And it came again in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, up to the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah; till Jerusalem was taken away in the fifth month.

Go into the Isles of Chittim, and look well; send unto Kedar, and take diligent heed; and see, whether such things be done there,

For though thou wash thee with lye, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Thou keepest thy foot from nakedness, and thy throat from thirst, and thinkest thus in thyself, 'Tush: I will take no sorrow; I will love the strange gods, and hang upon them.'

As the thief is shamed when he is taken, so is Israel shamed; they, their kings and their rulers, their priests and their prophets;

And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he may not take her back again. Doing that would utterly defile the land. But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. So what makes you think you can return to me?" says the Lord.

Let your eyes be lifted up to the open hilltops, and see; where have you not been taken by your lovers? You have been seated waiting for them by the wayside like an Arabian in the waste land; you have made the land unclean with your loose ways and your evil-doing.

Go and proclaim these words toward the north [where the ten tribes have been taken as captives] and say,

‘Return, faithless Israel,’ says the Lord;
‘I will not look on you in anger.
For I am gracious and merciful,’ says the Lord;
‘I will not be angry forever.

‘Return, O faithless children [of the twelve tribes],’ says the Lord,
‘For I am a master and husband to you,
And I will take you [not as a nation, but individually]—one from a city and two from a [tribal] family—
And I will bring you to Zion.’

Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from our earliest days; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

And you will take your oath, By the living Lord, in good faith and wisdom and righteousness; and the nations will make use of you as a blessing, and in you will they take a pride.

“Circumcise (dedicate, sanctify) yourselves to the Lord
And remove the foreskin [sins] of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire [consuming all that gets in its way]
And burn and there will be no one to quench it,
Because of the evil of your acts.”

Set up a banner toward Zion; take to flight, stay not! For I am bringing evil from the north, and a great destruction.

And therefore let the earth mourn, and let the heaven be sorry above: for the things that I have purposed and taken upon me to do, shall not repent me, and I will not go from it."

All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

And you, devastated one, what are you doing
that you dress yourself in scarlet,
that you adorn yourself with gold jewelry,
that you enlarge your eyes with paint?
You beautify yourself for nothing.
Your lovers reject you;
they want to take your life.

“Roam back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem,
And look now and take note.
And look in her open squares
To see if you can find a man [as Abraham sought in Sodom],
One who is just, who [has integrity and moral courage and] seeks truth (faithfulness);
Then I will pardon Jerusalem—[for the sake of one uncompromisingly righteous person].

O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth?
You [have seen their faithless heart and] have stricken them,
But they did not weaken;
You have consumed them,
But they refused to take correction or instruction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
They have refused to repent and return to You.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her branches; for they are not Jehovah's.

They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

They have become fat and sleek.
They have also excelled in evil matters.
They have not taken up cases,
such as the case of the fatherless, so they might prosper,
and they have not defended the rights of the needy.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

A horrible, terrible thing
has taken place in the land.

Take your goods into safety, ye sons of Benjamin out of the midst of Jerusalem, And in Tekoa, blow ye a horn, And on Beth-haccherem, raise a fire-signal, - For calamity, hath looked out from the North, Even a great destruction.

So take warning, Jerusalem, or I will abandon you in disgust and make you desolate, a place where no one can live."

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may take note? see, their ears are stopped, and they are not able to give attention: see, the word of the Lord has been a cause of shame to them, they have no delight in it.

But I am full of the wrath (judgment) of the Lord;
I am tired of restraining it.
“[I will] pour it out on the children in the street
And on the young men gathered together;
For both the husband and wife shall be taken,
The aged and the very old [though full of days they are not exempt from judgment].

This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it.

And I will set watchmen over you, and therefore take heed unto the voice of the trumpet. But they say, 'We will not take heed.'

Therefore, hear O ye nations, - And take knowledge O assembly, Of that which befalleth them:

Hear this, you peoples of the earth: 'Take note! I am about to bring disaster on these people. It will come as punishment for their scheming. For they have paid no attention to what I have said, and they have rejected my law.

I take no delight when they offer up to me frankincense that comes from Sheba or sweet-smelling cane imported from a faraway land. I cannot accept the burnt offerings they bring me. I get no pleasure from the sacrifices they offer to me.'

Bow and javelin they take hold of, Fierce it is, and they have no mercy, Their voice as a sea doth sound, And on horses they ride, set in array as a man of war, Against thee, O daughter of Zion.

We have heard the report of it;
Our hands become limp and helpless.
Anguish has gripped us,
Pain like that of a woman in childbirth.

The blower is blowing strongly, the lead is burned away in the fire: they go on heating the metal to no purpose, for the evil-doers are not taken away.

Take your place in the doorway of the Lord's house, and give out this word there, and say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who come inside these doors to give worship to the Lord.

But take heed: ye trust in counsels that beguile you and do you no good.

Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you;

And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: Put your burned offerings with your offerings of beasts, and take flesh for your food.

And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

‘Cut off your hair [your crown, O Jerusalem] and throw it away,
And take up a mournful cry on the barren heights,
For the Lord has rejected and abandoned
The generation of His wrath.’

“Therefore, take note! Days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. Topheth will become a cemetery, because there will be no other burial place.

At that time, says the Lord, they will take the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem out of their resting-places:

Wherefore hath this people of Jerusalem apostatized with an enduring apostacy, - Taken fast hold of deceit, Refused to come back?

“The wise men are shamed,
They are dismayed and caught.
Behold, they have [manipulated and] rejected the [truth in the] word of the Lord,
And what kind of wisdom and insight do they have?

So I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will take them for themselves: for everyone, from the least to the greatest, is given up to getting money; from the priest even to the prophet, everyone is false.

I will utterly take them away, saith Jehovah: there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree; and the leaf is faded: and I will give them up to those that shall pass over them.

For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I (Jeremiah) am broken;
I mourn, anxiety has gripped me.

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.

“Let everyone beware of his neighbor
And do not trust any brother.
For every brother is a supplanter [like Jacob, a deceiver, ready to grab his brother’s heel],
And every neighbor goes around as a slanderer.

Yea, one dissesembleth with another, and they deal with no truth. They have practiced their tongues to lie, and taken great pains to do mischief.

Am I not to send punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

“I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains,
And a [funeral] dirge for the pastures of the wilderness,
Because they are burned up and desolated so that no one passes through [them];
Nor can anyone hear the lowing of cattle.
Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they are gone.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Take thought and send for the weeping women, so that they may come; and send for the wise women, so that they may come:

“Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us,
That our eyes may shed tears
And our eyelids flow with water.

For hear O ye women the word of Yahweh, And let your ear take in the word of his mouth, - And teach your daughters a wail, Yea leach woman - her neighbour, a dirge: -

Death has climbed in through our windows. It has entered into our fortified houses. It has taken away our children who play in the streets. It has taken away our young men who gather in the city squares.'

The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.

This is the word of the Lord: Let not the wise man take pride in his wisdom, or the strong man in his strength, or the man of wealth in his wealth:

Mere palm-trunks turned, they are and cannot speak, They must needs be, carried, for they cannot take a step, Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do harm, And even to do good, is not in their power.

My tent is destroyed,
And all my [tent] cords are broken;
My children have been taken from me [as captives] and are no more.
There is no one to stretch out my tent again
And to set up my [tent] curtains.

“What right has My beloved in My house
When she has done many vile deeds?
Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster,
So that you can rejoice?”

But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death; I had no thought that they were designing evil against me, saying, Come and let us make trouble his food, cutting him off from the land of the living, so that there may be no more memory of his name.

Therefore, here is what the Lord says concerning the people of Anathoth who want to take your life. They warn, “You must not prophesy in the name of Yahweh, or you will certainly die at our hand.”

You are in the right, O Lord, when I put my cause before you: still let me take up with you the question of your decisions: why does the evil-doer do well? why are the workers of deceit living in comfort?

You have planted them, they have also taken root;
They grow, they have even produced fruit.
You are honored by their [hypocritical] lips
But [You are] far from their heart and mind.

But thou LORD, to whom I am well known, thou that hast seen, and proved my heart; take them away, like as a flock is carried to the slaughter house, and appoint them for the day of slaughter.

[The Lord rebukes Jeremiah for his impatience, saying] “If you have raced with men on foot and they have tired you out,
Then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace [where you feel secure],
Then how will you do [among the lions] in the [flooded] thicket beside the Jordan?

They have made it waste; it is weeping to me, being wasted; all the land is made waste, because no man takes it to heart.

My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it. They will be disappointed in their harvests because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger.

"I, the Lord, also have something to say concerning the wicked nations who surround my land and have attacked and plundered the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. I say: 'I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there.

And it will come about that, after they have been uprooted, I will again have pity on them; and I will take them back, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.

And it will be that, if they give their minds to learning the ways of my people, using my name in their oaths, By the living Lord; as they have been teaching my people to take oaths by the Baal; then their place will be made certain among my people.

"Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing and go at once to Perath. Bury the shorts there in a crack in the rocks."

And after many days the Lord said to me, “Get up, go to the Euphrates and get the waistband which I commanded you to hide there.”

and I go to Phrat, and dig, and take the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and lo, the girdle hath been marred, it is not profitable for anything.

"I, the Lord, say: 'This shows how I will ruin the highly exalted position in which Judah and Jerusalem take pride.

And I will smash them, each one against his brother, and the fathers and the sons together," {declares} Yahweh. "I will not have compassion, and I will not take pity, and I will not show compassion from destroying them." '"

Be obedient, give ear, take no disdain at it, for it is the LORD himself that speaketh!

Honour the LORD your God herein, or he take his light from you, and before your feet stumble in darkness at the hill: lest when ye look for the light, he turn it into the shadow and darkness of death.

But if you will not listen and obey,
My soul will weep in secret for your pride;
My eyes will weep bitterly
And flow with tears,
Because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.

Say to the king and the queen mother,
“Humble yourselves and take a lowly seat,
For your beautiful crown [the crown of your glory]
Has come down from your head.”

The cities of the South (the Negev) have been closed up,
And there is no one to open them;
All Judah has been carried into exile,
Completely carried away into exile.

Then I said, "Look up, Jerusalem, and see the enemy that is coming from the north. Where now is the flock of people that were entrusted to your care? Where now are the 'sheep' that you take such pride in?

“What will you say [O Jerusalem] when the Lord appoints [foreign nations to rule] over you—
Those former friends and allies whom you have encouraged [to be your companions]—
Will not pain seize you
Like [that of] a woman in childbirth?

So I will send them in all directions, as dry grass is taken away by the wind of the waste land.

Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a strong man who can't deliver? You are among us, LORD, and your name is the one by which we're called. Don't abandon us!

When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease.

And it will be, when they say to you, Where are we to go? then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are to be in need of food, to need of food; and such as are to be taken away prisoners, to be taken away.

And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord: the sword causing death, dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth to take their bodies for food and put an end to them.

And I have sent a cleaning wind on them in the public places of the land; I have taken their children from them; I have given my people to destruction; they have not been turned from their ways.

The mother who had seven children will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. She will suffer shame and humiliation. I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies," says the Lord.

I said, "Lord, you know how I suffer. Take thought of me and care for me. Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me. Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me. Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.