"Look! I found this," said the Teacher, "while trying to find how the plan fits together.

I applied my mind to know wisdom and to understand the business that is done on earth--how neither day nor night one's eyes see sleep.

Just as you do not know how the path of the wind [goes], nor how the bones [of a fetus] form in a mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

How beautiful is your love, my sister bride! How better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!

{How is your beloved better than another lover}, O most beautiful among women? {How is your beloved better than another lover}, that you adjure us thus?

How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O royal princess! The curves of your {thighs} [are] like {jewels}, the work of the hands of a craftsman.

How beautiful you are and how pleasant, O loved one in the delights!

{How I wish that you were my little brother}, [who] nursed {upon my mother's breasts}! [If] {I met you outside}, I would kiss you, {and no one would despise me}!

How has a faithful city become like a whore? Full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

that you will take this taunt against the king of Babylon, and you will say: "How [the] oppressor has ceased! [his] insolence has ceased.

How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of dawn! You are cut down to the ground, conqueror of nations!

Surely the princes of Zoan [are] foolish; the wise of the counselors of Pharaoh [give] senseless counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, "I myself [am] a son of sages, a {descendant} of ancient kings"?

And [the] inhabitant [of] the coastland will say this on that day: 'Look! This [is] our hope [to] whom we fled for help, to be delivered {from} the king of Assyria, and how shall we escape?'"

And [if] the document is given to [one] who does not {know how to read}, saying, "{Read} this now!" he says, "I do not {know how to read}."

But how can you drive back {one governor among the least of my master's servants}, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

and he said, "O Yahweh, please remember how I have walked before your {presence} in faithfulness with a whole heart, and I have done the good in your eyes!" And Hezekiah wept [with] great weeping.

The Lord Yahweh has given me [the] tongue of pupil, to know how to help [the] weary [with] a word. He awakens {morning by morning}, awakens an ear for me to listen as [do] the pupils.

And now what do I have here?"{declares} Yahweh, "for my people is taken without cause. Its rulers howl," {declares} Yahweh--"and my name [is] reviled continually, all day.

How delightful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns as a king."

Look! My servants shall shout {for joy}, but you, you shall cry out {for pain} and howl {for sadness}.

Then I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh! Look, I do not know [how] to speak, for I [am] a youth."

Yet I planted you [as] a choice vine, all of it a seed of trustworthiness. How then have you altered before me [into something that is] degenerate, the foreign vine?

"How can you say, 'I have not defiled myself, I have not gone after the Baals?' Look at your way in the valley, know what you have done. [You are] a young she-camel, interweaving her ways.

How well you do [on] your way to seek love! {Therefore} even [to] the wicked [woman] you can teach your ways.

How you go about so much changing your way! Also by Egypt you will be put to shame, just as you were put to shame by Assyria.

Then I thought, 'How I would set you among the children, and I would give you a land of desire, an inheritance of [the] glory of [the] hosts of nations.' And I thought, 'You would call me, "My father," and you would not turn back from {behind} me.'

Cleanse your heart from wickedness, Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. {How long} will your thoughts of mischief dwell in your inner part?

How long must I see [the] banner, [and] hear [the] sound of a horn?

"For my people [are] foolish, they have not known me. They [are] foolish children, and they do not have insight. They [are] skillful at doing evil, and they do not know [how] to do good."

"{How} can I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me, and they have sworn by [those who are] not gods. But I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery, and flocked [to] the house of a prostitute.

How can you say, 'We [are] wise and the law of Yahweh [is] with us'? Look, surely {the lying stylus of the scribes} has made it a lie.

For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, 'How we are devastated! We are very ashamed because we have left the land, because they have overthrown our dwelling places.'

{How long} will the land mourn, and the vegetation of every field dry up, because of the wickedness of those who live in it? [The] animals and [the] birds are swept away, because they have said, "He does not see our future."

"If you run with foot soldiers and they have made you weary, then how will you compete with horses? If you have fallen in {a peaceful land}, then how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

Your adulteries, and your neighings, the shameful behavior of your fornications on [the] hills in the countryside, I have seen your abominations. Woe to you, Jerusalem! {How long will you continue to be unclean}?"

Inhabitants of Lebanon, nestled among the cedars, how you will groan when labor pains come to you, fear and pain as the [woman who] gives birth.

{How long} [will] this be in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceitfulness of their hearts,

Then Hananiah said before the eyes of all the people, {saying}, "Thus says Yahweh, 'This is how I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, {within two years}, from the neck of all the nations.'" And Jeremiah the prophet went on his way.

{How long} will you waver, O unfaithful daughter? For Yahweh has created a new [thing] on the earth, a woman, she shelters a man."

"Have you not seen how these people speak, {saying}, 'The two clans whom Yahweh chose, he has also rejected them'? Thus they spurn my people from being a nation {before them} [any] longer.

Then they asked Baruch, {saying}, "Tell us please, how did you write all these words, from his mouth?"

Baldness has come upon Gaza, Ashkelon is destroyed. O remnant of their valley, {how long} will you cut yourself with a blade?

Ah, sword of Yahweh, {how long} will you not be quiet? Gather to your sheath, keep quiet and stand still.

How can you be quiet when Yahweh has given an order to it? Against Ashkelon and against the shore of the sea, there he has appointed it."

How can you say, 'we [are] warriors, and men of might for the battle.'

Mourn for him, all his surroundings, and all those who knew his name. Say, 'How [the] staff of might is broken, [the] staff of glory.'

"How it is filled with terror! [How] they wail! How Moab has turned [his] back! He is disgraced! So Moab has become as a derision, and as a terror for all his surrounding [peoples]."

How [the] city of praise has not been abandoned! The city of my joy!

How the blacksmith's hammer of all the earth is cut down and broken! How Babylon has become as a horror among the nations!

How Sheshach is captured, and the glory of all the earth is seized! How Babylon has become as an [object of] horror among the nations!

How desolate the city sits [that] was full of people! She has become like a widow, [once] great among the nations! Like a woman of nobility in the provinces, she has become a forced laborer.

All her people groan, they are searching for bread. They give their treasures for food, to bring back life. See, O Yahweh, and look, [how] I am despised.

How, {in his anger}, the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion in a cloud! He has thrown down from heavens [to] earth the splendor of Israel, and he has not remembered his footstool in the day of {his anger}.

How [the] gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed. The stones of holiness are scattered at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion weighed against fine gold, how they are thought of as earthen vessels of clay, the work of the potter's hands.

For thus says the Lord Yahweh: "How much more when I send my four punishments--the evil sword, and famine, and fierce animal, and a plague--to Jerusalem to cut it off, [both] human and animal!

"Son of man, how will the wood of the vine be {better than} {any of the wood of} the branch which is among the trees of the forest?

Look! {When it is in perfect condition}, it will not be used for anything, {how much less} {when the fire has consumed it} and it is charred; and [then] can it be used again for anything?

How hot with fever [was] your heart!' {declares} the Lord Yahweh. '{When you did} all of these actions {of a headstrong female prostitute},

And they will raise a lament over you, and they will say to you, 'How you have been lost [who was] inhabited from [the] seas; the city that was praised, that was strong. It [is] [located] on the sea, and its inhabitants imposed their terror {on all of its inhabitants}.

"And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, {saying}, 'So you said, {saying}, "Indeed, our transgressions and our sins [are] on us, and because of them we [are] rotting, and how can we live?" '

How great [are] his signs and wonders, how strong [is] his kingdom, {an everlasting kingdom}; and his sovereignty is from generation to generation.

And I heard a certain holy one speaking, and a certain other holy one said to the specific one {who was speaking}, "{For how long} [is] the vision [concerning] the regular burnt offering, and the transgression [that] makes desolate, and [the] giving over [of the] sanctuary and [the] host to trampling?"

So {how am I, a servant of my lord} to speak with {you, my lord}, and I {just now} {have no strength in me}?"

Then he said to the man [who] was clothed in linen who [was] above the water of the stream, "{How long until} the end of the wonders?"

Your calf is rejected, Samaria; my anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

How can I give you up, Ephraim? [How] can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? [How] can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is disturbed within me; {all} my compassions are aroused.

How [the] beasts groan; the herds of cattle wander around because there is no pasture for them; [the] flocks of sheep are in distress.

"They do not know [how] to do right," {declares Yahweh}, "those who store up violence and destruction in their citadel fortresses."

And then when they finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, "O Lord Yahweh, please forgive! How can Jacob stand, because he [is] small?"

Then I said, " Lord Yahweh, please stop! How can Jacob stand, because he [is] small?"

"If thieves came to you, if plunderers of [the] night--How you have been destroyed!--would they not steal {what they wanted}? If grape gatherers came, would they not leave gleanings?

How Esau has been pillaged; his treasures have been ransacked!

And I said, 'I am banished from your sight; how {will I continue to look} {on your holy temple}?'

In that day they will raise a proverb against you, and will wail a bitter wailing, saying, "We are utterly ruined; he exchanges [the] portion of my people. How he removes [it] from me; he apportions our field to an apostate."

"O my people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer me!

O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? [How long] will I cry out to you, "Violence!" and you will not save?

{How much less} the defiant; [the] arrogant, treacherous man? He who broadens his throat like Sheol, and who, like death, is not satisfied, and who gathers to himself all the nations, and harvested for himself all the peoples, will not succeed.

Shall not all of these take up a taunt against him, with ridicule and riddles against him, saying, 'Woe to him who heaps up what is not his'? [For] how long? And, '[Woe to him] who makes himself heavy with pledges'?

This [is] the city of rejoicing that lived securely; the one saying in her heart, "{I am, and there is none besides me}." How she has become a desolation, a lair for wild animals! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

'Who among you [is] left that saw this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it seem like nothing {to you}?

The angel of Yahweh answered and said, "O Yahweh of hosts, {how long} will you have no compassion on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, [with] which you showed fury these seventy years?"

For how [great is] his goodness, and how [great is] his beauty! Grain will make the young men thrive, and new wine [the] young women.

"I have loved you," says Yahweh, but you say, "How have you loved us?" "[Is] Esau not Jacob's brother?" {declares} Yahweh. "I have loved Jacob,

"A son honors [his] father, and a slave his master; but if I [am] a father, where [is] my honor, and if I [am] a master, where [is] my reverence?" says Yahweh of hosts to you, O priests, {who despise} my name. "But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'

[You are] presenting defiled food on my altar! But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying [that] the table of Yahweh is despised!

From the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my rules, and have not kept [them]! Return to me and I will return to you," says Yahweh of hosts, "but you say, 'How shall we return?'

Will a human [dare to] rob God? Yet you [are] robbing me! And you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In the tithes and the contributions!

"Your words have been harsh against me," says Yahweh. "But you say, 'How have we spoken together against you?'

But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark. Therefore if the light in you is darkness, how great [is] the darkness!

And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe the lilies of the field, how they grow: they do not toil or spin,

Or how will you say to your brother, 'Allow [me] to remove the speck from your eye,' and behold, the beam of wood [is] in your [own] eye?

Therefore if you, [although you] are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

But whenever they hand you over, do not be anxious how [to speak] or what you should say, for what you should say will be given to you at that hour.

[It is] enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household?

how he entered into the house of God and ate the bread of the presentation, which it was not permitted for him or for those with him to eat, but only for the priests?

And if Satan expels Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

Or how can someone enter into the house of a strong [man] and steal his property, unless he first ties up the strong [man]? And then he can thoroughly plunder his house.

Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say good things [when you] are evil? For from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

So the slaves of the master of the house came [and] said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have darnel?'