Is Israel a servant? Is he a home-born [slave]? Why has he become a prey?

Why will ye contend with me? Ye have all transgressed against me, says LORD.

O generation, see ye the word of LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, We have broken loose. We will come no more to thee?

Why do thou gad about so much to change thy way? Thou shall be ashamed of Egypt also, as thou were ashamed of Assyria.

And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Why has LORD our God done all these things to us? Then thou shall say to them, Just as ye have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so ye shall serve strangers in a land t

Why then has this people of Jerusalem slid back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold firm deceit. They refuse to return.

Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there. For LORD our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against LORD.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: Is not LORD in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with foreign vanities?

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Who is the wise man, who may understand this, and he to whom the mouth of LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?

Thou are righteous, O LORD, when I contend with thee. Yet I would reason the case with thee. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all those at ease who deal very treacherously?

And if thou say in thy heart, Why have these things come upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity thy skirts are uncovered, and thy heels suffer violence.

O thou hope of Israel, the Savior of it in the time of trouble, why should thou be as a sojourner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to tarry for a night?

Why should thou be as a man frightened, as a mighty man who cannot save? Yet thou, O LORD, are in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name. Do not leave us.

Have thou utterly rejected Judah? Has thy soul loathed Zion? Why have thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came, and for a time of healing, and, behold, dismay!

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will thou indeed be to me as a deceitful [brook], as waters that fail?

And it shall come to pass, when thou shall show this people all these words, and they shall say to thee, Why has LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed aga

Why did I come forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say each man to his neighbor, Why has LORD done thus to this great city?

Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which none delights? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they know not?

Why have thou prophesied in the name of LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant? And all the people were gathered to Jeremiah in the house of LORD.

Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as LORD has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

Hearken not to them. Serve the king of Babylon, and live. Why should this city become a desolation?

Now therefore, why have thou not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who makes himself a prophet to you,

Ask ye now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

Why do thou cry for thy hurt? Thy pain is incurable, for the greatness of thine iniquity. Because thy sins were increased, I have done these things to thee.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Why do thou prophesy, and say, Thus says LORD: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.

And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah thou shall say, Thus says LORD: Thou have burned this roll, saying, Why have thou written in it, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to ceas

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it. Why should he take thy life, that all the Jews who are gat

Therefore now thus says LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Why do ye commit [this] great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to leave you none rema

Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and have turned backward. And their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and do not look back. Terror is on every side, says LORD.

Why are thy strong ones swept away? They stood not, because LORD drove them.

Concerning the sons of Ammon. Thus says LORD: Has Israel no sons? Has he no heir? Why then does Malcam possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof?

Why do thou glory in the valleys, thy flowing valley? O backsliding daughter, who trusted in her treasures, [saying], Who shall come to me?