“They have heard that I groan;
There is no one to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my calamity;
They are glad that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day which You have proclaimed,
That they may become like me.

“Let all their wickedness come before You;
And deal with them as You have dealt with me
For all my transgressions;
For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”

He has bent His bow like an enemy;
He has set His right hand like an adversary
And slain all that were pleasant to the eye;
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
He has poured out His wrath like fire.

Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The law is no more.
Also, her prophets find
No vision from the Lord.

The elders of the daughter of Zion
Sit on the ground, they are silent.
They have thrown dust on their heads;
They have girded themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem
Have bowed their heads to the ground.

They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
On their mothers’ bosom.

How shall I admonish you?
To what shall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.

All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it.”

The Lord has done what He purposed;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has thrown down without sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the might of your adversaries.

Their heart cried out to the Lord,
“O wall of the daughter of Zion,
Let your tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief,
Let your eyes have no rest.

“Arise, cry aloud in the night
At the beginning of the night watches;
Pour out your heart like water
Before the presence of the Lord;
Lift up your hands to Him
For the life of your little ones
Who are faint because of hunger
At the head of every street.”

See, O Lord, and look!
With whom have You dealt thus?
Should women eat their offspring,
The little ones who were born healthy?
Should priest and prophet be slain
In the sanctuary of the Lord?

On the ground in the streets
Lie young and old;
My virgins and my young men
Have fallen by the sword.
You have slain them in the day of Your anger,
You have slaughtered, not sparing.

You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those whom I bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.

He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.

They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

For He does not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?

Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.

We lift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

I called on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.

You have heard my voice,
“Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”

The lips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.

You will give them hardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.

How dark the gold has become,
How the pure gold has changed!
The sacred stones are poured out
At the corner of every street.

The precious sons of Zion,
Weighed against fine gold,
How they are regarded as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

Those who ate delicacies
Are desolate in the streets;
Those reared in purple
Embrace ash pits.

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown as in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her.

Her consecrated ones were purer than snow,
They were whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in body than corals,
Their polishing was like lapis lazuli.

Their appearance is blacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.

Better are those slain with the sword
Than those slain with hunger;
For they pine away, being stricken
For lack of the fruits of the field.

They wandered, blind, in the streets;
They were defiled with blood
So that no one could touch their garments.

Yet our eyes failed,
Looking for help was useless;
In our watching we have watched
For a nation that could not save.

They hunted our steps
So that we could not walk in our streets;
Our end drew near,
Our days were finished
For our end had come.

Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They chased us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

The breath of our nostrils, the Lord’s anointed,
Was captured in their pits,
Of whom we had said, “Under his shadow
We shall live among the nations.”

The punishment of your iniquity has been completed, O daughter of Zion;
He will exile you no longer.
But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins!

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Look, and see our reproach!

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
Our houses to aliens.

We have become orphans without a father,
Our mothers are like widows.

We have to pay for our drinking water,
Our wood comes to us at a price.

Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, there is no rest for us.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have borne their iniquities.

We get our bread at the risk of our lives
Because of the sword in the wilderness.

Our skin has become as hot as an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.

Princes were hung by their hands;
Elders were not respected.

Elders are gone from the gate,
Young men from their music.

The joy of our hearts has ceased;
Our dancing has been turned into mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head;
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Because of this our heart is faint,
Because of these things our eyes are dim;

You, O Lord, rule forever;
Your throne is from generation to generation.

Restore us to You, O Lord, that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,

Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.

Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

(On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile,

Within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form.

Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze.

Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them,

Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies.

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another.

As for their rims they were lofty and awesome, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes round about.

Under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!”

I am sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’

As for them, whether they listen or not—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them.

And you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house.

But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

“Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”

When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe.

He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel,

nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you;

yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate.

Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.”

Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.

Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the river Chebar at Tel-abib, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them.

When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.

Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.

Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.

The Spirit then entered me and made me stand on my feet, and He spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up in your house.

Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

Then get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and set your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This is a sign to the house of Israel.

“As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it.

When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it.

Now behold, I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

“But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days.

Your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.

Then the Lord said, “Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.”

But I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth.”

Then He said to me, “See, I will give you cow’s dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread.”

“As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword; take and use it as a barber’s razor on your head and beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair.

One third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

Take also a few in number from them and bind them in the edges of your robes.

And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again.