Awake! awake! up! O Jerusalem, you who have taken from the Lord's hand the cup of his wrath; tasting in full measure the wine which overcomes.

These two things have come on you; who will be weeping for you? wasting and destruction; death from need of food, and from the sword; how may you be comforted?

Awake! awake! put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful robes, O Jerusalem, the holy town: for from now there will never again come into you the unclean and those without circumcision.

Make yourself clean from the dust; up! and take the seat of your power, O Jerusalem: the bands of your neck are loose, O prisoned daughter of Zion.

Away! away! go out from there, touching no unclean thing; go out from among her; be clean, you who take up the vessels of the Lord.

Men made sport of him, turning away from him; he was a man of sorrows, marked by disease; and like one from whom men's faces are turned away, he was looked down on, and we put no value on him.

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.

In overflowing wrath my face was veiled from you for a minute, but I will have pity on you for ever, says the Lord who takes up your cause.

For the mountains may be taken away, and the hills be moved out of their places, but my love will not be taken from you, or my agreement of peace broken, says the Lord, who has had mercy on you.

No instrument of war which is formed against you will be of any use; and every tongue which says evil against you will be judged false. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness comes from me, says the Lord.

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and does not go back again, but gives water to the earth, and makes it fertile, giving seed to the planter, and bread for food;

Happy is the man who does this, and the son of man whose behaviour is so ordered; who keeps the Sabbath holy, and his hand from doing any evil.

And let not the man from a strange country, who has been joined to the Lord, say, The Lord will certainly put a division between me and his people: and let not the unsexed man say, See, I am a dry tree.

And as for those from a strange country, who are joined to the Lord, to give worship to him and honour to his name, to be his servants, even everyone who keeps the Sabbath holy, and keeps his agreement with me:

For I will not give punishment for ever, or be angry without end: for from me breath goes out; and I it was who made the souls.

I was quickly angry with his evil ways, and sent punishment on him, veiling my face in wrath: and he went on, turning his heart from me.

They say, Why have we kept ourselves from food, and you do not see it? why have we kept ourselves from pleasure, and you take no note of it? If, in the days when you keep from food, you take the chance to do your business, and get in your debts;

If keeping from food makes you quickly angry, ready for fighting and giving blows with evil hands; your holy days are not such as to make your voice come to my ears on high.

Have I given orders for such a day as this? a day for keeping yourselves from pleasure? is it only a question of the bent head, of putting on haircloth, and being seated in the dust? is this what seems to you a holy day, well-pleasing to the Lord?

Then at the sound of your voice, the Lord will give an answer; at your cry he will say, Here am I. If you take away from among you the yoke, the putting out of the finger of shame, and the evil word;

Truly, the Lord's hand has not become short, so that he is unable to give salvation; and his ear is not shut from hearing:

But your sins have come between you and your God, and by your evil doings his face has been veiled from you, so that he will give you no answer.

For this cause our right is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us: we are looking for light, but there is only the dark; for the shining of the sun, but our way is in the night.

We make noises of grief, like bears, and sad sounds like doves: we are looking for our right, but it is not there; for salvation, but it is far from us.

We have gone against the Lord, and been false to him, turning away from our God, our words have been uncontrolled, and in our hearts are thoughts of deceit.

Yes, faith is gone; and he whose heart is turned from evil comes into the power of the cruel: and the Lord saw it, and he was angry that there was no one to take up their cause.

So they will see the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the east: for he will come like a rushing stream, forced on by a wind of the Lord.

And as a saviour he will come to Zion, turning away sin from Jacob, says the Lord.

And as for me, this is my agreement with them, says the Lord: my spirit which is on you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, will not go away from your mouth, or from the mouth of your seed, or from the mouth of your seed's seed, says the Lord, from now and for ever.

Let your eyes be lifted up, and see: they are all coming together to you: your sons will come from far, and your daughters taken with loving care.

You will be full of camel-trains, even the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba will come, with gold and spices, giving word of the great acts of the Lord.

Vessels of the sea-lands are waiting for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, so that your sons may come from far, and their silver and gold with them, to the place of the name of the Lord your God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he has made you beautiful.

And men from strange countries will be building up your walls, and their kings will be your servants: for in my wrath I sent punishment on you, but in my grace I have had mercy on you.

And though you were turned away from, and hated, and had no helper, I will make you a pride for ever, a joy from generation to generation.

And you will take the milk of the nations, flowing from the breast of kings; and you will see that I, the Lord, am your saviour, and he who takes up your cause, the Strong One of Jacob.

To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure has come, and the day of punishment from our God; to give comfort to all who are sad;

And men from strange countries will be your herdsmen, and those who are not Israelites will be your ploughmen and vine-keepers.

Who is this who comes from Edom, with blood-red robes from Bozrah? he whose clothing is fair, stepping with pride in his great strength? I whose glory is in the right, strong for salvation.

Then the early days came to their minds, the days of Moses his servant: and they said, Where is he who made the keeper of his flock come up from the sea? where is he who put his holy spirit among them,

Let your eyes be looking down from heaven, from your holy and beautiful house: where is your deep feeling, the working of your power? do not keep back the moving of your pity and your mercies:

For you are our father, though Abraham has no knowledge of us, and Israel gives no thought to us: you, O Lord, are our father; from the earliest days you have taken up our cause.

O Lord, why do you send us wandering from your ways, making our hearts hard, so that we have no fear of you? Come back, because of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

As when fire puts the brushwood in flames, or as when water is boiling from the heat of the fire: to make your name feared by your haters, so that the nations may be shaking before you;

And there is no one who makes prayer to your name, or who is moved to keep true to you: for your face is veiled from us, and you have given us into the power of our sins.

My servants will make songs in the joy of their hearts, but you will be crying for sorrow, and making sounds of grief from a broken spirit.

So that he who is requesting a blessing will make use of the name of the true God, and he who takes an oath will do so by the true God; because the past troubles are gone out of mind, and because they are covered from my eyes.

There is a noise of war from the town, a sound from the Temple, the voice of the Lord giving punishment to his haters.

So that you may take of the comfort flowing from her breasts, and be delighted with the full measure of her glory.

And it will be, that from new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh will come to give worship before me, says the Lord.

And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, What do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the north.

These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false?

For my people have done two evils; they have given up me, the fountain of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water.

Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

And now, what have you to do on the way to Egypt, to get your drink from the waters of the Nile? or what have you to do on the way to Assyria, to get your drink from the waters of the River?

Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his wrath is turned away from me. See, I will take up the cause against you, because you say, I have done no wrong.

Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your head: for the Lord has given up those in whom you have put your faith, and they will be of no help to you.

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

Will you not, from this time, make your prayer to me, crying, My father, you are the friend of my early years?

And the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel, turning away from me, has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every branching tree, acting like a loose woman there.

And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away from me, had been untrue to me, I had put her away and given her a statement in writing ending the relation between us, still Judah, her false sister, had no fear, but went and did the same.

Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

Come back, O children who are turned away, says the Lord; for I am a husband to you, and I will take you, one from a town and two from a family, and will make you come to Zion;

But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and give you a desired land, a heritage of glory among the armies of the nations? and I said, You are to say to me, My father; and not be turned away from me.

But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from our earliest days; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Let us be stretched on the earth in our downfall, covering ourselves with our shame: for we have been sinners against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our earliest years even till this day: and we have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God.

If you will come back, O Israel, says the Lord, you will come back to me: and if you will put away your disgusting ways, you will not be sent away from before me.

Put up a flag for a sign to Zion: go in flight so that you may be safe, waiting no longer: for I will send evil from the north, and a great destruction.

A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods, and one who makes waste the nations is on his way; he has gone out from his place, to make your land unpeopled, so that your towns will be made waste, with no man living in them.

For this put on haircloth, with weeping and loud crying: for the burning wrath of the Lord is not turned back from us.

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A burning wind from the open hilltops in the waste land is blowing on the daughter of my people, not for separating or cleaning the grain;

O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

For a voice is sounding from Dan, giving out evil from the hills of Ephraim:

Make this come to the minds of the nations, make a statement openly against Jerusalem, that attackers are coming from a far country and their voices will be loud against the towns of Judah.

The earth will be weeping for this, and the heavens on high will be black: because I have said it, and I will not go back from it; it is my purpose, and it will not be changed.

A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.

And so a lion from the woods will put them to death, a wolf of the waste land will make them waste, a leopard will keep watch on their towns, and everyone who goes out from them will be food for the beasts; because of the great number of their sins and the increase of their wrongdoing.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words.

But the heart of this people is uncontrolled and turned away from me; they are broken loose and gone.

Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Go in flight out of Jerusalem, so that you may be safe, you children of Benjamin, and let the horn be sounded in Tekoa, and the flag be lifted up on Beth-haccherem: for evil is looking out from the north, and a great destruction.

Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

For from the least of them even to the greatest, everyone is given up to getting money; from the prophet even to the priest, everyone is working deceit.

To what purpose does sweet perfume come to me from Sheba, and spices from a far country? your burned offerings give me no pleasure, your offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.

The Lord has said, See, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country, and to the child without a father, and to the widow, and do not put the upright to death in this place, or go after other gods, causing damage to yourselves:

And I will send you away from before my face, as I have sent away all your brothers, even all the seed of Ephraim.

From the day when your fathers came out of Egypt till this day, I have sent my servants the prophets to you, getting up early every day and sending them:

And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

So I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will take them for themselves: for everyone, from the least to the greatest, is given up to getting money; from the priest even to the prophet, everyone is false.

The loud breathing of the horses comes to our ears from Dan: at the sound of the outcry of his war-horses, all the land is shaking with fear; for they have come, and have made a meal of the land and everything in it; the town and the people living in it.

The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes from a far land: Is the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they made me angry with their images and their strange gods which are no gods?

If only I had in the waste land a night's resting-place for travellers, so that I might go away, far from my people! for they are all untrue, a band of false men.

Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.