This message from the LORD came to him during the thirteenth year of the reign of Ammon's son Josiah, the king of Judah,

This message from the LORD came to me:

Do not be afraid of anyone,
for I will be with you to deliver you.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

“See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms,
To uproot and break down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.”

After this, the LORD spake unto me saying, "Jeremiah, what seest thou?" And I said, "I see a waking rod."

Then the Lord said, "You have observed correctly. This means I am watching to make sure my threats are carried out."

This message from the LORD came to me a second time: "What do you see?" I replied, "I see a boiling pot, and its mouth is tilted away from the north."

Then the Lord said, "This means destruction will break out from the north on all who live in the land.

Indeed, I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

They will come, and each king will set up his throne
at the entrance to Jerusalem’s gates.
They will attack all her surrounding walls
and all the other cities of Judah.

In this way I will pass sentence on the people of Jerusalem and Judah because of all their wickedness. For they rejected me and offered sacrifices to other gods, worshiping what they made with their own hands."

Now behold, I have made you today like a fortified city and like an iron pillar and like bronze walls against the whole land—against the [successive] kings of Judah, against its leaders, against its priests, and against the people of the land [giving you divine strength which no hostile power can overcome].

They will fight against you but never prevail over you, since I am with you to rescue you.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

This message from the LORD came to me:

"Go and announce to Jerusalem: "This is what the LORD says: "I remember the loyal devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. You followed me in the desert, in a land that was not planted.

Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of His harvest.
All who ate of it found themselves guilty;
disaster came on them.”
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Listen to this message from the LORD, you descendants of Jacob and all the families of the descendants of Israel.

This is what the LORD says: "What did your ancestors find wrong with me that they left me, and pursued worthless things, and so they became worthless?

For this reason, I will again put forward my cause against you, says the Lord, even against you and against your children's children.

“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!

“Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
Be shocked and shudder with horror [at the behavior of the people],” says the Lord.

“Have you not brought this on yourself
By abandoning (rejecting) the Lord your God
When He led you in the way?

“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.

Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.

Why do you bring a case against Me?
All of you have rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

"You, generation, pay attention to this message from the LORD! Am I the desert to Israel, or a land of gloom? Why do my people say, "We're free to roam? We won't come to you anymore.'

How wilt thou make good thy way to seek love? for this also thou didst teach the evil ones thy ways.

“From this place also you will go out
With your hands on your head;
For the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,
And you will not prosper with them.”

Commonly, when a man putteth away his wife, and she goeth from him, and marrieth with another, then the question is: should he resort unto her any more after that? Is not this field then defiled and unclean? But as for thee, thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet turn again to me, sayeth the LORD.

"Look up at the hilltops and consider this. You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.

This is the cause that the rain and evening dew hath ceased. Thou hast gotten thee a whore's forehead, and canst not be ashamed.

Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?

Will He bear a grudge forever?
Will He be endlessly infuriated?”
This is what you have said,
but you have done the evil things
you are capable of.

Hast thou seen also, when she had done all this, how I said unto her that she should turn again unto me, and yet she is not returned? Judah, that unfaithful sister of hers also saw this:

And I saw [that even though Judah knew] that for all the acts of adultery (idolatry) of faithless Israel, I [the Lord] had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid; but she went and was a prostitute also [following after idols].

Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with her whole heart, but rather in [blatant] deception [she merely pretended obedience to King Josiah’s reforms],” declares the Lord.

"Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north. Tell them, 'Come back to me, wayward Israel,' says the Lord. 'I will not continue to look on you with displeasure. For I am merciful,' says the Lord. 'I will not be angry with you forever.

but on this condition, that thou know thy great blasphemy: Namely, that thou hast unfaithfully forsaken the LORD thy God, and hast made thyself partaker of strange gods under all green trees, but hast had no will to hear my voice, sayeth the LORD.

“Return, you faithless children”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“for I am your master, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

However, as a woman may betray her lover,
so you have betrayed Me, house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor and humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

If you return, Israel—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will return to Me,
if you remove your detestable idols
from My presence
and do not waver,

For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Get your unworked land ploughed up, do not put in your seeds among thorns.

The Lord said, "Announce this in Judah and proclaim it in Jerusalem: 'Sound the trumpet throughout the land!' Shout out loudly, 'Gather together! Let us flee into the fortified cities!'

“For this reason, put on sackcloth [for mourning],
Lament (mourn with expressions of grief for the dead) and wail,
For the fierce anger of the Lord
Has not turned back from us.”

"When this happens," says the Lord, "the king and his officials will lose their courage. The priests will be struck with horror, and the prophets will be speechless in astonishment."

Then I said, “Alas, Lord God! Surely You have completely deceived and misled this people and Jerusalem, [for the prophets represented You as] saying [to Your people], ‘You will have peace,’ but [in fact] a sword reaches to their throat.”

In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the barren heights in the wilderness [comes at My command] against the daughter of My people—not [a wind] to winnow and not to cleanse [from chaff, as when threshing, but]

a wind too strong for this—will come at My command; now I will also pronounce judgments against them.

Make this come to the minds of the nations, make a statement openly against Jerusalem, that attackers are coming from a far country and their voices will be loud against the towns of Judah.

They have her surrounded
like those who guard a field,
because she has rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

“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!”

"Nevertheless this shall come upon them because my people is become foolish, and hath utterly no understanding. They are the children of foolishness, and without any discretion. To do evil, they have wit enough: but to do well, they have no wisdom."

I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins. The Lord had brought this all about because of his blazing anger.

For this is what the Lord has said: All the land will become a waste; I will make destruction complete.

“For this reason the earth shall mourn
And the heavens above shall become dark,
Because I have spoken, I have decided,
And I will not change my mind (relent), nor will I turn back from it.”

The Lord said, "Go up and down through the streets of Jerusalem. Look around and see for yourselves. Search through its public squares. See if any of you can find a single person who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. If you can, then I will not punish this city.

And if Jehovah lives, they will say, for this they will swear to a falsehood.

I thought, "Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. They do not know what their God requires of them.

For this cause, hath the lion out of the forest smitten them, The wolf of the waste plains, preyeth upon them, The leopard, is keeping watch over their cities, Every one that goeth out from thence, is torn in pieces, - For they have multiplied their transgressions, Numerous are their apostasies.

“Why should I [overlook these offenses and] forgive you?
Your children have abandoned (rejected) Me
And sworn [their oaths] by those who are not gods.
When I had fed them until they were full [and bound them to Me by a promise],
They committed [spiritual] adultery,
Assembling in troops at the houses of prostitutes (idols).

“Shall I not punish them [for these things]?” says the Lord;
“Shall I not avenge Myself
On a nation such as this?”

They, the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
have dealt very treacherously with Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The prophets become only wind,
for the Lord’s word is not in them.
This will in fact happen to them.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God of hosts,
“Because you [people] have spoken this word,
Behold, I am making My words a fire in your mouth [Jeremiah]
And this people wood, and My words will consume them.

I am about to bring a nation
from far away against you,
house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
It is an established nation,
an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know
and whose speech you do not understand.

This people shall eat up thy fruit and thy meat; yea, they shall devour thy sons and thy daughters, thy sheep and thy bullocks. They shall eat up thy grapes and figs. As for thy strong and well-fenced cities, wherein thou didst trust, they shall destroy them with the sword.

“But even in those days”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“I will not finish you off.

But if they say, 'Wherefore doth the LORD our God all this unto us?' Then answer them, 'Because, that like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your own land, even so shall ye serve other gods also in a strange land!'"

“Declare this in the house of Jacob
And proclaim it in Judah, saying:

‘Now hear this, O foolish people without heart,
Who have eyes but do not see,
Who have ears but do not hear.

Do you not fear Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Do you not tremble before Me,
the One who set the sand as the boundary of the sea,
an enduring barrier that it cannot cross?
The waves surge, but they cannot prevail.
They roar but cannot pass over it.

But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.

As the fowl-house is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: for this reason they have become great and have got wealth.

‘Shall I not punish them [for these things]?’ says the Lord.
‘Shall I not avenge Myself
On such a nation as this?’

The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?"

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.

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 will I speak and give a warning so they'll listen? Look, their ears are closed, and they cannot hear. Look, this message from the LORD is contemptible to them; they don't delight in it.

For this reason I am full of the wrath of the Lord, I am tired of keeping it in: may it be let loose on the children in the street, and on the band of the young men together: for even the husband with his wife will be taken, the old man with him who is full of days.

Their houses with their lands and wives shall be turned unto strangers, when I stretch out mine hand upon the inhabiters of this land," sayeth the LORD.

Were they ashamed when they did abomination? also shaming they will not be ashamed; also they knew not feeling shame; for this they shall fall with those falling: in the time of my reviewing them they shall faint, said Jehovah.

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.

For this, hear ye nations, and know, O Assembly, what is among them.

“Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people,
The fruit of their schemes,
Because they have not listened and paid attention to My words,
And as for My law, they have rejected it also.

Why is this to Me? frankincense from Sheba cometh, And the sweet cane from a land afar off, Your burnt-offerings are not for acceptance, And your sacrifices have not been sweet to Me.

Therefore, thus says the Lord,

“Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people.
The fathers and the sons together
Will stumble against them;
The neighbor and his friend will perish.”

This is what the LORD says: "Look, people are coming from a northern country. A great nation is stirring from the ends of the earth.

Then shall this cry be heard, "Our arms are feeble! Heaviness and sorrow is come upon us, as upon a woman travailing with child!

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

“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.’”

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Change your ways and your behavior, and I will let you live in this place.

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.’

If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country, and to the child without a father, and to the widow, and do not put the upright to death in this place, or go after other gods, causing damage to yourselves:

then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers [to live in] forever and ever.

and [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, ‘We are protected and set free [by this act of religious ritual]!’—only to go on with this wickedness and these disgusting and loathsome things?

Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes [a place of retreat for you between acts of violence]? Behold, I Myself have seen it,” says the Lord.

Now, because you have done all these things”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and because I have spoken to you time and time again but you wouldn’t listen, and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer,

therefore, I will do to this house (the temple) which is called by My Name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh.

“Therefore, do not pray for this people [of Judah] or lift up a cry or entreaty for them or make intercession to Me, for I do not hear you.