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.

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.

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?

Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

Therefore I will yet plead with you, says the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.

Has a nation changed its gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

The young lions roared upon him, and growled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.

Also the children of Noph and Tahpanes have broken the crown of your head.

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.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a wild vine unto me?

For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Lord GOD.

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;

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

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.

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

Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

Why beautify your way to seek love? therefore have you also taught the wicked ones your ways.

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.

Why gad you about so much to change your way? you also shall be ashamed of Egypt, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

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.

Will you not from this time cry unto me, My father, you are the guide of my youth?

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the LORD.

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.

Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto you; for you are the LORD our God.

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.

For shame has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

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.

If you will return, O Israel, says the LORD, return unto me: and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight, then shall you not be moved.

For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

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.

Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are ruined.

O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you?

Like keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she has been rebellious against me, says the LORD.

Your way and your doings have procured these things unto you; this is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reaches unto your heart.

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.

For my people are foolish, they have not known me; they are stupid children, and they have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but how to do good they have no knowledge.

I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

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.

O LORD, are not your eyes upon the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the law of their God.

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.

Go you up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her branches; for they are not the LORD's.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you.

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

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they have become great, and grown rich.

Prepare you war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goes away, for the shadows of the evening are lengthening.

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.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.

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.

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.

To what purpose comes there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

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.

They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are bronze and iron; they are all corrupters.

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

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.

For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

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.

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.

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

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Add your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

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.

Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

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.

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.

How do you say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly he made it falsely; the pen of the scribes made it a lie.

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?

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.

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

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell in it.