How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem]
That was [once] full of people!
How like a widow she has become.
She who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces,
Has become a forced laborer!

All her people groan, seeking bread;
They have exchanged their desirable and precious things for food
To restore their lives.
“See, O Lord, and consider
How despised and repulsive I have become!”

“See, O Lord, how distressed I am!
My spirit is deeply disturbed;
My heart is overturned within me and cannot rest,
For I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword kills and bereaves;
In the house there is [famine, disease and] death!

How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem)
With a cloud in His anger!
He has cast down from heaven to the earth
The glory and splendor of Israel
And has not remembered His footstool
In the day of His anger.

How dark and dim the gold has become,
How the pure gold has changed!
The sacred stones [of the temple] are poured out and scattered
At the head of every street.

The [noble and] precious sons of Zion,
[Once] worth their weight in fine gold,
How they are regarded [merely] as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be exiled, how I have been broken by their lewdness and their adulterous hearts which have turned away from Me, and by their eyes which lust after their idols; and they will loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed, for all their repulsive acts.

For thus says the Lord God, “How much more when I send My four severe judgments against Jerusalem—sword, famine, predatory beasts, and virulent disease—to cut off man and animal from it!

“Son of man, how is the wood of the grapevine (Israel) better than any wood of a branch which is among the trees of the forest?

Notice this, even when it was complete, it was not useful and was not made into anything. How much less, after the fire has burned [part of] it and [the remainder of] it is charred, can it still be made into anything?

“How weakened by longing and lust is your heart (mind),” says the Lord God, “while you do all these things, the actions of a bold and brazen prostitute.

They will take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for you and say to you,

‘How you have perished and vanished, O renowned city,
From the seas, O renowned city,
Which was mighty on the sea,
She and her inhabitants,
Who imposed her terror
On all who lived there!

“Which among the trees of Eden do you equal in glory and in greatness [O Egypt]? Yet you [also] will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth beneath (nether world). You will lie among the uncircumcised (the barbaric, the boorish, the crude) with those who were slain by the sword. This is how it shall be with Pharaoh and all his hordes!”’ says the Lord God.”

“Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have said, “Truly our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we are rotting away because of them; how then can we live?”’

“How great are His signs
And how mighty are His wonders!
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom
And His dominion is from generation to generation.

Then I heard a holy one (angel) speaking, and another holy one said to the one who was speaking, “How much time will be required to complete the vision regarding the regular sacrifice, the transgression that brings horror, and the trampling underfoot of both the sanctuary and the host [of the people]?”

For how can such a [weakened] servant of my lord talk with such [a being] as my lord? For now there remains no strength in me, nor has any breath been left in me.”

And one said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long will it be until the end of these wonders?”

For Israel is stubborn,
Like a stubborn heifer.
Can the Lord now pasture them
Like a lamb in a large field?

When I would heal Israel,
The sin (guilt) of Ephraim is uncovered,
And the wickedness of Samaria,
Because they practice false dealing;
The thief enters,
Bandits ravage and raid outside.

He has rejected your [pagan] calf, O Samaria, saying,
“My wrath burns against them.”
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within Me;
All My compassions are kindled together [for My nation of Israel].

How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are bewildered and wander aimlessly
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

For they do not know how to do right,” says the Lord, “these who store up violence and devastation [like treasures] in their strongholds.”

For I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great (shocking, innumerable),
You who distress the righteous and take bribes,
And turn away from the poor in the [court of the city] gate [depriving them of justice].

And when the locusts had finished eating the plants of the land, then I said,

“O Lord God, please forgive!
How can Jacob stand,
For he is so small [that he cannot endure this]?”

Then I said,

“O Lord God, please stop!
How can Jacob stand,
For he is so small [that he cannot endure this]?”

“If thieves came to you,
If robbers by night—
How you will be ruined!—
Would they not steal only until they had enough?
If grape gatherers came to you,
Would they not leave some grapes for gleaning?

“How Esau (Edom) shall be ransacked [by men who come to ravage with divine approval]!
How his hidden treasures shall be searched out!

“On that day they shall take up a [taunting, deriding] parable against you
And wail with a doleful and bitter song of mourning and say,
‘We are completely destroyed!
God exchanges the inheritance of my people;
How He removes it from me!
He divides our fields to the rebellious [our captors].’

Whatever [plot] you [Assyrians] devise against the Lord,
He will make a complete end of it;
Affliction [of God’s people by the hand of Assyria] will not occur twice.

O Lord, how long will I call for help
And You will not hear?
I cry out to You, “Violence!”
Yet You do not save.

“Will all these [victims of his greed] not take up a taunting song against him,
And in mocking derision against him
Say, ‘Woe (judgment is coming) to him who increases that which is not his—
How long [will he possess it]?
And [woe to him who] makes himself wealthy with loans.’

Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider your ways and thoughtfully reflect on your conduct!

‘Who is left among you who saw this house (temple) in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison?

But now, do consider [what will happen] from this day forward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the Lord,

Then the Angel of the Lord said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will You withhold mercy and compassion from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which You have had indignation and anger these seventy years [of the Babylonian captivity]?”

For how great is God’s goodness and how great is His beauty! And how great [He will make Israel’s] goodliness and [Israel’s] beauty!
Grain and new wine will make the young men and virgins flourish.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How and in what way have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I loved Jacob (Israel);

“‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is the [reverent] fear and respect due Me?’ says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise My name. But you say, ‘How and in what way have we despised Your name?’

You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By thinking that the table of the Lord is contemptible and may be despised.

“Yet from the days of your fathers you have turned away from My statutes and ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

Then Herod secretly sent for the magi and learned from them the [exact] time the star [had first] appeared.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its taste (purpose), how can it be made salty? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and walked on by people [when the walkways are wet and slippery].

But if your eye is bad [spiritually blind], your whole body will be full of darkness [devoid of God’s precepts]. So if the [very] light inside you [your inner self, your heart, your conscience] is darkness, how great and terrible is that darkness!

And why are you worried about clothes? See how the lilies and wildflowers of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin [wool to make clothing],

Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me get the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye?

If you then, evil (sinful by nature) as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give what is good and advantageous to those who keep on asking Him.

But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you within that [very] hour;

It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the bond-servant like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul (Satan), how much more [will they speak evil of] the members of his household.

how he went into the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests only?

How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful and permissible to do good on the Sabbath.”

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, discussing how they could destroy Him.

If Satan casts out Satan [that is, his demons], he has become divided against himself and disunited; how then will his kingdom stand?

Or how can anyone go into a strong man’s house and steal his property unless he first overpowers and ties up the strong man? Then he will ransack and rob his house.

You brood of vipers, how can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

The servants of the owner came to him and said, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Then how does it have weeds in it?’

And Jesus asked them, “How many loaves [of bread] do you have?” They replied, “Seven, and a few small fish.”

And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and has a threatening look.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but cannot interpret the signs of the times?

But Jesus, aware of this, said, “You men of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves that you have no bread?

Do you still not understand or remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you picked up?

Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many large baskets you picked up?

How is it that you fail to understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

And Jesus answered, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.”

Then Peter came to Him and asked, “Lord, how many times will my brother sin against me and I forgive him and let it go? Up to seven times?”

When the disciples saw it, they were astonished and asked, “How is it that the fig tree has withered away all at once?”

and he said, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wearing the wedding clothes [that were provided for you]?’ And the man was speechless and without excuse.

Then the Pharisees went and conspired together plotting how to trap Him by [distorting] what He said.

Jesus asked them, “How is it then that David by the inspiration of the Spirit, calls Him ‘Lord,’ saying,

So then, if David calls Him (the Son, the Messiah) ‘Lord,’ how is He David’s son?”

You serpents, you spawn of vipers, how can you escape the penalty of hell?

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who murders the prophets and stones [to death] those [messengers] who are sent to her [by God]! How often I wanted to gather your children together [around Me], as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?”

Then Pilate said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they are testifying against You?”

and said, “Sir, we have remembered that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise [from the dead].’

how he went into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the sacred bread, which is not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat, and how he also gave it to the men who were with him?”

Then the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians [to plot] against Him, as to how they might [fabricate some legal grounds to] put Him to death.

So He called them to Himself and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan?

Then He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand and grasp the meaning of all the parables?

and he goes to bed at night and gets up every day, and [in the meantime] the seed sprouts and grows; how [it does this], he does not know.

Jesus said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith and confidence [in Me]?”

Jesus did not let him [come], but [instead] He said to him, “Go home to your family and tell them all the great things that the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

So he [obeyed and] went away and began to publicly proclaim in Decapolis [the region of the ten Hellenistic cities] all the great things that Jesus had done for him; and all the people were astonished.

He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go look!” And when they found out, they said, “Five [loaves], and two fish.”

His disciples replied to Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this isolated place to feed these people?”

He asked them, “How many loaves [of bread] do you have?” They said, “Seven.”

when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They answered, “Twelve.”

“And [when I broke] the seven [loaves] for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they answered, “Seven.”

He answered them, “Elijah does come first and restores and reestablishes all things. And yet how is it written of the Son of Man that He will suffer many things [grief and physical distress] and be treated with contempt [utterly despised and rejected]?

He replied, “O unbelieving (faithless) generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!”

Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he answered, “Since childhood.

where their worm [that feeds on the dead] does not die, and the fire is not put out.

The disciples were amazed and bewildered by His words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is [for those who place their hope and confidence in riches] to enter the kingdom of God!

But concerning the raising of the dead, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Jesus began to say, as He taught in [a portico or court of] the temple, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?

David himself calls Him (the Son, the Messiah) ‘Lord’; so how can it be that He is David’s Son?” The large crowd enjoyed hearing Jesus and listened to Him with delight.

And He sat down opposite the [temple] treasury, and began watching how the people were putting money into the treasury. And many rich people were putting in large sums.

Immediately a rooster crowed the second time. And Peter remembered what Jesus said to him: “Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” And thinking of this, he began weeping [in anguish].

Then Pilate again asked Him, “Have You no answer [to give]? See how many charges they are bringing against You!”

Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin and have no intimacy with any man?”