And ye shall make a pit betwixt the twain walls of the water of the old pool, and nothing regard him that took it in hand, and made it long ago.

The oracle on Tyre, - Howl! ye ships of Tarshish, For it is laid too waste to be a haven to enter, From the land of Cyprus, hath it been unveiled to them.

Is this the town which was full of joy, whose start goes back to times long past, whose wanderings took her into far-off countries?

In measure, in sending her forth thou wilt contend with her: he took away with a hard spirit in the day of the east,

For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow when he would wrap himself in it.

Alas! for them who would fain have been too deep for Yahweh by giving secret counsel, - and therefore in the dark, have been their doings, and they have said Who can see us? and - Who can understand us?

Yet he too is wise and he will bring disaster; he does not retract his decree. He will attack the wicked nation, and the nation that helps those who commit sin.

You will not see [the] insolent people, [the] people {whose language is too obscure to understand}, [whose] stammering of tongue {cannot be understood}.

Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not strengthen the foot of their mast, they could not spread the sail: then was the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame took the prey.

And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.

And the king of Assyria sent the Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a strong force, and he took up his position by the stream of the higher pool, by the highway of the washerman's

But if thou wouldest say unto me: 'We trust in the LORD our God': is not he that God whose High places and altars Hezekiah took down, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem to worship only before this altar?

So then Rabshakeh took his stand, and cried out with a loud voice, in the Jews language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria:

Till my coming and I took you to a land as your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

And on hearing it Hezekiah took off his robe and put on haircloth and went into the house of the Lord.

And Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and he read it. Then he went up [to] the temple of Yahweh, and Hezekiah spread it out before the {presence} of Yahweh.

With whom took he counsel, and who gave him intelligence, and instructed him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding?

The one who is [too] impoverished [for] a gift chooses wood [that] will not rot; he seeks a skillful artisan for himself to set up an image [that] will not be knocked over.

Also they were not planted: also they were not sown: also their stock took not root in the earth: and he also blew upon them and they will be dried up, and the storm will lift them up as straw.

Who gave up Jacob to those who took away his goods, and Israel to his attackers? Did not the Lord? he against whom they did wrong, and in whose ways they would not go, turning away from his teaching.

And he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he took it not to heart.

[The] {ironsmith} works in the coals [with his] tool and forms it with hammers. And he makes it with {his strong arm}; indeed, he becomes hungry, and {he lacks} strength; he does not drink water, and he is faint.

When one was cutting him down cedars, Then took he a holm-tree and an oak, And secured them for himself, among the trees of the forest, - He planted a fir-tree and the pouring rain made it grow;

They don't realize; they don't understand, because their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds, too, so they cannot understand.

Shout for joy, O sky, for the Lord intervenes; shout out, you subterranean regions of the earth. O mountains, give a joyful shout; you too, O forest and all your trees! For the Lord protects Jacob; he reveals his splendor through Israel.

Bel is bent down, Nebo is falling; their images are on the beasts and on the cattle: the things which you took about have become a weight to the tired beast.

Therefore I declared them to you long ago,
Before they took place I proclaimed them to you,
So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’

“Come near to Me, listen to this:
From the first I have not spoken in secret,
From the time it took place, I was there.
And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Surely your sites of ruins and desolate [places] and land of ruins, surely now you will be {too cramped for your} inhabitants, and those who engulfed you will be far away.

Yet the children {born when you were bereaved} will say in your {hearing}, "The place is [too] cramped for me; {make room} for me so that I can dwell."

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?

Why was no one there when I came?
Why was there no one to answer when I called?
Is My hand too short to redeem?
Or do I have no power to deliver?
Look, I dry up the sea by My rebuke;
I turn the rivers into a wilderness;
their fish rot because of lack of water
and die of thirst.

Thus said thy Lord Jehovah and thy God, he will contend for his people, Behold, I took from thy hand the cup of reeling, the goblet cup of my wrath; thou shalt not add to drink it more.

For this is what the LORD says: "My people went down long ago into Egypt to live there; the Assyrian, too, has oppressed them without cause.

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.

But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are made well.

They took away from him help and right, and who gave a thought to his fate? for he was cut off from the land of the living: he came to his death for the sin of my people.

Therefore, I will divide and give Him a portion with the great [kings and rulers],
And He shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
Because He [willingly] poured out His life to death,
And was counted among the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore and took away the sin of many,
And interceded [with the Father] for the transgressors.

For this is like the days of Noah to me: for as I took an oath that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so have I taken an oath that I will not again be angry with you, or say bitter words to you.

Behold, I have created the smith who blows the coals in the fire, and who brings out a tool for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.

“If you keep from desecrating the Sabbath,
from doing whatever you want on My holy day;
if you call the Sabbath a delight,
and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
seeking your own pleasure, or talking too much;

Look! The hand of Yahweh is not too short {to save}, and his ear is not [too] dull {to hear}.

For you are aware of our many rebellious deeds, and our sins testify against us; indeed, we are aware of our rebellious deeds; we know our sins all too well.

He put righteousness upon him for a breastplate, and set the helmet of health upon his head. He put on wrath instead of clothing, and took jealousy about him for a cloak:

It was no sent one or angel, but he himself who was their saviour: in his love and in his pity he took up their cause, and he took them in his arms, caring for them all through the years.

{Your holy people} took possession for little [while]; our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.

When you performed awesome deeds that took us by surprise, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Lord, do not be too angry! Do not hold our sins against us continually! Take a good look at your people, at all of us!

{who say}, "{Keep to yourself}! You must not come near me, for I am [too] holy for you!" These [are] a smoke in my {nostrils}, a fire burning all day.

Both your own wickedness and the wickedness of your fathers,” says the Lord.
“Since they too have made offerings with incense on the mountains
And scorned and taunted Me on the hills,
I therefore will measure [punishment for] their former work [directly] into their arms.”

I'll consign you to the sword, and all of you will bend down for the slaughter because when I called, you didn't answer, when I spoke, you didn't listen; but you did what was evil in my sight, and chose what I took no pleasure in."

So I will go after trouble for them, and will send on them what they are fearing: because no one made answer to my voice, or gave ear to my word; but they did what was evil in my eyes, going after that in which I took no pleasure.

Before I formed thee at thy birth, I took knowledge of thee, And before thy nativity, I hallowed thee, - A prophet to the nations, I appointed thee.

I answered, "Oh, Lord God, I really do not know how to speak well enough for that, for I am too young."

The Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am too young.' But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you.

And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living?

And I took you into a fertile land, where you were living on its fruit and its wealth; but when you came in, you made my land unclean, and made my heritage a disgusting thing.

She also saw that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods.

Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone.

Turn back, ye sons having turned away, says Jehovah; for I was lord over you: and I took you one from a city and two from a family, and I brought you to Zion.

"'I have showed also, how I took thee up being but a child, and gave thee a pleasant land for thine heritage; yea, and a goodly Host of the Heathen: and how I commanded thee, that thou shouldest call me Father only, and not to shrink from me.

{a wind too strong for} these will come for me, now also I speak judgments against them."

Where as thou, O LORD, lookest only upon faith and truth. Thou hast scourged them, but they took no repentance: thou hast corrected them for amendment, but they refused thy correction. They made their faces harder than stone, and would not amend.

“I will go to the great
And will speak to them,
For they know the way of the Lord
And the ordinance of their God.”
But they too, with one accord, have broken the yoke
And burst the bonds.

They will say, 'Prepare to do battle against it! Come on! Let's attack it at noon!' But later they will say, 'Oh, oh! Too bad! The day is almost over and the shadows of evening are getting long.

So then with the indignation of Yahweh, am I full I am too weary to hold it in, am constrained to pour it out, upon the boy in the street, and upon the circle of young men, together, - For, even husband with wife, will be captured, The eider with him who is full of days;

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. The process of refining them has proved useless. The wicked have not been purged.

Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

The Lord said to the people of Judah, "The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says: 'You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too!

For I said nothing to your fathers, and gave them no orders, on the day when I took them out of Egypt, about burned offerings or offerings of beasts:

But they took no note and did not give ear, but were guided by the thoughts and the pride of their evil hearts, going back and not forward.

But still they took no note and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff, doing worse than their fathers.

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.

For the breaking of the daughter of my people was I broken; I was darkened; astonishment took hold of me.

For the statutes of the peoples [are] vanity, for it [is] a tree cut down from [the] forest, [the] work of [the] hands of a craftsman with the tool.

Every son of earth hath become too brutish to discern, Every goldsmith, hath been put to shame by a graven image, - For a falsehood, is his molten image, Seeing there is no breath in them.

To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when I took them out of the land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron, saying, Give ear to my voice, and do all the orders I have given you: so you will be my people, and I will be your God:

For I gave certain witness to your fathers on the day when I took them up out of the land of Egypt, and even to this day, getting up early and witnessing and saying, Give ear to my voice.

They have gone back to the evil ways of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

Thou didst plant them, yea they took root, They have gone on yea they have borne fruit, - Near, art thou, in their mouth, But far off from their affections,

As a matter of fact, even your own brothers and the members of your own family have betrayed you too. Even they have plotted to do away with you. So do not trust them even when they say kind things to you.

Then I went [to the] Euphrates and I dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it, and look, the loincloth was ruined; it was not good for anything.

They are dismayed because the ground is cracked because there has been no rain in the land. The farmers, too, are dismayed and bury their faces in their hands.

Though they fast, I will not hear their cry; and though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them [because they are done as obligations, and not as acts of loving obedience]. Instead I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

For thus said Jehovah, Thou shalt not go in to the house of wailing, and thou shalt not go to lament and thou shalt not deplore for them, for I took away my peace from this people, says Jehovah; -kindness and mercies.

You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.

For this cause, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt.

But, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had sent them: and I will take them back again to their land which I gave to their fathers.

Is evil to be the reward of good? for they have made a deep hole for my soul. Keep in mind how I took my place before you, to say a good word for them so that your wrath might be turned away from them.

Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to give the prophet's word; and he took his place in the open square of the Lord's house, and said to all the people,

And I gave all the strength of this city, and all her labors, and everything precious of hers, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, and they spoiled them, and took them and brought them to Babel.

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.

For he will die in the country where they took him as a captive. He will never see this land again."

He took up the case of the poor and needy,
then it went well.
Is this not what it means to know Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

And so, truly, the days are coming when they will say no longer, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt;

But, By the living Lord, who took up the seed of Israel, and made them come out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had sent them; and they will be living in the land which is theirs.

Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated.

The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim's son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon.

One basket contained very good figs like the first figs that ripen on the tree. The other basket contained very bad figs that were too bad to be eaten.