Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.

Then said I, O Lord God! see, I have no power of words, for I am a child.

Have no fear because of them: for I am with you, to keep you safe, says the Lord.

Then Yahweh stretched out his hand and he touched my mouth, and Yahweh said to me, "Look, I have put my words in your mouth.

See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy, and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

Then said the LORD unto me, You have well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

For, lo, I am calling for all families of the kingdoms of the north, -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- and they have come, and put each his throne at the opening of the gates of Jerusalem, and by its walls round about, and by all cities of Judah.

And I will pass my judgments on them because of all their wickedness [in] that they have forsaken me, and they made sacrifices to other gods, and they bowed in worship to the works of their hands.

And therefore gird up thy loins, arise, and tell them all that I give thee in commandment. Fear them not; I will not have thee to be afraid of them.

Now look, I have made you {today} as a fortified city and as an iron pillar and a bronze wall against all the land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

and they have fought against thee, and they prevail not against thee; for with thee am I, -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- to deliver thee.

'Go, and thou hast called in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus said Jehovah: I have remembered for thee The kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, Thy going after Me in a wilderness, in a land not sown.

Thus saith Jehovah: What injustice have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and become vain?

And have not said, Where is Jehovah, Who bringeth us up out of the land of Egypt, Who leadeth us in a wilderness, In a land of deserts and pits, In a dry land, and of death-shade, In a land -- none hath passed through it, Nor dwelt hath man there?'

Yea, I bring you in to a land of fruitful fields, To eat its fruit and its goodness, And ye come in and defile My land, And Mine inheritance have made an abomination.

The priests did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh?' and those who handle the law did not know me, and the shepherds have {rebelled against me}, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and they went after [things which] do not profit.

For pass over to the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there have been such a thing.

Has a nation exchanged gods? And they [are] not gods! But my people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit.

"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, [the] source of living water, to hew out for themselves cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

[The] young lions have roared against him, they have {raised} their voices. And they have made his land as horror; his cities are destroyed, {without} an inhabitant.

Even the children of Noph and Tahapanes have fed on the crown of thy head.

Have you not brought this unto yourself, in that you have forsaken the LORD your God, when he led you by the way?

And now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what have you to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

"For from long ago you have broken your yoke, you tore to pieces your bonds. And you said, 'I will not serve!' But on every high hill and under every leafy tree you [were] lying down [as] a prostitute.

Yet I planted you [as] a choice vine, all of it a seed of trustworthiness. How then have you altered before me [into something that is] degenerate, the foreign vine?

"How can you say, 'I have not defiled myself, I have not gone after the Baals?' Look at your way in the valley, know what you have done. [You are] a young she-camel, interweaving her ways.

An untrained ass, used to the waste land, breathing up the wind in her desire; at her time, who is able to send her away? all those who are looking for her will have no need to make themselves tired; in her month they will get her.

Restrain your foot from [being] barefoot, and your throat from thirst. But you said, '[It is] hopeless. No! For I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.'

As the shame of a thief when he is found, So put to shame have been the house of Israel, They, their kings, their heads, And their priests, and their prophets,

[Those who] say to the tree, 'You [are] my father,' and to the stone, 'You gave birth [to] me.' For they have turned [their] {backs} to me, and not [their] faces. But in the time of their trouble they say, 'Arise and save us.'

But where are your gods that you have made yourself? let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.

Why do you complain to me? All of you have {rebelled against me}," {declares} Yahweh.

"For {in vain} I have struck your children. They accepted no discipline. Your sword devoured your prophets, like a ravening 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'?

Can a young woman forget her ornaments? [Or] a bride her sashes? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

Why beautify your way to seek love? therefore have you also taught the wicked ones your ways.

Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but plainly upon all these things.

yet you say, 'But I am innocent, surely his anger has turned away from me.' Look, I [am] entering into judgment with you because of your saying, 'I have not sinned.'

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.

A {saying}: 'Look, [if] a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him {and she becomes another man's wife}, will he return to her again?' Will not that land be greatly defiled? And you have prostituted [yourself] [with] many lovers, [would] you now return to me?" {declares} Yahweh.

"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.

Have you not just now called to me, 'My father, you [are] the close friend of my youth?

Will he be angry {forever}? Will he maintain [it] {always}'? Look, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could."

Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah, the king, "Have you seen what apostate Israel has done? She has gone on every high hill and under every leafy tree and she has prostituted [herself] there.

And I see when (for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery) I have sent her away, and I give the bill of her divorce unto her, that treacherous Judah her sister hath not feared, and goeth and committeth fornication -- she also.

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.

Only acknowledge your guilt, that against Yahweh your God you have rebelled, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every leafy tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,' {declares} Yahweh."

Turn back, O backsliding sons, An affirmation of Jehovah. For I have ruled over you, And taken you one of a city, and two of a family, And have brought you to Zion,

And I have given to you shepherds According to Mine own heart, And they have fed you with knowledge and understanding.

And it will be when you have multiplied and become fruitful in the land in those days," {declares} Yahweh, "they will no longer say, 'The ark of the covenant of Yahweh.' And {it will not come to mind}, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss [it], nor will it be made again.

In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.

And I have said, How do I put thee among the sons, And give to thee a desirable land, A beauteous inheritance of the hosts of nations, And I say, My father -- ye do call to Me, And from after Me ye do not turn back.

However, as a wife departs treacherously from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel," {declares} Yahweh.

"A voice [is] heard on [the] barren heights, the weeping of the pleas for mercy of the children of Israel, because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.

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.

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.

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us. For against Yahweh our God we have sinned, we and our ancestors, from our youth and until this day. and we have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh our God.'

And thou hast sworn -- Jehovah liveth, In truth, in judgment, and in righteousness, And blessed themselves in Him have nations, And in Him they boast themselves.

Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment, you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. If you do not, my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you that no one will be able to extinguish. That will happen because of the evil you have done."

There hath come up a lion out of his thicket, Yea, a destroyer of nations - hath set forward, hath come forth out of his place, - To make thy land a desolation, Thy cities, shall fall in ruins, so as to have no inhabitant.

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.'

Then I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, 'It will be peace for you,' while the sword reaches up to the throat."

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.

O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

Put ye in mind the nations Lo! publish ye against Jerusalem, Blockaders! are coming in from a land afar off, - And have uttered against the cities of Judah their voice:

They have her surrounded
like those who guard a field,
because she has rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reacheth unto thy heart.

My soul, my soul! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

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

"For my people [are] foolish, they have not known me. They [are] foolish children, and they do not have insight. They [are] skillful at doing evil, and they do not know [how] to do good."

I have looked upon the earth, and see, it is waste and void. I looked toward heaven, and it had no shine.

I have looked to the mountains, And lo, they are trembling. And all the hills moved themselves lightly.

I have looked, and lo, man is not, And all fowls of the heavens have fled.

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 thus hath the LORD said, "The whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not then have done.

Because of this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above will become dark. Because I have spoken, I have planned, and I have not relented, and I will not 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.

And you, when you are made waste, what will you do? Though you are clothed in red, though you make yourself beautiful with ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes wide with paint, it is for nothing that you make yourself fair; your lovers have no more desire for you, they have designs on your life.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands,'saying , Woe is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers.

Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

Yahweh, do not your eyes [look] for honesty? You have struck them, but they felt no pain, you have destroyed them, they refused to take discipline. They have hardened their faces more than rock, they have refused to turn back.

Then I said, But these are the poor: they are foolish, for they have no knowledge of the way of the Lord or of the behaviour desired by their God.

Let me go to the great, and let me speak with them, for they know the way of Yahweh, the law of their God." However, they together have broken [the] yoke, they have torn to pieces [the] bonds.

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.

"{How} can I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me, and they have sworn by [those who are] not gods. But I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery, and flocked [to] the house of a prostitute.

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

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt utterly treacherously with me," {declares} Yahweh.

"They have denied Yahweh, and have said, 'Not he, {for} evil will not come on us, we will see neither sword nor famine.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, "Because you have spoken this word, look, I [am] making my words in your mouth like a fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.

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.

Nevertheless, I will not then have done with you, sayeth the LORD.

{And then}, when you [people] say, 'Why has Yahweh our God done all of these [things] to us?' Then you will say to them, 'As you have forsaken me and have served gods of a foreign land in your land, so will you serve strangers in {a land that does not belong to you}.'

Hear this please, foolish and {senseless} people, {who have eyes} but do not see, {who have ears} but do not hear.'

Do you not revere me?" {declares} Yahweh, "Do you not tremble {before me}? For I have placed [the] sand [as] a boundary for the sea, {as an everlasting limit}, and it cannot pass over it, and they rise and fall loudly, but they cannot prevail, and its waves roar, but they cannot pass over it.

But for this people is a stubborn and rebellious heart, they have turned aside and have gone [away].

They have not said to themselves,
‘Let’s fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain, both early and late, in its season,
who guarantees to us the fixed weeks of the harvest.’

Your iniquities have disturbed these, and your sins have kept away the 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.