A thing of wonder and fear has come about in the land;

O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction.

The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be cut off by my hand.

Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her.

As the digging of a well, is for its waters, So she hath digged for her wickedness, Violence and spoil is heard in her, Before My face continually are sickness and smiting.

For thus sayeth the LORD of Hosts, "The residue of Israel shall be gathered, as the remnant of grapes. And therefore turn thine hand again into the basket, like the grape gatherer."

To whom do I speak, and testify, and they hear? Lo, their ear is uncircumcised, And they are not able to attend. Lo, a word of Jehovah hath been to them for a reproach, They delight not in it.

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 unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD.

For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

They offer only superficial help for the harm my people have suffered. They say, 'Everything will be all right!' But everything is not all right!

Have they acted ashamed, for they have committed a detestable thing? Not at all, nor were they ashamed; they did not know to feel humiliated. {Therefore} they will fall among [those who] fall at the time I punish them, they will stumble," says Yahweh.

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

And I have raised up for you watchmen, Attend ye to the voice of the trumpet. And they say, 'We do not attend.'

Hear therefore ye Gentiles; and thou, congregation, shalt know what I have devised for them.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

To what purpose cometh 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.

For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will put stones in the way of this people: and the fathers and the sons together will go falling over them; the neighbour and his friend will come to destruction.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Beware! An army is coming from a land in the north. A mighty nation is stirring into action in faraway parts of the earth.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

The people cry out, "We have heard reports about them! We have become helpless with fear! Anguish grips us, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby!

Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.

O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way.

They all, are rebels of rebels, Slander-walkers They are bronze and iron! As for them all, corrupters, they are!

The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.

Reprobate silver shall they call them, for Jehovah hath rejected them.

The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says, Let your ways and your doings be changed for the better and I will let you go on living in this place.

Do not trust for yourselves Unto the words of falsehood, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, The temple of Jehovah are they!

For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

Sojourner, fatherless, and widow, ye oppress not, And innocent blood do not shed in this place, And after other gods do not walk, for evil to yourselves,

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

Lo, ye are trusting for yourselves On the words of falsehood, so as not to profit.

For when ye have stolen, murdered, committed adultery and penury; When ye have offered unto Baal, following strange and unknown gods;

and [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, ‘We are protected and set free [by this act of religious ritual]!’—only to go on with this wickedness and these disgusting and loathsome things?

Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes [a place of retreat for you between acts of violence]? Behold, I Myself have seen it,” says the Lord.

But go ye 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.

For this reason I will do to the house which is named by my name, and in which you have put your faith, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

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.

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Me are they provoking to anger? an affirmation of Jehovah, Is it not themselves, For the shame of their own faces?

So," the Lord God says, "my raging fury will be poured out on this land. It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished."

These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: Put your burned offerings with your offerings of beasts, and take flesh for your food.

For I spake 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 I commanded them, saying: Hearken to My voice, And I have been to you for God, And ye -- ye are to Me for a people, And have walked in all the way that I command you, So that it is well for you.

And they have not hearkened, nor inclined their ear, And they walk in the counsels, In the stubbornness, of their evil heart, And are for backward, and not for forward.

Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.

And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

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.

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

"This shalt thou say unto them also: Thus sayeth the LORD, Do men fall also, that they arise not up again? And turn they so far away, that they never convert?

Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever turning away? they will not give up their deceit, they will not come back.

I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right: no man had regret for his evil-doing, saying, What have I done? everyone goes off on his way like a horse rushing to the fight.

“Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons [of migration],
And the turtledove, the swallow and the crane
Observe the time of their return.
But My people do not know
The law of the Lord.

How shall ye say, We are wise, and the law of Jehovah with us? Behold, surely for falsehood he made the style of the scribes a lie.

The wise men are shamed, they are overcome with fear and taken: see, they have given up the word of the Lord; and what use is their wisdom to them?

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

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Were they ashamed, for they had committed a detestable thing? What's worse, they were not ashamed at all, and they did not know to feel humiliated. {Therefore} they will fall among [those who] fall; at the time of their punishment they will stumble," says Yahweh.

“I will gather and snatch them away [utterly consuming them],” says the Lord.
“There will be no grapes on the vine,
Nor figs on the fig tree,
And even the leaf will wither;
And the things that I have given them will pass away [by the hand of those whom I have appointed].”’”

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

We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!

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 therein.

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

My refreshing for me is sorrow, For me my heart is sick.

Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?

For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why then is there no dressing applied for the healing of the daughter of my people?

Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

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

They have set their stole in the midst of deceit, and for very dissembling falsity they will not know me, sayeth the LORD.

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?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth wait for him.

Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

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 are fled; they are gone.

Thus will I give up Jerusalem To heaps, A habitation for jackals, - And the cities of Judah, will I give up to desolation, without inhabitant.

Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?

And Jehovah will say, For their forsaking my law which I gave before their face, and they heard not to my voice, and they went not in it.

Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "Look, I [am] feeding this people wormwood, and providing drink for them, water of poison,

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

For hear, women, the word of Yahweh, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters a lamentation, and each woman her neighbor a lament.

For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Hear ye the word, O house of Israel, That Jehovah hath spoken for you.

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

None, there is, like unto thee, O Yahweh, - Great, art, thou, And, great, is thy Name, for might.

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of skilful men.

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an eternal king: when he is angry, the earth is shaking with fear, and the nations give way before his wrath.