Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root, They go on, yea, they have made fruit, Near art Thou in their mouth, And far off from their reins.

"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?

Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.

And it will be that, if they give their minds to learning the ways of my people, using my name in their oaths, By the living Lord; as they have been teaching my people to take oaths by the Baal; then their place will be made certain among my people.

For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.

"So tell them, 'The Lord, the God of Israel, says, "Every wine jar is made to be filled with wine."' And they will probably say to you, 'Do you not think we know that every wine jar is supposed to be filled with wine?'

Give ye to Jehovah your God honour, Before He doth cause darkness, And before your feet stumble on dark mountains, And ye have waited for light, And He hath made it for death-shade, And hath appointed it for thick darkness.

What will you say when he puts over you those whom you yourself have made your friends? will not pains take you like a woman in childbirth?

And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.

Can the Cushite change his skin,
or a leopard his spots?
If so, you might be able to do what is good,
you who are instructed in evil.

I also have made bare thy skirts before thy face, And thy shame hath been seen.

I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?

“O Lord, though our many sins testify against us” [prays Jeremiah],
“Act now [for us and] for Your name’s sake [so that the faithless may witness Your faithfulness]!
For our backslidings are countless;
We have sinned against You.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, though I did not send them, and who say, ‘There will never be sword or famine in this land.’ By sword and famine these prophets will meet their end.

Be not displeased, O LORD, for thy name's sake, forget not thy loving-kindness: Remember the throne of thine honour, break not the covenant that thou hast made with us.

Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

I will make them an object of horror to all nations of the earth because of Manasseh [the despicable] son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for the [evil and detestable] things which he did in Jerusalem.

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.

I made their widows more numerous
than the sand of the seas.
I brought a destroyer at noon
against the mother of young men.
I suddenly released on her
agitation and terrors.

Sorrow is mine, my mother, because you have given birth to me, a cause of fighting and argument in all the earth! I have not made men my creditors and I am not in debt to any, but every one of them is cursing me.

Jehovah said, Verily I will set thee free for thy good; verily I will cause the enemy to meet thee kindly in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.

When I had found thy words, I ate them up greedily: they have made my heart joyful and glad, for I call upon thy name, O LORD God of Hosts.

I did not take my seat among the band of those who are glad, and I had no joy; I kept by myself because of your hand; for you have made me full of wrath.

Why is my pain unending and my wound without hope of being made well? Sorrow is mine, for you are to me as a stream offering false hope and as waters which are not certain.

And I have made thee to this people For a wall -- brazen -- fenced, And they have fought against thee, And they do not prevail against thee, For with thee am I to save thee, And to deliver thee -- an affirmation of Jehovah,

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

Both great and small will die in this land without burial. No lament will be made for them, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

And I will give them the reward of their evil-doing and their sin twice over; because they have made my land unclean, and have made my heritage full of the bodies of their unholy and disgusting things.

Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD.

You will lose your hold on the land which I gave to you as a permanent possession. I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For you have made my anger burn like a fire that will never be put out."

Thus said Jehovah: Cursed is the man who doth trust in man, And hath made flesh his arm, And from Jehovah whose heart turneth.

But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.

And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD.

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

At one moment I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it.

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.

Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;

For my people have forgotten me, they have burned incense to false gods ; and they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, in a way not cast up;

They have made their land a horror,
a perpetual object of scorn;
everyone who passes by it will be horrified
and shake his head.

Is evil to be the reward of good? for they have made a deep hole for my soul. Keep in mind how I took my place before you, to say a good word for them so that your wrath might be turned away from them.

Therefore, give their children over to the famine;
Give them over to the power of the sword.
And let their wives become childless and widowed;
Let their men meet death [by virulent disease],
Their young men be struck down by the sword in battle.

Let a cry for help go up from their houses, when you send an armed band on them suddenly: for they have made a hole in which to take me, and have put nets for my feet secretly.

And Thou, O Jehovah, Thou hast known, All their counsel against me is for death, Thou dost not cover over their iniquity, Nor their sin from before Thee blottest out, And they are made to stumble before Thee, In the time of Thine anger work against them!

This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a potter's bottle made of earth, and take with you some of the responsible men of the people and of the priests;

into the valley of the children of Hinnom, which lieth before the port that is made of brick, and show them there the words, that I shall tell thee,

Because they have forsaken me, and they have defaced this place, and they have made smoke offerings in it to other gods whom they have not known, they, nor their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah, and they have filled up this place [with the] blood of [the] innocent,

And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

and I have made this city for a desolation, and for a hissing, every passer by it is astonished, and doth hiss for all its plagues.

I will make them take the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters for food, they will be making a meal of one another, because of their bitter need and the cruel grip of their haters and those who have made designs against their life.

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, have been -- as the place of Tophet -- defiled, even all the houses on whose roofs they have made perfume to all the host of the heavens, so as to pour out oblations to other gods.'

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.

Wherefore, I thought from henceforth not to speak of him, nor to preach anymore in his name. But the word of the LORD was a very burning fire in my heart and in my bones, which when I would have stopped, I might not.

For I have heard the gossip of many people,
“Terror is on every side!
Report him; let’s report him!”
Everyone I trusted watches for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived
so that we might prevail against him
and take our vengeance on him.”

Make melody to the Lord, give praise to the Lord: for he has made the soul of the poor man free from the hands of the evil-doers.

Cursed be the man who brought the news [to] my father, {saying}, "A child is born to you, a son!" and he made him very glad.

Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and sorrow, so that my days might be wasted with shame?

O house of David, thus saith the LORD; Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is made desolate out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

“O inhabitant of [Jerusalem, whose palaces are made from the cedars of] Lebanon,
You who nest in the cedars,
How you will groan and how miserable you will be when pains come on you,
Pain like a woman in childbirth!

But, By the living Lord, who took up the seed of Israel, and made them come out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had sent them; and they will be living in the land which is theirs.

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. And their course is evil, and their might is not right;

But if they had been in my secret, then they would have made my people give ear to my words, turning them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

Thus, shall ye say - every man mite his neighbour and every man unto his brother, - What hath Yahweh, answered? or, What hath Yahweh, spoken?

In the one mound were very good figs, even like as those that be first ripe. In the other mound were very naughty figs, which might not be eaten they were so evil.

Which sermon Jeremiah the prophet made unto all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabiters of Jerusalem, on this manner.

Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

Then took I the cup at the LORD'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:

I made Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. Such is already becoming the case!

I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; his attendants, his officials, his people,

And all the kings of Zimri, And all the kings of Elam, And all the kings of Media,

And the same day shall the LORD himself slay them, from one end of the earth to another. There shall no moan be made for any of them, none gathered up, none buried: but shall lie as dung upon the ground.

Mourn, O ye shepherds, and cry: sprinkle yourselves with ashes, O ye rams of the flock! For the time of your slaughter is fulfilled, and ye shall fall like vessels cunningly made for pleasure.

A sound of the cry of the keepers of sheep, and the bitter crying of the chiefs of the flock! for the Lord has made waste their green fields.

“And the peaceful folds are made silent
Because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

Perhaps they will listen and return—each from his evil way of life—so that I might relent concerning the disaster that I plan to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.

Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die.

Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, "This man should be condemned to die because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so with your own ears."

Then Jeremiah made his defense before all the officials and all the people. "The Lord sent me to prophesy everything you have heard me say against this temple and against this city.

So now, correct your ways and deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God so that He might relent concerning the disaster that He warned about.

As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you.

Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls.

But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to put him to death.

I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

I have at this time placed all these nations of yours under the power of my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I have even made all the wild animals subject to him.

For they preach you lies, to bring you far from your land, and that I might cast you out, and destroy you.

For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.

Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?'"

If they're prophets, and if they have a message from the LORD, let them plead with the LORD of the Heavenly Armies so that the utensils that remain in the LORD's Temple, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem might not be taken to Babylon.

and with that said Hananiah, that all the people might hear, "Thus hath the LORD spoken: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations; yea, and that within this two years." And so the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou hast made in their stead bars of iron.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, ‘I have put an iron yoke on the neck of all these nations that they might serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have also put the wild animals under him.’”

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie.

For I know what I have devised for you sayeth the LORD. My thoughts are to give you peace, and not trouble, which I give you already; and that ye might have hope again.

The LORD hath made thee priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest, that ye should be officers in the house of the LORD, for every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in prison, and in the stocks.

So why have you made no protest against Jeremiah of Anathoth, who is acting as a prophet to you?

And beside all this, he hath sent us word unto Babylon, and told us plainly, that our captivity shall long endure: that we should build us houses to dwell therein, and to plant us gardens, that we might enjoy the fruit thereof.'