“Those who dedicate and purify themselves to enter the groves following their leader, eating meat from pigs, vermin, and rats, will perish together.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from them to the nations—to Tarshish, Put, Lud (who are archers), Tubal, Javan, and the islands far away—who have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. And they will proclaim My glory among the nations.

They will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord on horses and chariots, in litters, and on mules and camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.

All mankind will come to worship Me
from one New Moon to another
and from one Sabbath to another,”
says the Lord.

Again the word of the Lord came to me inquiring, “What do you see?”

And I replied, “I see a boiling pot, its lip tilted from the north to the south.”

Then the Lord said to me, “Disaster will be poured out from the north on all who live in the land.

This is what the Lord says:

What fault did your fathers find in Me
that they went so far from Me,
followed worthless idols,
and became worthless themselves?

They stopped asking, “Where is the Lord
who brought us from the land of Egypt,
who led us through the wilderness,
through a land of deserts and ravines,
through a land of drought and darkness,
a land no one traveled through
and where no one lived?”

I planted you, a choice vine
from the very best seed.
How then could you turn into
a degenerate, foreign vine?

Keep your feet from going bare
and your throat from thirst.
But you say, “It’s hopeless;
I love strangers,
and I will continue to follow them.”

you claim, “I am innocent.
His anger is sure to turn away from me.”
But I will certainly judge you
because you have said, “I have not sinned.”

Moreover, you will be led out from here
with your hands on your head
since the Lord has rejected those you trust;
you will not succeed even with their help.

“Return, you faithless children”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“for I am your master, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

In those days the house of Judah will join with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land I have given your ancestors to inherit.”

I thought: How I long to make you My sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
and never turn away from Me.

Surely, falsehood comes from the hills,
commotion from the mountains,
but the salvation of Israel
is only in the Lord our God.

From the time of our youth
the shameful one has consumed
what our fathers have worked for—
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.

Let us lie down in our shame;
let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our fathers,
from the time of our youth even to this day.
We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

If you return, Israel—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will return to Me,
if you remove your detestable idols
from My presence
and do not waver,

Lift up a signal flag toward Zion.
Run for cover! Don’t stand still!
For I am bringing disaster from the north—
a great destruction.

A lion has gone up from his thicket;
a destroyer of nations has set out.
He has left his lair
to make your land a waste.
Your cities will be reduced to uninhabited ruins.

Because of this, put on sackcloth;
mourn and wail,
for the Lord’s burning anger
has not turned away from us.

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to My dear people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

Wash the evil from your heart, Jerusalem,
so that you will be delivered.
How long will you harbor
malicious thoughts within you?

For a voice announces from Dan,
proclaiming malice from Mount Ephraim.

Warn the nations: Look!
Proclaim to Jerusalem:
Those who besiege are coming
from a distant land;
they raise their voices
against the cities of Judah.

Because of this, the earth will mourn;
the skies above will grow dark.
I have spoken; I have planned,
and I will not relent or turn back from it.

Therefore, a lion from the forest will strike them down.
A wolf from an arid plain will ravage them.
A leopard keeps watch over their cities.
Anyone who leaves them will be torn to pieces
because their rebellious acts are many,
their unfaithful deeds numerous.

I am about to bring a nation
from far away against you,
house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
It is an established nation,
an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know
and whose speech you do not understand.

Your guilty acts have diverted these things from you.
Your sins have withheld My bounty from you,

“Run for cover, Benjaminites,
out of Jerusalem!
Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa;
raise a smoke signal over Beth-haccherem,
for disaster threatens from the north,
even great destruction.

Be warned, Jerusalem,
or I will turn away from you;
I will make you a desolation,
a land without inhabitants.

For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is making profit dishonestly.
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.

What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba
or sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt offerings are not acceptable;
your sacrifices do not please Me.

This is what the Lord says:

Look, an army is coming from a northern land;
a great nation will be awakened
from the remote regions of the earth.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

I will drive you from My presence, just as I drove out all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

You must therefore declare to them: This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths.

I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride, for the land will become a desolate waste.

Therefore, I will give their wives to other men,
their fields to new occupants,
for from the least to the greatest,
everyone is making profit dishonestly.
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.

From Dan the snorting of horses is heard.
At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,
the whole land quakes.
They come to devour the land and everything in it,
the city and all its residents.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take Me into account.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,
everything has fled—they have gone away.

For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.

for Death has climbed through our windows;
it has entered our fortresses,
cutting off children from the streets,
young men from the squares.

for the customs of the peoples are worthless.
Someone cuts down a tree from the forest;
it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.

Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Uphaz
from the hands of a goldsmith,
the work of a craftsman.
Their clothing is blue and purple,
all the work of skilled artisans.

You are to say this to them, “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

When He thunders,
the waters in the heavens are in turmoil,
and He causes the clouds to rise
from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
and brings the wind from His storehouses.

Gather up your belongings from the ground,
you who live under siege.

My tent is destroyed;
all my tent cords are snapped.
My sons have departed from me and are no more.
I have no one to pitch my tent again
or to hang up my curtains.

Listen! A noise—it is coming—
a great commotion from the land to the north.
The cities of Judah will be made desolate,
a jackals’ den.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

for I was like a docile lamb led to slaughter.
I didn’t know that they had devised plots against me:
“Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit;
let’s cut him off from the land of the living
so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

You planted them, and they have taken root.
They have grown and produced fruit.
You are ever on their lips,
but far from their conscience.

Over all the barren heights in the wilderness
the destroyers have come,
for the Lord has a sword that devours
from one end of the earth to the other.
No one has peace.

This is what the Lord says: “Concerning all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people, Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from them.

So I went to the Euphrates and dug up the underwear and got it from the place where I had hidden it, but it was ruined—of no use at all.

I will smash them against each other, fathers and sons alike”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will allow no mercy, pity, or compassion to keep Me from destroying them.”

Say to the king and the queen mother:
Take a humble seat,
for your glorious crowns
have fallen from your heads.

Look up and see
those coming from the north.
Where is the flock entrusted to you,
the sheep that were your pride?

If I go out to the field,
look—those slain by the sword!
If I enter the city,
look—those ill from famine!
For both prophet and priest
travel to a land they do not know.

Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My compassions would not reach out to these people. Send them from My presence, and let them go.

I scattered them with a winnowing fork
at the gates of the land.
I made them childless; I destroyed My people.
They would not turn from their ways.

Can anyone smash iron,
iron from the north, or bronze?

I will deliver you from the power of evil people
and redeem you from the control of the ruthless.

They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like manure on the face of the earth. They will be finished off by sword and famine. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.

So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.

“However, take note! The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’

but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.

for My gaze takes in all their ways. They are not concealed from Me, and their guilt is not hidden from My sight.

Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
my refuge in a time of distress,
the nations will come to You
from the ends of the earth, and they will say,
“Our fathers inherited only lies,
worthless idols of no benefit at all.”

This is what the Lord says:

The man who trusts in mankind,
who makes human flesh his strength
and turns his heart from the Lord is cursed.

A throne of glory
on high from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.

Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who abandon You
will be put to shame.
All who turn away from Me
will be written in the dirt,
for they have abandoned
the Lord, the fountain of living water.

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd,
and I have not longed for the fatal day.
You know my words were spoken in Your presence.

Then people will come from the cities of Judah and from the area around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the Judean foothills, from the hill country and from the Negev bringing burnt offerings and sacrifice, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.

However, if that nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.

So now, say to the men of Judah and to the residents of Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am about to bring harm to you and make plans against you. Turn now, each from your evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds.

Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave the highland crags?
Or does cold water flowing from a distance ever fail?

Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or an oracle from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.”

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn Your anger from them.

Let a cry be heard from their houses
when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.

Jeremiah came back from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple, and proclaimed to all the people,

The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib,

Sing to the Lord!
Praise the Lord,
for He rescues the life of the needy
from the hand of evil people.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah, asking,

“Ask the Lord on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will perform for us something like all His past wonderful works so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.”

House of David, this is what the Lord says:

Administer justice every morning,
and rescue the victim of robbery
from the hand of his oppressor,
or My anger will flare up like fire
and burn unquenchably
because of their evil deeds.

This is what the Lord says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Don’t exploit or brutalize the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.

Go up to Lebanon and cry out;
raise your voice in Bashan;
cry out from Abarim,
for all your lovers have been crushed.

“As I live,” says the Lord, “though you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would tear you from it.

“I will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands where I have banished them, and I will return them to their grazing land. They will become fruitful and numerous.

“The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’