You have removed my soul far away from peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

But this I call to my mind; therefore I have hope:

For though he may cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the abundance of his loving kindness.

Who can speak a thing and have it come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

We have transgressed and have rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without sparing.

You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us rubbish and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.

They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

They have cut off my life in a pit, and have cast a stone on me.

Lord, you have taken up the case for my soul; you have redeemed my life.

LORD, you have seen the wrong done to me; judge my case.

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

You have heard their insults, LORD, and all their plots against me.

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

It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

We have to pay for a drink of water; our wood is sold to us.

Our pursuers are on our necks; we are weary, and have no rest.

We have submitted to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, to get enough bread.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more; we have borne their iniquities.

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

The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned.

unless you have completely rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.

He said to me, "Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day.

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

As an adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house."

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

Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn't turn 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 does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds 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 not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you have delivered your soul."

For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred ninety days: so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

"Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.

Behold, I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn you from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.

Then I said, "Ah Lord GOD. Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth."

Then he said to me, "Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon."

"Thus says the Lord GOD: 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations, and countries are around her.

She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.'

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Because you are turbulent more than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you';

I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, 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 I will also diminish you; neither shall my eye spare, and I also will have no pity.

Thus shall my anger be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted; and they shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.

And you shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes; I, the LORD, have spoken;

and I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you: I, the LORD, have spoken it.'"

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

Those of you that escape shall remember me among the nations where they shall be carried captive, how that I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

They shall know that I am the LORD: I have not said in vain that I would bring this disaster on them."'"

My eye shall not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations shall be in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the LORD.'"

My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will bring on you according to your ways; and your abominations shall be in the midst of you; and you shall know that I, the LORD, do strike.

They have blown the trumpet, and have made all ready; but none goes to the battle; for my wrath is on all its multitude.

As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things therein: therefore have I made it to them as an unclean thing.

Then he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, 'The LORD doesn't see us. The LORD has forsaken the land.'"

Then he said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? You shall again see yet greater abominations than these."

Then he said to me, "Have you seen this, 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 turned again to provoke me to anger: and behold, they put the branch to their nose.

therefore I will also deal in wrath; 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."

To the others he said in my hearing, "Go through the city after him, and strike: do not let your eye spare, neither have pity;

As for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head."

Behold, the man clothed in linen, who had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, "I have done as you have commanded me."

The Spirit of the LORD fell on me, and he said to me, "Speak, Thus says the LORD: 'Thus you have said, house of Israel; for I know the things that come into your mind.

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 its midst, they are the meat, and this is the caldron; but you shall be brought out of its midst.

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

and you shall know that I am the LORD: for you have not walked in my statutes, neither have you executed my ordinances, but have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you.'"

"Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, the men of your relatives, and all the house of Israel, all of them, to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, 'Go far away from the LORD. This land has been given to us for a possession.'

Therefore say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations, and whereas I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for a little while in the countries where they have come."'

Therefore say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "I will gather you from the peoples, 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 the rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and do not see, who have ears to hear, and do not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

In their sight you shall bear it on your shoulder, and carry it forth in the dark; you shall cover your face, so that you do not see the land: for I have set you for a sign to the house of Israel."

Say, 'I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done to them; they shall go into exile, into captivity.'

"Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, 'The days are prolonged, and every vision fails?'

Thus says the Lord GOD, "Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.

Israel, your prophets have been like foxes in the waste places.

You have not gone up into the gaps, neither built up the wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD."

They have seen falsehood and lying divination, who say, "The LORD says"; but the LORD has not sent them: and they have made men to hope that the word would be confirmed.

"Haven't you seen a false vision, and haven't you spoken a lying divination, in that you say, "The LORD says"; but I have not spoken?

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have spoken falsehood, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, says the Lord GOD.

Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, 'Peace'; and there is no peace; and when one builds up a wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash:

Behold, when the wall has fallen, shall it not be said to you, 'Where is the plaster with which you have plastered it?'

So will I break down the wall that you have plastered with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation shall be uncovered; and it shall fall, and you shall be consumed in its midst: and you shall know that I am the LORD.

Thus will I accomplish my wrath on the wall, and on those who have plastered it with whitewash; and I will tell you, 'The wall is no more, neither those who plastered it;

You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to kill the souls who should not die, and to save the souls alive who should not live, by your lying to my people who listen to lies."

Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive:

"Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?

"'"If the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the LORD, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand on him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be carried forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth to you, and you shall see their way and their doings; and you shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought on it.

They shall comfort you, when you see their way and their doings; and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it,' says the Lord GOD."

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass,' says the Lord GOD."

No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for that your person was abhorred, in the day that you were born.

"'Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and you have sacrificed these to them to be devoured. Was your prostitution a small matter,

that you have slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire to them?

In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.

that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.

You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.

You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.

See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your ordinary food, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way.

You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren't satisfied.

You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren't satisfied with this.