On all the house-tops of Moab and in its streets there is weeping everywhere; for Moab has been broken like a vessel in which there is no pleasure, says the Lord.

For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame. This is what the Lord has said: Up! go against Kedar, and make an attack on the children of the east.

Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and without fear of danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks, living by themselves.

The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,

And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.

The word which the Lord said about Babylon, about the land of the Chaldaeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

For out of the north a nation is coming up against her, which will make her land waste and unpeopled: they are in flight, man and beast are gone.

They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

So give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Babylon, and to his purposes designed against the land of the Chaldaeans; Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

Babylon has been a gold cup in the hand of the Lord, which has made all the earth overcome with wine: the nations have taken of her wine, and for this cause the nations have gone off their heads.

So that your hearts may not become feeble and full of fear because of the news which will go about in the land; for a story will go about one year, and after that in another year another story, and violent acts in the land, ruler against ruler.

The order which Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his rule. Now Seraiah was the chief controller of the house.

And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon.

And you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to be lifted up again, because of the evil which I will send on her: and weariness will overcome them. So far, these are the words of Jeremiah.

Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.

And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

And the brass pillars which were in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took all the brass away to Babylon.

The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!

Jerusalem keeps in mind, in the days of her sorrow and of her wanderings, all the desired things which were hers in days gone by; when her people came into the power of her hater and she had no helper, her attackers saw their desire effected on her and made sport of her destruction.

Come to me, all you who go by! Keep your eyes on me, and see if there is any pain like the pain of my wound, which the Lord has sent on me in the day of his burning wrath.

The visions which your prophets have seen for you are false and foolish; they have not made clear to you your sin so that your fate might be changed: but they have seen for you false words, driving you away.

All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth?

The Lord has done that which was his purpose; he has put into force the orders which he gave in the days which are past; pulling down without pity, he has made your hater glad over you, lifting up the horn of those who were against you.

The Lord is good to those who are waiting for him, to the soul which is looking for him.

You have made us like waste and that for which there is no use, among the peoples.

For the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overturned suddenly without any hand falling on her.

Because of the mountain of Zion which is a waste; jackals go over it.

And there was a voice from the top of the arch which was over their heads: when they came to rest they let down their wings.

And on the top of the arch which was over their heads was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the form of the seat was the form of a man seated on it on high.

And he said to me, Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to an uncontrolled nation which has gone against me: they and their fathers have been sinners against me even to this very day.

And he said to me, Son of man, let your stomach make a meal of it and let your inside be full of this roll which I am giving you. Then I took it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

Then he said to me, Son of man, take into your heart all my words which I am about to say to you, and let your ears be open to them.

Again, when an upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, and I put a cause of falling in his way, death will overtake him: because you have given him no word of his danger, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, and there will be no memory of the upright acts which he has done; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

And let your food be barley cakes, cooking it before their eyes with the waste which comes out of a man.

Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth.

When I send on you the evil arrows of disease, causing destruction, which I will send to put an end to you; and, further, I will take away your necessary food.

And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways.

For the trader will not go back to the things for which he had his price, even while he is still living:

And I saw the glory of the Lord there, as in the vision which I saw in the valley.

And he said to me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? even the very disgusting things which the children of Israel are doing here, causing me to go far away from my holy place? but you will see other most disgusting things.

And he said to me, Go in and see the evil and disgusting things which they are doing here.

So I went in and saw; and there every sort of living thing which goes flat on the earth, and unclean beasts, and all the images of the children of Israel, were pictured round about on the wall.

Then he said to me, You will see even more disgusting things which they do.

Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose.

And the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the winged ones on which it was resting, to the doorstep of the house. And crying out to the man clothed in linen who had the writer's inkpot at his side,

The Lord said to him, Go through the town, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the brows of the men who are sorrowing and crying for all the disgusting things which are done in it.

Then looking, I saw that on the arch which was over the head of the winged ones there was seen over them what seemed like a sapphire stone, having the form of a king's seat.

And stretching out his hand to the fire which was between the winged ones, he took some of it and went out.

When they were moving, they went on their four sides without turning; they went after the head in the direction in which it was looking; they went without turning.

And the winged ones went up on high: this is the living being which I saw by the river Chebar.

This is the living being which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and it was clear to me that they were the winged ones.

And the wind, lifting me up, took me in the visions of God into Chaldaea, to those who had been taken away as prisoners. So the vision which I had seen went away from me.

Then I gave an account to those who had been taken prisoners of all the things which the Lord had made me see.

And the ruler who is among them will take his goods on his back in the dark and go out: he will make a hole in the wall through which to go out: he will have his face covered so that he may not be seen.

Son of man, what is this saying which you have about the land of Israel, The time is long and every vision comes to nothing?

Son of man, see, the children of Israel say, The vision which he sees is for the days which are a long way off, and his words are of times still far away.

This is what the Lord has said: A curse on the foolish prophets who go after the spirit which is in them and have seen nothing!

And when the wall has come down, will they not say to you, Where is the whitewash which you put on it?

So I will let the wall, which you were covering with whitewash, be broken down; I will have it levelled to the earth so that its base is uncovered: it will come down, and destruction will come on you with it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am against your bands with which you go after souls, and I will violently take them off their arms; and I will let loose the souls, even the souls whom you go after freely.

Son of man, these men have taken their false gods into their hearts and put before their faces the sin which is the cause of their fall: am I to give ear when they come to me for directions?

For this cause say to them, These are the words of the Lord: Every man of Israel who has taken his false god into his heart, and put before his face the sin which is the cause of his fall, and comes to the prophet; I the Lord will give him an answer by myself in agreement with the number of his false gods;

When any one of the men of Israel, or of those from other lands who are living in Israel, who has become strange to me, and takes his false gods into his heart, and puts before his face the sin which is the cause of his fall, comes to the prophet to get directions from me; I the Lord will give him an answer by myself:

But truly, there will still be a small band who will be safe, even sons and daughters: and they will come out to you, and you will see their ways and their doings: and you will be comforted about the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem, even about everything I have sent on it.

Son of man, what is the vine-tree more than any branching tree which is among the trees of the woods?

For this cause the Lord has said: Like the vine-tree among the trees of the woods which I have given to the fire for burning, so will I give the people of Jerusalem.

You were so beautiful that the story of you went out into all nations; you were completely beautiful because of my glory which I had put on you, says the Lord.

And you took the fair jewels, my silver and gold which I had given to you, and made for yourself male images, acting like a loose woman with them;

And my bread which I gave you, the best meal and oil and honey which I gave you for your food, you put it before them for a sweet smell, says the Lord.

And you went with the Assyrians, because of your desire which was without measure; you were acting like a loose woman with them, and still you had not enough.

This is what the Lord has said: Because your unclean behaviour was let loose and your body uncovered in your loose ways with your lovers and with your disgusting images, and for the blood of your children which you gave to them;

Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways.

And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done.

And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.

And so the Lord has said, By my life, truly, for my oath which he put on one side, and my agreement which has been broken, I will send punishment on his head.

My net will be stretched out over him, and he will be taken in my cords, and I will send him to Babylon, and there I will be his judge for the wrong which he has done against me.

Now if he has a son who sees all his father's sins which he has done, and in fear does not do the same:

The soul which does sin will be put to death: the son will not be made responsible for the evil-doing of the father, or the father for the evil-doing of the son; the righteousness of the upright will be on himself, and the evil-doing of the evil-doer on himself.

But if the evil-doer, turning away from all the sins which he has done, keeps my rules and does what is ordered and right, life will certainly be his; death will not be his fate.

Not one of the sins which he has done will be kept in memory against him: in the righteousness which he has done he will have life.

But when the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, like all the disgusting things which the evil man does, will he have life? Not one of his upright acts will be kept in memory: in the wrong which he has done and in his sin death will overtake him.

When the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, death will overtake him; in the evil which he has done death will overtake him.

Because he had fear and was turned away from all the wrong which he had done, life will certainly be his, death will not be his fate.

Put away all your evil-doing in which you have done sin; and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit: why are you desiring death, O children of Israel?

In that day I gave my oath to take them out of the land of Egypt into a land which I had been searching out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands:

And I said to them, Let every man among you put away the disgusting things to which his eyes are turned, and do not make yourselves unclean with the images of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

But they would not be controlled by me, and did not give ear to me; they did not put away the disgusting things to which their eyes were turned, or give up the images of Egypt: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the land of Egypt.

And I gave them my rules and made clear to them my orders, which, if a man keeps them, will be life to him.

But the children of Israel would not be controlled by me in the waste land: they were not guided by my rules, and they were turned away from my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said that I would let loose my passion on them in the waste land, and put an end to them.

And further, I gave my oath to them in the waste land, that I would not take them into the land which I had given them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands;

But the children would not be controlled by me; they were not guided by my rules, and they did not keep and do my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the waste land.

And further, I gave them rules which were not good and orders in which there was no life for them;

For when I had taken them into the land which I made an oath to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every branching tree and made their offerings there, moving me to wrath by their offerings; and there the sweet smell of their offerings went up and their drink offerings were drained out.

And that which comes into your minds will never take place; when you say, We will be like the nations, like the families of the countries, servants of wood and stone;

And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when I take you into the land of Israel, into the country which I made an oath to give to your fathers.

Son of man, say as a prophet, These are the words of the Lord: Say, A sword, a sword which has been made sharp and polished:

So then, son of man, be a prophet, and put your hands together with a loud sound, and give two blows with the sword, and even three; it is the sword of those who are wounded, even the sword of the wounded; the great sword which goes round about them.

This is what the Lord has said: Take away the holy head-dress, take off the crown: this will not be again: let that which is low be lifted up, and that which is high be made low.