They are bent down, they are falling together: they were not able to keep their images safe, but they themselves have been taken prisoner.

Give ear to me, O family of Jacob, and all the rest of the people of Israel, who have been supported by me from their birth, and have been my care from their earliest days:

For you had faith in your evil-doing; you said, No one sees me; by your wisdom and knowledge you have been turned out of the way: and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no other.

Truly, they have become like dry stems, they have been burned in the fire; they are not able to keep themselves safe from the power of the flame: it is not a coal for warming them, or a fire by which a man may be seated.

They have only now been effected, and not in the past: and before this day they had not come to your ears; for fear that you might say, I had knowledge of them.

See, I have been testing you for myself like silver; I have put you through the fire of trouble.

If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

Your seed would have been like the sand, and your offspring like the dust: your name would not be cut off or come to an end before me.

Give ear, O sea-lands, to me; and take note, you peoples from far: I have been marked out by the Lord from the first; when I was still in my mother's body, he had my name in mind:

It is not enough for one who is my servant to put the tribes of Jacob again in their place, and to get back those of Israel who have been sent away: my purpose is to give you as a light to the nations, so that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.

This is the word of the Lord: I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: and I will keep you safe, and will make you a glory for the people, putting the land in order, and giving them the heritages which now are waste;

For though the waste places of your land have been given to destruction, now you will not be wide enough for your people, and those who made you waste will be far away.

Then you will say in your heart, Who has given me all these children? when my children had been taken from me, and I was no longer able to have others, who took care of these? when I was by myself, where then were these?

Who among you has the fear of the Lord, giving ear to the voice of his servant who has been walking in the dark and has no light? Let him put his faith in the name of the Lord, looking to his God for support.

And I will put it into the hand of your cruel masters, and of those whose yoke has been hard on you; who have said to your soul, Down on your face! so that we may go over you: and you have given your backs like the earth, even like the street, for them to go over.

So will nations give him honour; kings will keep quiet because of him: for what had not been made clear to them they will see; and they will give their minds to what had not come to their ears.

Who would have had faith in the word which has come to our ears, and to whom had the arm of the Lord been unveiled?

But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come.

For the Lord has made you come back to him, like a wife who has been sent away in grief of spirit; for one may not give up the wife of one's early days.

And let not the man from a strange country, who has been joined to the Lord, say, The Lord will certainly put a division between me and his people: and let not the unsexed man say, See, I am a dry tree.

And on the back of the doors and on the pillars you have put your sign: for you have been false to me with another; you have made your bed wide, and made an agreement with them; you had a desire for their bed where you saw it

And of whom were you in fear, so that you were false, and did not keep me in mind, or give thought to it? Have I not been quiet, keeping myself secret, and so you were not in fear of me?

Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken?

But your sins have come between you and your God, and by your evil doings his face has been veiled from you, so that he will give you no answer.

We have gone against the Lord, and been false to him, turning away from our God, our words have been uncontrolled, and in our hearts are thoughts of deceit.

And they will be building again the old broken walls, and will make new the old waste places, and will put up again the towns which have been waste for long generations.

The Lord has taken an oath by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Truly, I will no longer give your grain to be food for your haters; and men of strange countries will not take the wine for which your work has been done:

And they will be named, The holy people, Those whose cause has been taken up by the Lord: and you will be named, Desired, A town not given up.

I have been crushing the grapes by myself, and of the peoples there was no man with me: in my wrath and in my passion, they were crushed under my feet; and my robes are marked with their life-blood, and all my clothing is red.

Why have evil men gone over your holy place, so that it has been crushed under the feet of our haters?

I have been ready to give an answer to those who did not make prayer to me; I have been offering myself to those who were not searching for me; I said, Here am I, here am I, to a nation which gave no respect to my name.

All day my hands have been stretched out to an uncontrolled people, who go in an evil way, after the purposes of their hearts;

And Sharon will be a grass-land for the flocks, and the valley of Achor a resting-place for the herds: for my people whose hearts have been turned back to me.

The wolf and the lamb will take their food together, and the lion will make a meal of grass like the ox: but dust will be the snake's food. There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to Kedar and give deep thought to it; and see if there has ever been such a thing.

Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine, in every way a true seed: how then have you been changed into the branching plant of a strange vine?

Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have given me life: for their backs have been turned to me, not their faces: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Up! and be our saviour.

I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a waste land to Israel? or a land of dark night? why do my people say, We have got loose, we will not come to you again?

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

Let your eyes be lifted up to the open hilltops, and see; where have you not been taken by your lovers? You have been seated waiting for them by the wayside like an Arabian in the waste land; you have made the land unclean with your loose ways and your evil-doing.

So the showers have been kept back, and there has been no spring rain; still your brow is the brow of a loose woman, you will not let yourself be shamed.

And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away from me, had been untrue to me, I had put her away and given her a statement in writing ending the relation between us, still Judah, her false sister, had no fear, but went and did the same.

Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

Truly, as a wife is false to her husband, so have you been false to me, O Israel, says the Lord.

Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

Let us be stretched on the earth in our downfall, covering ourselves with our shame: for we have been sinners against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our earliest years even till this day: and we have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God.

Like keepers of a field they are against her on every side; because she has been fighting against me, says the Lord.

All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have been very false to me, says the Lord.

They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may take note? see, their ears are stopped, and they are not able to give attention: see, the word of the Lord has been a cause of shame to them, they have no delight in it.

The news of it has come to our ears; our hands have become feeble: trouble has come on us and pain, like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

And they will put them out before the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, whose lovers and servants they have been, after whom they have gone, to whom they have made prayers, and to whom they have given worship: they will not be put together or placed in the earth; they will be waste on the face of the earth.

How is it that you say, We are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? But see, the false pen of the scribes has made it false.

Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no expert in medical arts? why then have my people not been made well?

Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

But they have been walking in the pride of their hearts, going after the Baals, as their fathers gave them teaching.

He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out.

For the keepers of the sheep have become like beasts, not looking to the Lord for directions: so they have not done wisely and all their flocks have been put to flight.

Then the towns of Judah and the people of Jerusalem will go crying for help to the gods to whom they have been burning perfumes: but they will give them no salvation in the time of their trouble.

You had been named by the Lord, A branching olive-tree, fair with beautiful fruit: with the noise of a great rushing he has put it on fire and its branches are broken.

They have been planted by you, they have taken root; they go on and give fruit: you are near in their mouths but far from their thoughts.

For even your brothers, your father's family, even they have been untrue to you, crying loudly after you: have no faith in them, though they say fair words to you.

My heritage has become like a lion in the woodland to me; her voice has been loud against me; so I have hate for her.

The keepers of sheep have been the destruction of my vine-garden, crushing my heritage under their feet; they have made my fair heritage an unplanted waste;

Though good grain was planted, they have got in thorns: they have given themselves pain without profit: they will be shamed on account of their produce, because of the burning wrath of the Lord.

And it will come about that, after they have been uprooted, I will again have pity on them; and I will take them back, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.

And it will be that, if they give their minds to learning the ways of my people, using my name in their oaths, By the living Lord; as they have been teaching my people to take oaths by the Baal; then their place will be made certain among my people.

But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

And if you say in your heart, Why have these things come on me? because of the number of your sins, your skirts have been uncovered and violent punishment overtakes you.

Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be changed, or the markings on the leopard? Then it might be possible for you to do good, who have been trained to do evil.

Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads.

Though our sins give witness against us, do something, O Lord, for the honour of your name: for again and again we have been turned away from you, we have done evil against you.

This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even so they have been glad to go from the right way; they have not kept their feet from wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep their wrongdoing in mind and send punishment for their sins.

And I have sent a cleaning wind on them in the public places of the land; I have taken their children from them; I have given my people to destruction; they have not been turned from their ways.

I have let their widows be increased in number more than the sand of the seas: I have sent against them, against the mother and the young men, one who makes waste in the heat of the day, causing pain and fears to come on her suddenly.

The mother of seven is without strength; her spirit is gone from her, her sun has gone down while it is still day: she has been shamed and overcome: and the rest of them I will give up to the sword before their haters, says the Lord.

Why is my pain unending and my wound without hope of being made well? Sorrow is mine, for you are to me as a stream offering false hope and as waters which are not certain.

The sin of Judah is recorded with a pen of iron, and with the sharp point of a jewel it is cut on their hearts of stone, and on the horns of their altars for a sign to them:

As for me, I have not said; Let the day of trouble come to them quickly; and I have not been hoping for the death-giving day; you have knowledge of what came from my lips; it was open before you.

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which they have made unclean, will be like the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs perfumes have been burned to all the army of heaven, and drink offerings drained out to other gods.

O Lord, you have been false to me, and I was tricked; you are stronger than I, and have overcome me: I have become a thing to be laughed at all the day, everyone makes sport of me.

Because he did not put me to death before my birth took place: so my mother's body would have been my last resting-place, and she would have been with child for ever.

Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and sorrow, so that my days might be wasted with shame?

O family of David, this is what the Lord has said: Do what is right in the morning, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away, or my wrath will go out like fire, burning so that no one may put it out, because of the evil of your doings.

This is what the Lord has said: Do what is right, judging uprightly, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away: do no wrong and be not violent to the man from a strange country and the child without a father and the widow, and let not those who have done no wrong be put to death in this place.

My word came to you in the time of your well-being; but you said, I will not give ear. This has been your way from your earliest years, you did not give attention to my voice.

But if they had been in my secret, then they would have made my people give ear to my words, turning them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

My ears have been open to what the prophets have said, who say false words in my name, saying, I have had a dream, I have had a dream, I have had a dream,

And you will no longer put people in mind of the word of weight of the Lord: for every man's word will be a weight on himself; for the words of the living God, of the Lord of armies, our God, have been twisted by you

From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, even till this day, for twenty-three years, the word of the Lord has been coming to me, and I have given it to you, getting up early and talking to you; but you have not given ear.

And the Lord has sent to you all his servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you have not given attention and your ear has not been open to give hearing;

These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: By me the yoke of the king of Babylon has been broken.

The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do so: may the Lord give effect to the words which you have said, and let the vessels of the Lord's house, and all the people who have been taken away, come back from Babylon to this place.