That is why the rains have been withheld, and the spring rains have not come. Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.

Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways.

I will go to the leaders and speak with them. Surely they know what the Lord demands. Surely they know what their God requires of them." Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority and refuse to submit to him.

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. They refuse to turn back to me.

They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another. They refuse to pay attention to me," says the Lord.

These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. But you said, "I refuse to listen to you." That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says 'You most certainly must drink it!

Just as surely as I have done this, so surely will I never reject the descendants of Jacob. Nor will I ever refuse to choose one of my servant David's descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, I will restore them and show mercy to them."

But if you refuse to surrender, the Lord has shown me a vision of what will happen. Here is what I saw:

The Lord who rules over all says, "The people of Israel are oppressed. So too are the people of Judah. All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners. They refuse to set them free.