I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, O Babylon, and you were not aware: you are found, and also caught, because you have contended against the LORD.

Babylon has been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country: for her judgment reaches unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says the LORD.

The mighty men of Babylon have ceased to fight, they have remained in their strongholds: their might has failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwelling places; her bars are broken.

And that the fords are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are terrified.

You that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach: shame has covered our faces: for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the LORD's house.

Then shall you say, O LORD, you have spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever.

And it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates:

She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

Her adversaries have become the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed: her princes have become like harts that find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sighs, and turns away.

All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their treasures for food to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I have become despised.

The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my soul is troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it: you will bring the day that you have announced, and they shall be like unto me.

Let all their wickedness come before you; and do unto them, as you have done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary, he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you: and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but have given you false oracles and causes of banishment.

All your enemies have opened their mouth against you: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom you have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, the children of their tender care? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have slain them in the day of your anger; you have killed, and not pitied.

You have called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have cared for and brought up has my enemy consumed.

And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity.

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

We have transgressed and have rebelled: you have not pardoned.

You have covered with anger, and persecuted us: you have slain, you have not pitied.

You have covered yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

You have made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

You have heard my voice: hide not your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

O Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.

O LORD, you have seen my wrong: judge you my cause.

You have seen all their vengeance and all their plots against me.

You have heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their plots against me;

The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children: they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

As for us, our eyes as yet failed, watching for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

We have drunk our water at a price; our wood is sold unto us.

Our necks are under persecution: we labor, and have no rest.

We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

Servants have ruled over us: there is none that does deliver us out of their hand.

The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

The crown has fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!

But you have utterly rejected us; you are very angry against us.

And he said unto me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.

Not to many people of foreign speech and of a hard language, whose words you can not understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have hearkened unto you.

Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads.

Like adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.

Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turns not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

Again, When a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.

Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous sins not, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also you have delivered your soul.

For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

And when you have accomplished them, lie again on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed you each day for a year.

And, behold, I will put cords upon you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to another, till you have ended the days of your siege.

Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul has not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given you cow's dung for human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it.

Thus says the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.

And she has changed my ordinances into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my ordinances and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Because you multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done according to the ordinances of the nations that are round about you;

And I will do in you that which I have not done, and the like of which I will not do any more, because of all your abominations.

Therefore, as I live, says the Lord GOD; Surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore will I also diminish you; neither shall my eye spare, neither will I have any pity.

Thus shall my anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.

So will I send upon you famine and wild beasts, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword upon you. I the LORD have spoken it.

Yet will I leave a remnant, that you may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when you shall be scattered through the countries.

And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations where they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their adulterous heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the harlot after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

And my eye shall not spare you, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense your ways upon you, and your abominations shall be in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the LORD.

And my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense you according to your ways and your abominations that are in the midst of you; and you shall know that I am the LORD that strikes.

They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goes to the battle: for my wrath is upon all their multitude.

As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things from it: therefore have I set it far from them.

Then said he unto me, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his idols? for they say, The LORD sees us not; the LORD has forsaken the land.

Then said he unto me, Have you seen this, O son of man? turn you yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these.

Then he said unto me, Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

Therefore will I also deal in fury: my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

He cried also in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.

And to the others he said in my hearing, Go you after him through the city, and kill: let not your eye spare, neither have you pity:

And as for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their heads.

And, behold, the man clothed with linen, {} which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as you have commanded me.

And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus says the LORD; Thus have you said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, all of them.

You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Your slain whom you have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it.

You have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, says the Lord GOD.

And you shall know that I am the LORD: for you have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the nations that are round about you.

Son of man, your brethren, even your brethren, the men of your kindred, and all the house of Israel entirely, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession.

Therefore say, Thus says the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the nations, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.

Therefore say, Thus says the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.

In their sight shall you bear it upon your shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: you shall cover your face, that you see not the ground: for I have set you for a sign unto the house of Israel.

Say, I am your sign: like I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall move and go into captivity.