The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.

Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what see you? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.

Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.

And I will utter my judgments against them concerning all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

For, behold, I have made you this day a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the LORD; I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you followed me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

Thus says the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

Have you not brought this unto yourself, in that you have forsaken the LORD your God, when he led you by the way?

And now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what have you to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

For from of old I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands; and you said, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree you wander, playing the harlot.

How can you say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see your way in the valley, know what you have done: you are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;

A wild donkey used to the wilderness, that sniffs in the wind in her desire; in her mating time who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.

As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,

Saying to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.

But where are your gods that you have made yourself? let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.

In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but plainly upon all these things.

Yea, you shall go forth from him, with your hands upon your head: for the LORD has rejected your trusted ones, and you shall not prosper in them.

Lift up your eyes unto the high places, and see where you have not been lain with. In the ways have you sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your harlotries and with your wickedness.

The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? she has gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the harlot.

And I saw, when for all the causes for which backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned unto me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD.

Turn, O backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

And it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.

Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

We lie down in our shame, and our disgrace covers us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

And you shall swear, The LORD lives, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.

Declare you in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow you the trumpet in the land: cry, Gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.

The lion has come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the nations is on his way; he has gone forth from his place to make your land desolate; and your cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace; when the sword reaches unto the soul.

At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places blows in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,

My soul, my soul! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is plundered: suddenly are my tents plundered, and my curtains in a moment.

The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell in it.

And when you are plundered, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain shall you make yourself fair; your lovers will despise you, they will seek your life.

For I have heard a voice like a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewails herself, that spreads her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its broad places, if you can find a man, if there is any that executes justice, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it.

Therefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the desert shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: everyone that goes out there shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.

How shall I pardon you for this? your children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

They were as fed horses in the morning: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife.

Shall I not punish for these things? says the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.

Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from afar, O house of Israel, says the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you know not, neither understand what they say.

Their quiver is as an open sepulcher, they are all mighty men.

And they shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat: they shall eat up your flocks and your herds: they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees: they shall impoverish your fortified cities, in which you trusted, with the sword.

Nevertheless in those days, says the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.

And it shall come to pass, when you shall say, Why does the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shall you answer them, Like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,

Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season: he reserves unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.

For among my people are found wicked men: they lie in wait, as he that sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

Shall I not punish for these things? says the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

An appalling and horrible thing is committed in the land;

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their own power; and my people love to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

O you children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a signal of fire in Beth-haccherem: for evil appears out of the north, and great destruction.

The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed everyone in his own place.

For thus has the LORD of hosts said, Hew you down trees, and cast a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be punished; she is full of oppression in the midst of her.

As a fountain casts out her waters, so she casts out her wickedness: violence and plundering are heard in her; before me continually are grief and wounds.

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I punish them they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

Thus says the LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against you, O daughter of Zion.

We have heard the report of it: our hands grow feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.

Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.

O daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth, and roll yourself about in ashes: make yourself mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain: for the wicked are not removed.

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, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.

Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD.

But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, in which you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

See you not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?

For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil hearts, and went backward, and not forward.

Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there is no room.

And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the rest of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places where I have driven them, says the LORD of hosts.

I hearkened and heard, but they spoke not aright: no man repented himself of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle.

Yea, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the law of the LORD.

The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down, says the LORD.