“Circumcise (dedicate, sanctify) yourselves to the Lord
And remove the foreskin [sins] of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire [consuming all that gets in its way]
And burn and there will be no one to quench it,
Because of the evil of your acts.”

“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!”

“I [the Lord] have set you as an assayer [O Jeremiah] and as a tester [of the ore] of My people,
That you may know and analyze their acts.”

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.

For if you thoroughly change your ways and your behavior, if you thoroughly and honestly practice justice between a man and his neighbor,

Then the Lord gave me knowledge [of their plot], and I knew it;
So You [O Lord] revealed their deeds to me.

“I, the Lord, search and examine the mind,
I test the heart,
To give to each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.

O house of David, thus says the Lord:

“Administer justice in the morning,
And rescue the one who has been robbed from the hand of his oppressor,
That My wrath will not roar up like fire
And burn so [hotly] that none can extinguish it,
Because of the evil of their deeds.

“But I will punish you in accordance with the [appropriate] consequences of your decisions and your actions,” says the Lord.
“I will kindle a fire in your forest,
And it will devour all that is around you.”’”

Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, in regard to the shepherds who care for and feed My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; hear this, I am about to visit and attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” says the Lord.

“But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned My people from their evil way
And from the evil of their decisions and deeds.

It may be that they will listen and everyone will turn from his wickedness, so that I may relent and reverse [My decision concerning] the disaster which I am planning to do to them because of their malevolent deeds.’

Therefore, now change your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God; then the Lord will relent and reverse His decision concerning the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.

great [are You] in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to reward or repay each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds;

I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them repeatedly, saying, ‘Let every one of you turn now from his evil way and alter your behavior, and do not follow other gods to worship and serve them; and then you will live in the land which I have given to you and to your forefathers. But you have not submitted or listened to Me.

The Lord could no longer endure it, because of the evil of your acts and the repulsive acts which you have committed; because of them your land has become a ruin, an object of horror and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

Thus says the Lord, “Execute justice and righteousness, and rescue the one who has been robbed from the hand of his oppressor. And do no wrong; do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.