“Your own wickedness will discipline you,
And your desertion of the faith will punish you.
Know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing
For you to abandon (reject) the Lord your God,
And for you to be indifferent to Me and dismiss the [reverent] fear of Me,” says the Lord God of hosts.

“[Cease your mad running after idols to]
Keep your feet from becoming bare
And your throat from becoming dry;
But you said, ‘It is hopeless!
For I have loved strangers and foreign gods,
And I will walk after them.’

“Your ways and your deeds
Have brought these things on you.
This is your tragedy and doom; how bitter,
How it has touched your heart!”

O daughter of my people [says Jeremiah],
Clothe yourself in sackcloth and wallow in ashes;
Mourn [aloud] as for an only son,
A most bitter cry [of sorrow and regret],
For suddenly the destroyer will come upon us [on both prophet and people].

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.

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.

“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will make you hear My words.”

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and saw that he was working at the wheel.

But the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter’s hand; so he made it over, reworking it and making it into another pot that seemed good to him.

“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” says the Lord. “Look carefully, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

Thus says the Lord, “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests

and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “This is the way I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it cannot be mended. They will bury [corpses] in Topheth until there is no more room left [in that place] to bury [the dead].

Thus says the Lord,
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
Lamentation (songs of mourning) and bitter weeping.
Rachel (Israel) is weeping for her children;
She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are gone.”

‘Then behold, all the women who are left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon and those women will say [to you, King Zedekiah],

“Your close friends
Have prevailed against your better judgment and have overpowered and deceived you;
While your feet were sunk in the mire [of trouble],
They turned back.”

Then Nebuzaradan the [chief executioner and] captain of the bodyguard took the rest of the people who remained in the city, along with those who had deserted and surrendered to him, and the rest of the [so-called better class of] people who were left and carried them into exile in Babylon.

For I have sworn [an oath] by Myself,” says the Lord, “that Bozrah will become an object of horror, a reproach, a ruin, and a curse; and all its cities will become perpetual ruins.”

“As for Your terror,
The pride and arrogance of your heart have deceived you,
O you who live in the clefts of the rock (Sela also called Petra),
Who hold and occupy the height of the hill.
Though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s,
I will bring you down from there,” says the Lord.