The word of the Lord came to me:

Then the Lord said to me:

Do not say, “I am only a youth,”
for you will go to everyone I send you to
and speak whatever I tell you.

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.

“I will pronounce My judgments against them for all the evil they did when they abandoned Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands.

The word of the Lord came to me:

“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.

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.

The priests quit asking, “Where is the Lord?”
The experts in the law no longer knew Me,
and the rulers rebelled against Me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal
and followed useless idols.

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

For My people have committed a double evil:
They have abandoned Me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

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.

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.

say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their back to Me
and not their face,
yet in their time of disaster they beg,
“Rise up and save us!”

Why do you bring a case against Me?
All of you have rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Evil generation,
pay attention to the word of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel
or a land of dense darkness?
Why do My people claim,
“We will go where we want;
we will no longer come to You”?

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

you claim, “I am innocent.
His anger is sure to turn away from me.”
But I will certainly judge you
because you have said, “I have not sinned.”

If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him to marry another,
can he ever return to her?
Wouldn’t such a land become totally defiled?
But you!
You have played the prostitute with many partners—
can you return to Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Have you not lately called to Me, “My Father.
You were my friend in my youth.

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.

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.

The Lord announced to me, “Unfaithful Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

Go, proclaim these words to the north, and say:

Return, unfaithful Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will not look on you with anger,
for I am unfailing in My love.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will not be angry forever.

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.

I will give you shepherds who are loyal to Me, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and skill.

I thought: How I long to make you My sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
and never turn away from Me.

However, as a woman may betray her lover,
so you have betrayed Me, house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

If you return, Israel—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will return to Me,
if you remove your detestable idols
from My presence
and do not waver,

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.

“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.’”

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

My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in agony!
Oh, the pain in my heart!
My heart pounds;
I cannot be silent.
For you, my soul,
have heard the sound of the ram’s horn—
the shout of battle.

Disaster after disaster is reported
because the whole land is destroyed.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed,
my tent curtains, in a moment.

“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 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, the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
have dealt very treacherously with Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

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.

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.

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.

Your guilty acts have diverted these things from you.
Your sins have withheld My bounty from you,

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?

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.

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.

They have treated My people’s brokenness superficially,
claiming, “Peace, peace,”
when there is no peace.

Listen, earth!
I am about to bring disaster on these people,
the fruit of their own plotting,
for they have paid no attention to My word.
They have rejected My instruction.

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.

My dear people, dress yourselves in sackcloth
and roll in the dust.
Mourn as you would for an only son,
a bitter lament,
for suddenly the destroyer will come on us.

I have appointed you to be an assayer among My people—
a refiner—
so you may know and assay their way of life.

Then do you come and stand before Me in this house called by My name and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts’?

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.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not offer a cry or a prayer on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.

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.”

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.

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.

However, they wouldn’t listen to Me or pay attention but became obstinate; they did more evil than their ancestors.

“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.

Even the stork in the sky
knows her seasons.
The turtledove, swallow, and crane
are aware of their migration,
but My people do not know
the requirements of the Lord.

They have treated superficially the brokenness
of My dear people,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.

My joy has flown away;
grief has settled on me.
My heart is sick.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.

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

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If my head were a spring of water,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
over the slain of my dear people.

If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take Me into account.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

You live in a world of deception.
In their deception they refuse to know Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

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?

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

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.

Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us
so that our eyes may overflow with tears,
our eyelids soaked with weeping.

But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me—
that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love,
justice, and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Woe to me because of my brokenness—
I am severely wounded!
I exclaimed, “This is my intense suffering,
but I must bear it.”

My tent is destroyed;
all my tent cords are snapped.
My sons have departed from me and are no more.
I have no one to pitch my tent again
or to hang up my curtains.

Discipline me, Lord, but with justice—
not in Your anger,
or You will reduce me to nothing.

which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.’ I declared: ‘Obey Me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God,’

The Lord said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Obey the words of this covenant and carry them out.

For I strongly warned your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt until today, warning them time and time again, ‘Obey My voice.’

The Lord said to me, “A conspiracy has been discovered among the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

They have returned to the sins of their ancestors who refused to obey My words and have followed other gods to worship them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah broke My covenant I made with their ancestors.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I am about to bring on them disaster that they cannot escape. They will cry out to Me, but I will not hear them.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me at the time of their disaster.

What right does My beloved have
to be in My house,
having carried out so many evil schemes?
Can holy meat prevent your disaster
so you can rejoice?

“The Lord of Hosts who planted you has decreed disaster against you, because of the harm the house of Israel and the house of Judah brought on themselves, provoking Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.”

The Lord informed me, so I knew.
Then You helped me to see their deeds,

for I was like a docile lamb led to slaughter.
I didn’t know that they had devised plots against me:
“Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit;
let’s cut him off from the land of the living
so that his name will no longer be remembered.”