The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit and woven together.
They have come upon my neck.
He has made my strength fail;
The Lord has put me into the hand
Of those against whom I cannot stand.

“I weep for these things;
My eyes overflow with tears,
Because a comforter,
One who could restore my soul, is far away from me.
My children are desolate and perishing,
For the enemy has prevailed.”

“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!

“People have heard that I groan,
That I have no comforter [in You].
All my enemies have heard of my desperation;
They are delighted [O Lord] that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day [of judgment] which You have proclaimed
So that they will become like me.

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

And He has violently broken down His temple like a [fragile] garden hedge;
He has destroyed His appointed meeting place.
The Lord has caused the appointed feast and Sabbath
To be forgotten in Zion
And has despised and rejected the king and the priest
In the indignation of His anger.

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

My eyes fail because of tears [mourns Jeremiah],
My spirit is deeply disturbed;
My heart is poured out on the earth [in grief]
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem],
When little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life [slips away and] is poured out
In their mothers’ arms.

How shall I console you?
To what shall I compare you,
O Daughter of Jerusalem?
With what shall I compare you, so that I may comfort you,
O Virgin Daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen (imagined) for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your wickedness
To restore you from captivity [by teaching you to repent],
But they have seen (imagined) and declared to you false and misleading oracles.

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

The Lord has done what He planned;
He has accomplished His word
Which He commanded from days of old.
He has demolished without sparing,
And He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you;
He has exalted the power of your enemies.

Their hearts 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 from hunger
At the head of every street.”

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

You [Lord] called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.

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

My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Because His [tender] compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;
Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion and my inheritance,” says my soul;
“Therefore I have hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.”

For He does not afflict willingly and from His heart
Or grieve the children of men.

To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both adversity (misfortune) and good (prosperity, happiness) proceed?

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

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands [in prayer]
Toward God in heaven;

All our enemies have gaped at us.

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

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

You will harden their hearts;
Your curse will be upon them.

You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of the Lord.

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!

Those who feasted on delicacies
Are perishing in the streets;
Those reared in purple [as nobles]
Embrace ash heaps.

For the [punishment of the] wickedness of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem]
Is greater than the [punishment for the] sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her [to offer help].

Her princes were purer than snow,
They were whiter than milk [in appearance];
They were more ruddy in body than rubies,
Their polishing was like lapis lazuli (sapphire).

Their appearance is [now] blacker than soot [because of the prolonged famine];
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin clings to their bones;
It is withered, and it has become [dry] like wood.

Those killed with the sword
Are more fortunate than those killed with hunger;
For the hungry pine and ebb away,
For the lack of the fruits of the field.

The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].

[And as for us,] yet our eyes failed,
Looking in vain for help.
Watching [from the towers] we watched
For a nation that could not save.

The enemy 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 pursued us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord [our king],
Was captured in their snares,
He of whom we had said, “Under his shadow
We shall live among the nations.”

The punishment of your sin has been completed, O Daughter of Zion;
The Lord will no longer send you into exile.
But He will punish your sin, O Daughter of Edom;
He will expose your sins.

O Lord, remember what has come upon us;
Look, and see our reproach (national disgrace)!

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

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.

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

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

We get our bread at the risk of our lives
Because of the sword [of the Arabs] in the wilderness [who may attack if we go out to harvest the crop].

Our skin is as hot as [the heat of] an oven
Because of the burning heat of [the fever of] famine.

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

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

The crown has fallen from our head [our honor is covered with dust]!
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

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

But You, O Lord, reign forever;
Your throne endures from generation to [all] generations.

Return us to You, O Lord, so 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 [when I was] in my thirtieth year [of life], on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles beside the River Chebar [in Babylonia], the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

(On the fifth of the month, which was in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,

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

Their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they sparkled and gleamed like shiny bronze.

Such were their faces. Their wings were stretched out upward; two [wings] of each one were touching another [the wings of the beings on either side of it], and [the remaining] two [wings of each being] were covering their bodies.

Regarding the appearance of the wheels and their construction: they gleamed like chrysolite (beryl, olivine); and the four were made alike. Their appearance and construction were a wheel [set at a right angle] within a wheel.

Whenever they moved, they went in any [one] of their four directions without turning as they moved.

Regarding their rims: they were so high that they were awesome and dreadful, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes all around.

Whenever the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them; and when the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also.

Wherever the spirit went, the beings went in that direction. And the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit or life of the living beings was in the wheels.

Whenever those went, these went; and whenever those came to a stop, these came to a stop; and whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them, for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

Now stretched over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, looking like the terrible and awesome shimmer of icy crystal.

Under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another. Every living being had two wings which covered its body on one side and on the other side.

Now upward, from that which appeared to be His waist, I saw something like glowing metal that looked like it was filled with fire all around it; and downward, from that which appeared to be His waist, I saw something like fire; and there was a brightness and a remarkable radiance [like a halo] around Him.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak to 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 refuse [to listen]—for they are a rebellious house—yet they will know and be fully aware of the fact that there has been a prophet among them.

And you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words; though briars and thorns are all around you and you sit among 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 will listen or refuse [to listen], for they are [most] rebellious.

“As for you, son of man, listen to what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”

And He spread it before me, and it was written on the front and on the back, and written on it were [words of] lamentation (funeral songs) and mourning and woe.

He said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll that I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it was as 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,

yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you and obey you, since they are not willing to listen to Me and obey Me, for the entire 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.

I have made your forehead like emery (diamond), harder than flint. 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, receive into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and hear with your ears (listen closely).

Go to the [Jewish] exiles [in Babylon], to the children of your people, and speak to them, whether they listen or not, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the River Chebar at Tel Abib. I sat there for seven days [in the place] where they were living, overwhelmed with astonishment [by my vision and the work before me].

When I say to the wicked, ‘You will certainly die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to tell him to turn from his wicked way to save his life, that same evil man will die in his sin, but you will be responsible for his blood.

However, if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he will die in his sin; but you have freed yourself [from responsibility].

Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness (right standing with God) and sins, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but you will be responsible for his blood.

Then the Spirit entered me and made me stand on my feet; He spoke and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up in your house.

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

But when I speak with 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 [to hear], let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

Further, take an iron plate and place it 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.