Then I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, 'It will be peace for you,' while the sword reaches up to the throat."

Lo, as clouds he cometh up, And as a hurricane his chariots, Lighter than eagles have been his horses, Woe to us, for we have been spoiled.

O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

Put ye in mind the nations Lo! publish ye against Jerusalem, Blockaders! are coming in from a land afar off, - And have uttered against the cities of Judah their voice:

They have her surrounded
like those who guard a field,
because she has rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reacheth unto thy heart.

My soul, my soul! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Destruction on destruction is proclaimed, For spoiled hath been all the land, Suddenly spoiled have been my tents, In a moment -- my curtains.

"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."

I have looked upon the earth, and see, it is waste and void. I looked toward heaven, and it had no shine.

I have looked to the mountains, And lo, they are trembling. And all the hills moved themselves lightly.

I have looked, and lo, man is not, And all fowls of the heavens have fled.

I have looked, and lo, The fruitful place is a wilderness, And all its cities have been broken down, Because of Jehovah, Because of the fierceness of His anger.

For thus hath the LORD said, "The whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not then have done.

Because of this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above will become dark. Because I have spoken, I have planned, and I have not relented, and I will not turn back from it."

All the land is in flight because of the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they have taken cover in the woodland and up on the rocks: every town has been given up, not a man is living in them.

And you, when you are made waste, what will you do? Though you are clothed in red, though you make yourself beautiful with ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes wide with paint, it is for nothing that you make yourself fair; your lovers have no more desire for you, they have designs on your life.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands,'saying , Woe is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers.

Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

Yahweh, do not your eyes [look] for honesty? You have struck them, but they felt no pain, you have destroyed them, they refused to take discipline. They have hardened their faces more than rock, they have refused to turn back.

Then I said, But these are the poor: they are foolish, for they have no knowledge of the way of the Lord or of the behaviour desired by their God.

Let me go to the great, and let me speak with them, for they know the way of Yahweh, the law of their God." However, they together have broken [the] yoke, they have torn to pieces [the] bonds.

Therefore smitten them hath a lion out of the forest, A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them, A leopard is watching over their cities, Every one who is going out of them is torn, For many have been their transgressions, Mighty have been their backslidings.

"{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.

Fed horses -- they have been early risers, Each to the wife of his neighbour they neigh.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt utterly treacherously with me," {declares} Yahweh.

"They have denied Yahweh, and have said, 'Not he, {for} evil will not come on us, we will see neither sword nor famine.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, "Because you have spoken this word, look, I [am] making my words in your mouth like a fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.

They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

Nevertheless, I will not then have done with you, sayeth the LORD.

{And then}, when you [people] say, 'Why has Yahweh our God done all of these [things] to us?' Then you will say to them, 'As you have forsaken me and have served gods of a foreign land in your land, so will you serve strangers in {a land that does not belong to you}.'

Hear this please, foolish and {senseless} people, {who have eyes} but do not see, {who have ears} but do not hear.'

Do you not revere me?" {declares} Yahweh, "Do you not tremble {before me}? For I have placed [the] sand [as] a boundary for the sea, {as an everlasting limit}, and it cannot pass over it, and they rise and fall loudly, but they cannot prevail, and its waves roar, but they cannot pass over it.

But for this people is a stubborn and rebellious heart, they have turned aside and have gone [away].

They have not said to themselves,
‘Let’s fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain, both early and late, in its season,
who guarantees to us the fixed weeks of the harvest.’

Your iniquities have disturbed these, and your sins have kept away the good from you.

For the wicked have been found among My people. It looketh about the covering of snares, They have set up a trap -- men they capture.

Like a cage full of birds, so their houses [are] full of fraud. {Therefore} they have become great, and they have become rich.

They have grown fat, they have grown sleek, also, {their evil deeds have no limit}. They do not judge [with] justice, [the] legal cause of [the] orphan, or allow it to succeed, and [the] legal case of [the] poor, they do not defend.

the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

I have likened the daughter of Zion to a lovely and delicate woman.

Unto her come do shepherds and their droves, They have stricken tents by her round about, They have fed each in his own station.

To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of Jehovah is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

And with the fury of Jehovah I have been filled, (I have been weary of containing,) To pour it on the suckling in the street, And on the assembly of youths together, For even husband with wife are captured, An elder with one full of days,

And their houses have been turned to others, Fields and wives together, For I stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land, An affirmation of Jehovah.

And they have treated the wound of my people lightly, {saying}, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.

Have they acted ashamed, for they have committed a detestable thing? Not at all, nor were they ashamed; they did not know to feel humiliated. {Therefore} they will fall among [those who] fall at the time I punish them, they will stumble," says Yahweh.

This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it.

Also I have set watchmen over you: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

Hear therefore ye Gentiles; and thou, congregation, shalt know what I have devised for them.

Hear, O earth, look, I [am] about to bring disaster to this people, the fruit of their plans, because they have not listened attentively to my words, and my teaching, they have rejected it also.

Why is this to Me? frankincense from Sheba cometh, And the sweet cane from a land afar off, Your burnt-offerings are not for acceptance, And your sacrifices have not been sweet to Me.

Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I do give to this people stumbling blocks, And stumbled against them have fathers and sons together, The neighbour and his friend do perish.

They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as a man for the battle, against thee, daughter of Zion.

We have heard news of it, our hands grow slack, anxiety has grasped us, pain as a [woman who] gives birth.

"I have made you an assayer among my people, a fortification, so that you may know and put to the test their ways.

The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; they have melted, and melted in vain; and the bad are not plucked away.

'Silver rejected,' they have called to them, For Jehovah hath kicked against them!

"Stand in the gate of the Lord's temple and proclaim this message: 'Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. Hear what the Lord has to say.

The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land.

You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly.

Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin.

Then I have caused you to dwell in this place, In the land that I gave to your fathers, From age even unto age.

Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear {falsely}? And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known?

And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

Has this house, which is called {by my name}, become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen [it]," {declares} Yahweh.

But go ye, I pray you, Unto My place that is in Shiloh, Where I caused My name to dwell at first, And see that which I have done to it, For the wickedness of My people Israel.

And now, because of your doing all these things," {declares} Yahweh, "and {I have spoken to you over and over again}, and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered,

I will even do unto the house which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh;

and I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

And they have not hearkened, nor inclined their ear, And they walk in the counsels, In the stubbornness, of their evil heart, And are for backward, and not for forward.

From the day that your ancestors came out from the land of Egypt until this day I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, day after day, {sending again and again}.

Yet they have not listened to me and they have not inclined their ear, but they have hardened their neck, they did more evil than their ancestors.

"And you shall say to them, 'This [is] the nation that has not obeyed the voice of Yahweh their God, and they have not accepted discipline. The truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouths.

For the people of Judah have done evil in my eyes," {declares} Yahweh, "They have set their abominations in the house that is called {by my name}, to defile it.

And they built the high place of Topheth, which [is] in [the] Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I have not commanded, and it did not come into my mind.

Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And it is not said any more, 'The Tophet,' And 'Valley of the son of Hinnom,' But 'Valley of the slaughter,' And they have buried in Tophet -- without place.

And I have caused to cease from cities of Judah, And from streets of Jerusalem, The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, Voice of bridegroom, and voice of bride, For the land doth become a desolation!

And they shall spread them out before the sun, and before the moon, and before all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and which they have gone after, and which they have inquired about, and to which they have bowed in worship. They shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground.

And death will be preferred to life by all the remaining of this evil clan in all the remaining places where I have driven them away," {declares} Yahweh.

Why has this people, Jerusalem, turned away [in] enduring apostasy? They have kept hold of deceit, they have refused to return.

I have listened attentively, and I have listened. They do not speak honestly, there is no man [who] regrets his wickedness, saying, 'What have I done?' All of them [are] turning to their ways of running, like a horse plunging into battle.

Truly, the stork in the heavens is conscious of her fixed times; the dove and the swallow and the crane keep to the times of their coming; but my people have no knowledge of the law of the Lord.

How can you say, "We are wise! We have the law of the Lord"? The truth is, those who teach it have used their writings to make it say what it does not really mean.

[The] wise will be put to shame, they will be dismayed, and they will get taken. Look, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, and what [is] wisdom to them?

And they have treated the wound of the daughter of my people lightly, {saying}, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.

Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, and they know not how to blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall stumble, saith Jehovah.

I will utterly consume them, saith Jehovah: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.

Why [are] we sitting? Gather, and let us go into the fortified cities, and let us perish there, for Yahweh our God has caused us to perish, and has provided drink for us, water of poison, because we have sinned against Yahweh.

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

For, lo, I am sending among you serpents, Vipers that have no charmer, And they have bitten you, an affirmation of Jehovah.

When I would have cheered myself against sorrow, Against me, mine own heart sickened: -

Look, the sound of the cry for help of the daughter of my people from a distant land, 'Is Yahweh not in Zion? Is her king not in her?' Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with idols of a foreign land?"

[The] harvest has passed, [the] summer has come to an end, and we have not received help.

For a breach of the daughter of my people have I been broken, I have been black, astonishment hath seized me.

Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no expert in medical arts? why then have my people not been made well?

I wish that my head were a well full of water and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people who have been killed.

Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

And everyone deceives his neighbor, and they do not speak [the] truth, they have taught their tongues to speak lies, they are tired [from] going astray.