Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My Words, nor to My Law, but have rejected it.

They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, set in order like a man for war against you, O daughter of Zion.

We have heard the rumor of it; our hands become feeble; anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, like a woman in labor.

I have set you up an assayer, an examiner among My people, that you may know and try their way.

Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I also have seen, says Jehovah.

And now, because you have done all these works, says Jehovah, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer;

therefore I will do to this house, which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, the whole seed of Ephraim.

But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending.

For the sons of Judah have done evil in My sight, says Jehovah. They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, in order to defile it.

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 did not command them, nor did it come into My heart.

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of the heavens, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the earth.

And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, who remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Jehovah of Hosts.

I listened and heard, but they did not speak right; no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turned in their own courses, as the horse rushes into the battle.

The wise are ashamed, they are terrified, and are captured. Lo, they have turned away from the Word of Jehovah; and what wisdom is in them?

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

I will utterly consume them, says Jehovah; there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them, those who pass over them.

Why do we sit still? Gather yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there. For Jehovah our God has put us to silence, and has given us poisonous water to drink, because we have sinned against Jehovah.

The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his stallions. For they have come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those who live in it.

Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, from a far country. Is not Jehovah in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign vanities?

And everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains, and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness; because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.

And Jehovah says, Because they have forsaken My Law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it,

but they have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.

I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.

For a voice of weeping is heard out of Zion. How are we plundered! We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because they have thrown down our tents.

So you shall say to them, The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.

For the pastors have become stupid, and have not sought Jehovah, therefore they shall not be blessed, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

Pour out Your fury on the nations who do not know You, and on the families who do not call on Your name; for they have eaten up Jacob and have devoured him, and have destroyed him, and have made his dwelling desolate.

so that I may fulfil the oath which I have sworn to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered and said, Amen, O Jehovah.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My Words. And they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.

For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

And Jehovah of Hosts who planted you has spoken evil against you, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves to provoke Me to anger by offering incense to Baal.

But, O Jehovah of Hosts who judges rightly, who tries the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance on them. For to You I have revealed my cause.

You have planted them; yea, they take root. They grow, yea, they make fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their reins.

But You, O Jehovah, know me. You have seen me and tried my heart toward You. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and devote them for the day of slaughter.

How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds have been destroyed, because they said, He shall not see our last end.

If you have run with footmen, and they wore you out, then how can you compete with horses? And if you feel secure in the land of peace, then how will you do in the swelling of the Jordan?

For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you. Yea, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, though they speak good things to you.

I have forsaken My house; I have left My inheritance. I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.

My inheritance is to Me as a lion in the forest; it cries out against Me; therefore I have hated it.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My portion under foot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

The ravagers have come on all high places through the wilderness; for the sword of Jehovah shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh shall have peace.

They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns. They are worn out, but they do not profit. And they shall be ashamed of your harvests because of the fierce anger of Jehovah.

So says Jehovah against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.

And it will be after I have plucked them out, I will return and have pity on them, and will bring them again, each man to his inheritance and each man to his land.

For as the girdle holds fast to the loins of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, says Jehovah; so that they might be to Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; but they would not hear.

And I will smash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, says Jehovah. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, to keep them from their destruction.

The cities of the south have been shut up, and none are opening; Judah has been exiled, all of it has been peacefully exiled.

What will you say when he comes to punish you? For you have taught them to be rulers over you for a head. Do not pangs seize you, like a woman in travail?

This is your lot, the share I have measured to you, says Jehovah, because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.

So I also have stripped off your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear.

I have seen your adulteries, and your neighings, the wickedness of your fornication, and your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you not be made clean? How long will it still be?

And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters; they came to the cisterns, and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

O Jehovah, though our iniquities testify against us, act for Your name's sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against You.

So says Jehovah to this people; So they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet; therefore Jehovah does not accept them. He will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins.

Then I said, Ah, O Lord Jehovah! Behold, the prophets are saying to them, You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine; but I will give you true peace in this place.

And Jehovah said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I did not send them, nor have I commanded them, nor did I speak to them. They prophesy to you a false vision and a worthless divination, and a thing of no value, and the deceit of their heart.

And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, either them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters. For I will pour their evil on them.

If I go out into the field, then I see those killed with the sword! And if I enter into the city, then, behold, sicknesses of famine! Yes, both the prophet and the priest have gone up into a land that they do not know.

Have You utterly rejected Judah? Or has Your soul hated Zion? Why have You stricken us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for the time of healing, and behold, trouble!

We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our wickedness, the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against You.

For who shall have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who shall weep over you? Or who shall turn aside to ask your welfare?

You have forsaken Me, says Jehovah; you have gone backward; therefore I will stretch out My hand against you, and destroy you; I am weary with repenting.

Their widows are more numerous about Me than the sand of the seas; I have brought on them, against a mother of a young man, a ravager at noonday; I have caused anguish and terror to fall on her suddenly.

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not loaned, nor have men loaned to me; yet every one curses me.

O Jehovah, You know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on those who seek to hurt me. Do not take me away in Your long-suffering; know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.

I did not sit in the circle of mockers, nor rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand; for You have filled me with indignation.

You shall not take a wife for yourself, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.

For so says Jehovah, Do not enter into the house of mourning; do not go to weep nor moan over them. For I have taken away My peace from this people, says Jehovah, even loving-kindness and mercies.

And it shall be, when you declare to this people all these words, and they shall say to you, Why has Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our God?

Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says Jehovah, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My Law.

And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, you walk each one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, without listening to Me;

And first I will twice repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land, they have filled My inheritance with the dead bodies of their abominable things.

O Jehovah, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.

And you, even through yourself, have let go of the inheritance which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in My anger, which shall burn forever.

O Jehovah, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Jehovah, the Fountain of living waters.

I have not hurried away from shepherding after You; nor have I desired the woeful day; You surely know the going forth of my lips before Your face.

if that nation, against whom I have spoken, will turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.

Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the old paths, to walk in by-paths, not in the highway,

Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before You to do good for them, and to turn away Your wrath from them.

Let a cry be heard from their houses, when You suddenly bring a raiding party on them. For they have dug a pit to take me, and have hidden snares for my feet.

Because they have forsaken Me, and have made this place famous and have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents.

They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I never commanded nor spoke, nor did it come into My mind.

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be as defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of the heavens, and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.

So says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have spoken against it, because they have hardened their necks so that they might not hear My Words.

And you, Pashur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. And you shall come to Babylon, and you shall die there, and shall be buried there; you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.

O Jehovah, You have deceived me, and I was deceived. You are stronger than I, and You have prevailed. I am in derision all the day; everyone laughs at me.

But, O Jehovah of Hosts, who tries the righteous and sees the reins and the heart, let me see Your vengeance on them. For I have committed my cause to You.

because he did not kill me from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

And afterward, says Jehovah, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the plague, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. And he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, nor have pity, nor have mercy.

For I have set My face against this city for evil, and not for good, says Jehovah. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.

But he shall die in the place where they have exiled him and shall see this land no more.

I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed My voice.

Therefore so says Jehovah, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed My people, You have scattered My flock, and have driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will bring on you the evil of your doings, says Jehovah.

And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their fold. And they shall be fruitful and multiply.

but, Jehovah lives, who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries where I have driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land.

For both prophet and priest are ungodly; yes, in My house I have found their evil, says Jehovah.