The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain?

Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drouth, and of the shades of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.

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

But where are thy gods that thou hast made for thyself? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

In vain have I smitten your children; they have received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness? why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more to thee?

Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

Lift up thy eyes to the high places, and see where thou hast not been lain with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy acts of lewdness, and with thy wickedness.

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

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come to thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

For shame hath devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

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

For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! for we are laid waste.

As keepers of a field they are against her on all sides; because she hath been rebellious against me, saith the LORD.

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

Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste; suddenly are my tents ruined, and my curtains in a moment.

For my people are foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

O LORD, are not thy eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.

Wherefore a lion from the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.

How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbor's wife.

Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S.

Their quiver is as an open sepulcher, they are all mighty men.

And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Why doeth the LORD our God all these things to us? then shalt thou answer them, As ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in its season: he reserveth to us the appointed weeks of harvest.

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

For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

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

Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! for the day departeth, for the shadows of the evening are lengthened.

As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and devastation is heard in her; before me continually are grief and wounds.

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? no, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk in it, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it.

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a distant country? your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet to me.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

We have heard the fame of it: our hands become feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.

They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters.

The bellows is burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;

If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.

But go ye now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

Therefore will I do to this house, which is called by my name, in which ye 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 brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh.

For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices:

But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well to you.

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

Since the day that your fathers came forth from the land of Egypt to this day I have even sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them:

Yet they hearkened not to me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain he hath made it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.

The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? no, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of way-faring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we laid waste! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation.

For death hath come up into our windows, and hath entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them who are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.

They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of skillful men.

They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

My tabernacle is laid waste, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

That I may perform 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 answered I, and said, So be it, O LORD.

For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.

Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.

For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.

Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time when they cry to me for their trouble.

The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.

But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand:

And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me speak with thee of thy judgments: Why doth the way of the wicked prosper? why are they all happy that deal very treacherously?