Death will be chosen over life by all the survivors of this evil family, those who remain wherever I have banished them.” This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

Why have these people turned away?
Why is Jerusalem always turning away?
They take hold of deceit;
they refuse to return.

I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.

The wise will be put to shame;
they will be dismayed and snared.
They have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom do they really have?

They have treated superficially the brokenness
of My dear people,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.

I will gather them and bring them to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
There will be no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the fig tree,
and even the leaf will wither.
Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.

Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let us enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

Harvest has passed, summer has ended,
but we have not been saved.

Each one betrays his friend;
no one tells the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they wear themselves out doing wrong.

I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,
everything has fled—they have gone away.

I will scatter them among the nations that they and their fathers have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.

My tent is destroyed;
all my tent cords are snapped.
My sons have departed from me and are no more.
I have no one to pitch my tent again
or to hang up my curtains.

For the shepherds are stupid:
they don’t seek the Lord.
Therefore they have not prospered,
and their whole flock is scattered.

Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that don’t recognize You
and on the families
that don’t call on Your name,
for they have consumed Jacob;
they have consumed him and finished him off
and made his homeland desolate.

They have returned to the sins of their ancestors who refused to obey My words and have followed other gods to worship them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah broke My covenant I made with their ancestors.

Then the cities of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods they have been burning incense to, but they certainly will not save them in their time of disaster.

Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, Judah, and the altars you have set up to Shame—altars to burn incense to Baal—as numerous as the streets of Jerusalem.

What right does My beloved have
to be in My house,
having carried out so many evil schemes?
Can holy meat prevent your disaster
so you can rejoice?

But, Lord of Hosts, who judges righteously,
who tests heart and mind,
let me see Your vengeance on them,
for I have presented my case to You.

They will have no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

You planted them, and they have taken root.
They have grown and produced fruit.
You are ever on their lips,
but far from their conscience.

How long will the land mourn
and the grass of every field wither?
Because of the evil of its residents,
animals and birds have been swept away,
for the people have said,
“He cannot see what our end will be.”

If you have raced with runners
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in a peaceful land,
what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

Even your brothers—your own father’s household—
even they were treacherous to you;
even they have cried out loudly after you.
Do not have confidence in them,
though they speak well of you.

I have abandoned My house;
I have deserted My inheritance.
I have given the love of My life
into the hands of her enemies.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard;
they have trampled My plot of land.
They have turned My desirable plot
into a desolate wasteland.

They have made it a desolation.
It mourns, desolate, before Me.
All the land is desolate,
but no one takes it to heart.

Over all the barren heights in the wilderness
the destroyers have come,
for the Lord has a sword that devours
from one end of the earth to the other.
No one has peace.

They have sown wheat but harvested thorns.
They have exhausted themselves but have no profit.
Be put to shame by your harvests
because of the Lord’s burning anger.

After I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

These evil people, who refuse to listen to Me, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who have followed other gods to serve and worship—they will be like this underwear, of no use at all.

Say to the king and the queen mother:
Take a humble seat,
for your glorious crowns
have fallen from your heads.

And when you ask yourself,
“Why have these things happened to me?”
It is because of your great guilt
that your skirts have been stripped off,
your body exposed.

This is your lot,
what I have decreed for you—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
because you have forgotten Me
and trusted in Falsehood.

Your adulteries and your lustful neighing,
your heinous prostitution
on the hills, in the fields—
I have seen your detestable acts.
Woe to you, Jerusalem!
You are unclean—
for how long yet?

Though our guilt testifies against us,
Yahweh, act for Your name’s sake.
Indeed, our rebellions are many;
we have sinned against You.

Have You completely rejected Judah?
Do You detest Zion?
Why do You strike us
with no hope of healing for us?
We hoped for peace,
but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing,
but there was only terror.

We acknowledge our wickedness, Lord,
the guilt of our fathers;
indeed, we have sinned against You.

Can any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain?
Or can the skies alone give showers?
Are You not the Lord our God?
We therefore put our hope in You,
for You have done all these things.

Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?
Who will show sympathy toward you?
Who will turn aside
to ask about your welfare?

You have left Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
You have turned your back,
so I have stretched out My hand against you
and destroyed you.
I am tired of showing compassion.

Why has my pain become unending,
my wound incurable,
refusing to be healed?
You truly have become like a mirage to me—
water that is not reliable.

“You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

I will first repay them double for their guilt and sin because they have polluted My land. They have filled My inheritance with the lifelessness of their detestable and abhorrent idols.”

You will, on your own, relinquish your inheritance
that I gave you.
I will make you serve your enemies
in a land you do not know,
for you have set My anger on fire;
it will burn forever.

Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who abandon You
will be put to shame.
All who turn away from Me
will be written in the dirt,
for they have abandoned
the Lord, the fountain of living water.

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd,
and I have not longed for the fatal day.
You know my words were spoken in Your presence.

However, if that nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.

Yet My people have forgotten Me.
They burn incense to false idols
that make them stumble in their ways
on the ancient roads
and walk on new paths, not the highway.

They have made their land a horror,
a perpetual object of scorn;
everyone who passes by it will be horrified
and shake his head.

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn Your anger from them.

Let a cry be heard from their houses
when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.

because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in it to other gods that they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah have never known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become impure like that place Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they have burned incense to the whole heavenly host and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its dependent villages—all the disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying My words.’”

For I have heard the gossip of many people,
“Terror is on every side!
Report him; let’s report him!”
Everyone I trusted watches for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived
so that we might prevail against him
and take our vengeance on him.”

But the Lord is with me like a violent warrior.
Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly shamed,
an everlasting humiliation that will never be forgotten.

Lord of Hosts, testing the righteous
and seeing the heart and mind,
let me see Your vengeance on them,
for I have presented my case to You.

because he didn’t kill me in the womb
so that my mother might have been my grave,
her womb eternally pregnant.

For I have turned against this city to bring disaster and not good’”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “‘It will be handed over to the king of Babylon, who will burn it down.’

I will punish you according to what you have done—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will kindle a fire in its forest
that will consume everything around it.’”

But you have eyes and a heart for nothing
except your own dishonest profit,
shedding innocent blood
and committing extortion and oppression.

Go up to Lebanon and cry out;
raise your voice in Bashan;
cry out from Abarim,
for all your lovers have been crushed.

I spoke to you when you were secure.
You said, “I will not listen.”
This has been your way since youth;
indeed, you have never listened to Me.

Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered pot,
a jar no one wants?
Why are he and his descendants hurled out
and cast into a land they have not known?

“Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who shepherd My people: You have scattered My flock, banished them, and have not attended to them. I will attend to you because of your evil acts”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

“I will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands where I have banished them, and I will return them to their grazing land. They will become fruitful and numerous.

Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me,
and all my bones tremble.
I have become like a drunkard,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the Lord,
because of His holy words.

For the land is full of adulterers;
the land mourns because of the curse,
and the grazing lands in the wilderness have dried up.
Their way of life has become evil,
and their power is not rightly used

because both prophet and priest are ungodly,
even in My house I have found their evil.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

They keep on saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said: You will have peace.’ They have said to everyone who follows the stubbornness of his heart, ‘No harm will come to you.’”

If they had really stood in My council,
they would have enabled My people to hear My words
and would have turned them back from their evil ways
and their evil deeds.

“I have heard what the prophets who prophesy a lie in My name have said, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’

But if you say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ then this is what the Lord says: Because you have said, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ and I specifically told you not to say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’

I will make them an object of horror and disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace, an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing, wherever I have banished them.

I will send the sword, famine, and plague against them until they have perished from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.”

“From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, until this very day—23 years—the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you time and time again, but you have not obeyed.

The Lord sent all His servants the prophets to you time and time again, but you have not obeyed or even paid attention.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Because you have not obeyed My words,

I will bring on that land all My words I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book that Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.

all the kings of Arabia,
and all the kings of the mixed peoples who have settled in the desert;

Wail, you shepherds, and cry out.
Roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock.
Because the days of your slaughter have come,
you will fall and become shattered like a precious vase.

“This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple and speak all the words I have commanded you to speak to all Judah’s cities that are coming to worship there. Do not hold back a word.

and by listening to the words of My servants the prophets I have been sending you time and time again, though you did not listen,

Then the priests and prophets said to the officials and all the people, “This man deserves the death sentence because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”

Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and the people, “The Lord sent me to prophesy all the words that you have heard against this temple and city.

So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. I have even given him the wild animals to serve him.

“As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish by sword, famine, and plague”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“until through him I have destroyed it.

‘I have not sent them’—this is the Lord’s declaration—‘and they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore, I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who are prophesying to you.’”

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

The prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words you have prophesied come true and may He restore the articles of the Lord’s temple and all the exiles from Babylon to this place!

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, ‘I have put an iron yoke on the neck of all these nations that they might serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have also put the wild animals under him.’”

The prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, but you have led these people to trust in a lie.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to send you off the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have spoken rebellion against the Lord.’”

Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease.