tent and hanging up my curtains.

Let your wrath be let loose on the nations which have no knowledge of you, and on the families who give no worship to your name: for they have made a meal of Jacob, truly they have made a meal of him and put an end to him and made his fields a waste.

Give ear to the words of this agreement, and say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem,

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Let that man be cursed who does not give ear to the words of this agreement,

To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them out of the land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron, saying, Give ear to my voice, and do all the orders I have given you: so you will be my people, and I will be your God:

that I may complete the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day.”’” Then I answered, “Amen (so be it), O Lord.”

And the Lord said to me, Give out these words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Give ear to the words of this agreement and do them.

For I gave certain witness to your fathers on the day when I took them up out of the land of Egypt, and even to this day, getting up early and witnessing and saying, Give ear to my voice.

But they gave no attention and did not give ear, but they went on, every man in the pride of his evil heart: so I sent on them all the curses in this agreement, which I gave them orders to keep, but they did not.

They are turned back to the sins of their fathers, who would not give ear to my words; they have gone after other gods and become their servants: the people of Israel and the people of Judah have not kept the agreement which I made with their fathers.