And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying,

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying, 'What art thou seeing, Jeremiah?' And I say, 'A rod of an almond tree I am seeing.'

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me a second time, saying, 'What art thou seeing?' And I say, 'A blown pot I am seeing, and its face is from the north.'

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying,

And have not said, Where is Jehovah, Who bringeth us up out of the land of Egypt, Who leadeth us in a wilderness, In a land of deserts and pits, In a dry land, and of death-shade, In a land -- none hath passed through it, Nor dwelt hath man there?'

“For cross over to the coasts of Kittim (Cyprus) [to the west] and see,
Send also to Kedar (Arabia) [to the east] and carefully observe and consider
And see whether there has been such [a thing] as this!

Why do they roar and cry then upon him, as a lion? They have made his land waste, his cities are so burnt up, that there is no man dwelling in them.

You can try to wash away your guilt with a strong detergent. You can use as much soap as you want. But the stain of your guilt is still there for me to see," says the Lord God.

"How can you say, 'I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to the gods called Baal.' Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path.

Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

Even in thy skirts, is there found, The blood of the lives of the helpless innocents, - Not in the act of breaking in, didst thou find them, yet the blood is on all these.

From there also you shall go forth, with your hands on your head; for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you shall not prosper with them.

"Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? You have sat beside the road, waiting for them like a nomad in the desert. And you have polluted the land with your fornication and your wickedness.

“Therefore the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no spring rain.
Yet you have the forehead (appearance) of a prostitute;
You refuse to be ashamed.

Moreover, the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], “Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done—how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she was a prostitute?

Moreover, when ye be increased and multiplied in the land, then, sayeth the LORD, there shall no more boast be made of the ark of the LORD's Covenant: No man shall think upon it, neither shall any man make mention of it: for from thenceforth it shall neither be visited, nor honored with gifts.

At that time, shall they call Jerusalem, The throne of Yahweh, and there shall be gathered unto her all the nations - to the Name of Yahweh, to Jerusalem; and they shall walk no more after the stubbornness of their own wicked heart.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! What a joy it would be for me to give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!' I thought you would call me, 'Father' and would never cease being loyal to me.

Circumcise yourselves unto Yahweh So shall ye remove the impurity of your heart, ye men of Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, - Lest mine indignation, go forth as fire, and burn and there be none to quench it, Because of the wickedness of your doings.

There hath come up a lion out of his thicket, Yea, a destroyer of nations - hath set forward, hath come forth out of his place, - To make thy land a desolation, Thy cities, shall fall in ruins, so as to have no inhabitant.

After that shall there come unto me a strong wind, and then will I also give sentence upon them."

I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void, at the heavens, and there was no light there.

I looked, and behold, there was no man,
And all the birds of the air had fled.

At the noise of horseman and archer, The whole city is in flight, They have entered dark thickets, Yea unto the crags, have they gone up, - Every city, is forsaken, There remaineth not in them a man!

Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth; and I will pardon her.

Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased.

They have acted deceptively against Yahweh, And have said, Not He! Neither shall there come upon us, calamity, Nor sword nor famine, shall we see;

But the prophets, shall prove to be wind, And there is no one speaking in them, - Thus, shall it be done to themselves!

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

and have grown fat and sleek. There is no limit to their evil deeds. They don't argue the case of the orphan to secure justice. They don't defend the rights of the poor.

For the Lord of hosts has said,

“Cut down her trees
And build a siege [mound] against Jerusalem.
This is the city which must be punished;
There is nothing but oppression inside her [walls].

Like as a conduit aboundeth in water, even so this city aboundeth in wickedness. Robbery and unrighteousness is heard in her, sorrow and wounds are ever there in my sight.

“They have treated superficially the [bloody] broken wound of My people,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
When there is no peace.

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

And therefore thus sayeth the LORD, 'Behold, I will make this people fall, and there shall fall from among them the father with the children; one neighbour shall perish with another.'"

Moreover, thus sayeth the LORD, "Behold, there shall come a people from the North, and a great people shall arise from the ends of the earth;

Go not out into the field or by the way; for there is the sword of the attacker, and fear on every side.

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. The process of refining them has proved useless. The wicked have not been purged.

“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter by these gates to worship the Lord.’”

Do not trust in the deceptive and lying words [of the false prophets who claim that Jerusalem will be protected by God because of the temple], saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

But go now to my place which is in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell there at the first, and see what I did to it from the face of the evil of my people Israel.

And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burning their sons and their daughters there in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me and never came into my mind.

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter, for [in bloody warfare] they will bury [the dead] in Topheth until there is no more room.

And the bodies of this people will be food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and there will be no one to send them away.

And death was chosen above life to all the remnant of those being left from this evil family, in all the places being left where I cast them out there, says Jehovah of armies.

I hearkened and heard: they speak not what is right; there is no man who repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turneth to his course, like a horse rushing into the battle.

“For they have treated the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
When there is no peace.

I will put an end to them completely, says the Lord: there are no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf is dry.

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.

We were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there is only a great fear.

“For behold, I am sending serpents against you,
Adders, for which there is no charm,
And they will bite you,” declares the Lord.

Then I said, "There is no cure for my grief! I am sick at heart!

Listen! My people cry from a distant land: "Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is her king no longer there?" "Why did they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign gods?"

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has not the [spiritual] health of the daughter of my people been restored?

There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the living-place of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a waste, with no man living there.

For there is a lamentable noise heard of Zion: 'O how are we so sore destroyed? O how are we so piteously confounded? We must forsake our own natural country, and we are shot out of our own lodgings.'"

Speak, Thus saith Jehovah: Yea, the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the reaper, and there shall be none to gather.

There is no one like you, O Lord; you are great and your name is great in power.

Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?
For it is appropriate and it is Your due!
For among all the wise men of the nations
And in all their kingdoms,
There is none like You.

There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of skilful men.

When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
And He causes the clouds and the mist to ascend from the end of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain,
And brings out the wind from His treasuries and from His storehouses.

Every man has become [like a brute] irrational and stupid, without knowledge [of God];
Every goldsmith is shamed by his carved idols;
For his molten images are frauds and lies,
And there is no breath in them.

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.

The sound of a report, it's coming now! There is a great commotion from a land in the north to make the towns of Judah desolate, a refuge for jackals."

And the Lord said to me, There is an evil design at work among the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

For as many cities as thou hast, O Judah, so many gods hast thou also: And look how many streets there be in thee, O Jerusalem: so many shameful altars have ye set up, to offer upon them unto Baal.

The LORD called thee a green olive tree, a fair one, a fruitful one, a goodly one: but now that there is a contrary report of thee abroad, he will burn thee up, and destroy thy branches.

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.

and there will be no remnant [of the conspirators] left, for I will bring disaster and horror on the men of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

He hath made it become a desolation, The desolation hath mourned unto Me, Desolated hath been all the land, But there is no one laying it to heart.

“On all the bare heights in the wilderness
Destroyers have come,
For a sword of the Lord is devouring
From one end of the land even to the other;
There is no peace for anyone.

"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 there is a word of Jehovah unto me a second time, saying,

"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."

Many days later the Lord said to me, "Go at once to Perath and get the shorts I ordered you to bury there."

And I shall go to Euphrates, and dig, and take the girdle from the place which I hid it there: and behold, the girdle was corrupted, it will not profit for anything.

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying, 'Thus said Jehovah:

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.

But there is little hope for you ever doing good, you who are so accustomed to doing evil. Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard remove its spots?

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water.

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands.

They are dismayed because the ground is cracked because there has been no rain in the land. The farmers, too, are dismayed and bury their faces in their hands.

Even the doe abandons her newborn fawn in the field because there is no grass.

Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops and pant for breath like jackals. Their eyes are strained looking for food, because there is none to be found."

Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, although it was not I who sent them—yet they keep saying, ‘There will be no sword or famine in this land’—by sword and famine those prophets shall meet their end!

The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve."

If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.

Have You [O Lord] completely rejected Judah?
Do You loathe Zion?
Why have You stricken us so that there is no healing for us?
We looked for peace and completeness, but nothing good came;
And [we hoped] for a time of healing, but behold, terror!

Are there any among the idols of the nations who can send rain?
Or can the heavens [of their own will] give showers?
Is it not You, O Lord our God?
Therefore we will wait and hope [confidently] in You,
For You are the one who has made all these things [the heavens and the rain].

“Then I will make your enemies bring [you along with] your possessions
Into a land which you do not know [for there you will serve your conquerors];
For a fire has been kindled in My anger,
Which will burn upon you.”

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying:

"You shall not take for yourself a wife, there shall not be for you sons and daughters in this place."

Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

"Moreover I, the Lord, tell you: 'Do not go into a house where they are having a funeral meal. Do not go there to mourn and express your sorrow for them. For I have stopped showing them my good favor, my love, and my compassion. I, the Lord, so affirm it!

There shall not one visit another, to mourn with them for their dead, or to comfort them. One shall not offer another the cup of consolation, to forget their heaviness for father and mother.

and you, ye have done still worse than your fathers; and there ye are walking every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, not to hearken unto me:

So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.'"

But Jehovah lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he thrust them away there: and I turned them back upon their land which I gave to their fathers.