I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, did not fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.

It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.

Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense," says the LORD.

It shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days," says the LORD, "they shall say no more, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD.' neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more.

At that time they shall call Jerusalem 'The throne of the LORD;' and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem. Neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

"If you will return, Israel," says the LORD, "if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you shall not be removed;

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety. Do not wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction."

"It shall happen at that day," says the LORD, "that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the officials; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder."

At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, "A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;

"Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart."

My anguish, my anguish. I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can't hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, before his fierce anger.

For thus says the LORD, "The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not relented, neither will I turn back from it."

You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you dress yourselves with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain do you make yourself beautiful; your lovers despise you, they seek your life.

"Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her.

Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased.

"How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes' houses.

They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife.

They have denied the LORD, and said, "It is not he; neither shall evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine.

The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them."

Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Hosts, "Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Israel," says the LORD. "It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, neither understand what they say.

They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.

It will happen, when you say, 'Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?' Then you shall say to them, 'Just like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.'

"Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,

Do you not fear me?' says the LORD 'Won't you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can't pass it? And though its waves toss themselves, yet they can't prevail; though they roar, yet they can't pass over it.'

For among my people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

"Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks forth from the north, and a great destruction.

"Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us. For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can't listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.

Therefore I am full of the wrath of the LORD. I am weary with holding in. "Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land," says the LORD.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down," says the LORD.

Thus says the LORD, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 'Where is the good way?' and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." But they said, "We will not walk in it."

"Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them.

Hear, earth. 'Behold, I will bring disaster on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.'

"Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:

Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the LORD.

But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched."

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.

For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

but this thing I commanded them, saying, 'Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'

Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

yet they did not listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers."

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.'"

"For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight," says the LORD: "they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

Therefore behold, the days come," says the LORD, "that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.

"At that time," says the LORD, "they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;

I listened and heard, but they did not speak what is right: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, "What have I done?" Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.

The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what kind of wisdom is in them?

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No. They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein.

Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lies in wait for him.

"Who is the wise man, that may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?"

"and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, 'How are we ruined. We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.'"

"Yet hear the word of the LORD, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.

'For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.'

Thus says the LORD, "Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them.

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.

They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it not move.

They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and do not speak: they must be carried, because they can't go. Do not be afraid of them; for they can't do evil, neither is it in them to do good."

Who should not fear you, King of the nations? For it appertains to you; because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like you.

But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols. it is but a stock.

But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King: at his wrath the earth trembles, and the nations are not able to withstand his indignation.

He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens:

when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.

'Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege.

For thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.'

Woe is me because of my hurt. My wound is grievous: but I said, 'Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.'

The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on the families that do not call on your name: for they have devoured Jacob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation."

which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, "Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so you shall be my people, and I will be your God;

that I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey," as at this day.'" Then I answered, and said, "Amen, LORD."

For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.

Yet they did not obey, nor turn their ear, but walked everyone in the stubbornness of their evil heart: therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not do them.'"

Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense: but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

"What has my beloved to do in my house, since she has worked lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from you? When you do evil, then you rejoice.

The LORD called your name, "A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit." With the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken.

The LORD gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then you showed me their doings.

You are righteous, LORD, when I contend with you; yet I would reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

But you, LORD, know me; you see me, and try my heart toward you: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

"If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?

They have made it a desolation; it mourns to me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to heart.

They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and you shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.

It shall happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, "As the LORD lives;" even as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of my people.