Then said the LORD to me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

For lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls around, and against all the cities of Judah.

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

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.

Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.

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

Why will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the LORD.

O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness? why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more to thee?

Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger will turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

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

Will he retain his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldst.

Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.

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

And I will give you pastors according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come to thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return to me: and if thou wilt put away thy abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.

Set up the standard towards Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

Even a full wind from those places shall come to me: now also will I give sentence against them.

For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

And when thou art laid waste, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rendest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair: thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.

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

I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.

Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, Behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.

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

Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though its waves toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?

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

Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, 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.

And their houses shall be turned to others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD.

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

Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened to my words, nor to my law, but have rejected it.

Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbor and his friend shall perish.

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

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

Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

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

And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

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

Therefore thou shalt speak all these words to them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call to them; but they will not answer thee.

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even to the priest every one dealeth falsely.

I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given to them shall pass away from them.

For behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders.

And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.

And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them who are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

For thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them that they may find it so.

Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.

Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry to me, I will not hearken to them.

Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time when they cry to me for their trouble.

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine:

And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He will not see our last end.

If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, in which thou hast trusted, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?

Thus saith the LORD against all my evil neighbors, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.

And it shall come to pass, after I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.

And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The LORD liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people.

But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.

Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

Then shalt thou say to them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.

And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.

But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD'S flock is carried away captive.

What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?

Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.

Therefore will I uncover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.

I have seen thy adulteries, and thy neighings, the enormity of thy lewdness, and thy abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to thee O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?

And the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed, because there was no grass.

Thus saith the LORD to this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say to them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.

And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, because of the famine, and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.

Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.

And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.

And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.

She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath resigned her breath; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

The LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to treat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.

Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

And I will make thee to pass with thy enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn upon you.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether to me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou shalt return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou shalt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return to thee; but return not thou to them.

And I will make thee to this people a fortified brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

And I will deliver thee from the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee from the hand of the terrible.

For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.

Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favor.

But, The LORD liveth, that brought the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.

Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and afterwards will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things.