And Jehovah put forth His hand, and touched my mouth. And Jehovah said to me, Behold, I have put My Words in your mouth.

Behold! I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

And Jehovah said to me, You have seen well; for I will watch over My Word to perform it.

And I will pronounce My judgments against them regarding all their evil, those who have forsaken Me, and burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

For, behold, I have made you a fortified city this day, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its rulers, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

So says Jehovah, What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me and have walked after vanity, and have become vain?

Has a nation changed their gods who are yet no gods? But My people have changed their Glory for that which does not profit.

For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Also the sons of Noph and Tahapanes have fed on the crown of your head.

Have you not brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Jehovah your God, when He led you by the way?

Your own evil shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you, therefore know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken Jehovah your God, and that My fear is not in you, says the Lord Jehovah of Hosts.

Yet I planted you a noble vine, wholly a true seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate shoots of an alien vine to Me?

How can you say, I am not defiled; I have not gone after the Baals? See your way in the valley, know what you have done! You are a swift camel crossing its ways;

Withhold your foot from being bare, and your throat from thirst. But you said, There is no hope; no; for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.

saying to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You gave me birth. For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise and save us!

But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? 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 will you plead with Me? You all have sinned against Me, says Jehovah.

In vain I have stricken your sons; they received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

O generation, see the Word of Jehovah. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? Why do My people say, We roam freely; we will come no more to You?

Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.

Why did you trim your way to seek love? Therefore you have also taught the evil women your ways.

Yet you say, Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with you, because you say, I have not sinned.

Lift up your eyes to the high places, and see. Where have you not been lain with? By the highways you have sat for them, like the Arabian in the wilderness; and you have defiled the land with your fornications and with your wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; and you had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.

Will He keep His anger forever? Will He keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and done all the evil things you could do.

Jehovah also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has fornicated there.

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have sinned against Jehovah your God and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, says Jehovah.

And it will be when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says Jehovah, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of Jehovah! Nor shall it come to mind; nor shall they remember it; nor shall they visit it; nor shall it be made any more.

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 to your fathers.

Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, says Jehovah.

A voice was heard on the high places weeping, cryings of the sons of Israel; for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten Jehovah their God.

We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us; for we have sinned against Jehovah our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God.

Then I said, Ah, Lord Jehovah! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace; but the sword reaches to the soul.

Your way and your doings have brought these things on you; this is your evil, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart.

My bowels, my bowels! I convulse in pain. O walls of my heart! My heart is restless within me; I cannot be silent because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the ram's horn, the alarm of war.

For My people are foolish; they have not known Me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

The earth shall mourn for this, and the heavens above shall be black, because I have spoken, I have purposed, and will not repent, nor will I turn back from it.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as one bearing her first child, the voice of Zion's daughter, gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe to me now! For my soul faints because of murderers.

O Jehovah, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have destroyed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.

I will go up for myself to the great men, and will speak to them; for they have known the way of Jehovah and the judgment of their God. But these have broken the yoke together and have torn off the bonds!

Why shall I pardon you for this? Your sons have forsaken Me, and have sworn by No-gods. When I adjured them, then they committed adultery, and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot's house.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very deceitfully against Me, says Jehovah.

They have lied against Jehovah and said, It is not He; neither shall evil come on us; nor shall we see sword nor famine.

And it will be, when you shall say, Why does Jehovah our God do all these things to us? Then You shall answer them, Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Now hear this, O foolish people and without heart; who have eyes and see not; who have ears and hear not;

Do you not fear Me? says Jehovah. Will you not tremble at My presence, I who have placed the sand for the boundary of the sea by a never-ending decree, so that it cannot pass it? And though they toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though its waves roar, yet they cannot pass over it?

But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and are gone.

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.

Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and grown rich.

They have become fat, they shine. Yes, they go past the deeds of the wicked; they do not judge the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may get rich; and they do not judge the right of the needy.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so, and what will you do at the end of it?

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are not circumcised, and they cannot listen. Behold, the Word of Jehovah is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

They have also healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My Words, nor to My Law, but have rejected it.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, set in order like a man for war against you, O daughter of Zion.

We have heard the rumor of it; our hands become feeble; anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, like a woman in labor.

I have set you up an assayer, an examiner among My people, that you may know and try their way.

Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I also have seen, says Jehovah.

And now, because you have done all these works, says Jehovah, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer;

therefore I will do to this house, which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, the whole seed of Ephraim.

But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending.

For the sons of Judah have done evil in My sight, says Jehovah. They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, in order to defile it.

They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command them, nor did it come into My heart.

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of the heavens, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the earth.

And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, who remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Jehovah of Hosts.

I listened and heard, but they did not speak right; no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turned in their own courses, as the horse rushes into the battle.

The wise are ashamed, they are terrified, and are captured. Lo, they have turned away from the Word of Jehovah; and what wisdom is in them?

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

I will utterly consume them, says Jehovah; there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them, those who pass over them.

Why do we sit still? Gather yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there. For Jehovah our God has put us to silence, and has given us poisonous water to drink, because we have sinned against Jehovah.

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his stallions. For they have come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those who live in it.

Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, from a far country. Is not Jehovah in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign vanities?

And everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains, and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness; because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.

And Jehovah says, Because they have forsaken My Law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it,

but they have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.

I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.

For a voice of weeping is heard out of Zion. How are we plundered! We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because they have thrown down our tents.

So you shall say to them, The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.

For the pastors have become stupid, and have not sought Jehovah, therefore they shall not be blessed, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

Pour out Your fury on the nations who do not know You, and on the families who do not call on Your name; for they have eaten up Jacob and have devoured him, and have destroyed him, and have made his dwelling desolate.

so that I may fulfil the oath which I have sworn to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered and said, Amen, O Jehovah.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My Words. And they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.

For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

And Jehovah of Hosts who planted you has spoken evil against you, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves to provoke Me to anger by offering incense to Baal.

But, O Jehovah of Hosts who judges rightly, who tries the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance on them. For to You I have revealed my cause.

You have planted them; yea, they take root. They grow, yea, they make fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their reins.

But You, O Jehovah, know me. You have seen me and tried my heart toward You. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and devote them for the day of slaughter.

How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds have been destroyed, because they said, He shall not see our last end.

If you have run with footmen, and they wore you out, then how can you compete with horses? And if you feel secure in the land of peace, then how will you do in the swelling of the Jordan?

For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you. Yea, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, though they speak good things to you.

I have forsaken My house; I have left My inheritance. I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.

My inheritance is to Me as a lion in the forest; it cries out against Me; therefore I have hated it.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My portion under foot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

The ravagers have come on all high places through the wilderness; for the sword of Jehovah shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh shall have peace.

They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns. They are worn out, but they do not profit. And they shall be ashamed of your harvests because of the fierce anger of Jehovah.

So says Jehovah against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.

And it will be after I have plucked them out, I will return and have pity on them, and will bring them again, each man to his inheritance and each man to his land.