Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways.

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.

“I will go to the great [men]
And speak to them,
For they [must] know the way of the Lord,
The ordinance of their God.”
But [I found the reverse to be true, that] they too had all alike broken the yoke [of God’s law]
And had burst the bonds [of obedience to Him].

Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.

How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

Go up against her vines and make waste; let the destruction be complete: take away her branches, for they are not the Lord's.

They have lied about and denied the Lord
By saying, “It is not He [who speaks through His prophets];
Misfortune and evil shall not come on us,
Nor will we see war or famine.

And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.

For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, has said: Because you have said this, I will make my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and they will be burned up by it.

The Lord says, "Listen, nation of Israel! I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you. It will be a nation that was founded long ago and has lasted for a long time. It will be a nation whose language you will not know. Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

Their arrows are sudden death; yea, they themselves be very giants.

And it hath consumed thy harvest and thy bread, They consume thy sons, and thy daughters, It consumeth thy flock, and thy herd, It consumeth thy vine, and thy fig-tree, It maketh poor thy fenced cities, In which thou art trusting -- by the sword.

But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not let your destruction be complete.

And it will come about, when you say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? that you will say to them, As you gave me up, making yourselves servants to strange gods in your land, so will you be servants to strange men in a land which is not yours.

Tell ye this, throughout the house of Jacob, - And let it be heard throughout Judah saying:

Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?

As a cane full of birds, so their houses full of deceit: for this they were magnified and they will be rich.

Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

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?

Go in flight out of Jerusalem, so that you may be safe, you children of Benjamin, and let the horn be sounded in Tekoa, and the flag be lifted up on Beth-haccherem: for evil is looking out from the north, and a great destruction.

The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be cut off by my hand.

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

Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces.

For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her.

Like the casting forth by a wall of its waters, So, hath she cast forth her wickedness, - Violence and destruction, are heard in her, Before my face, continually, are suffering and smiting.

Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

Who can I speak to and give such a warning
that they will listen?
Look, their ear is uncircumcised,
so they cannot pay attention.
See, the word of the Lord has become contemptible to them—
they find no pleasure in it.

Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.

And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD.

They offer only superficial help for the harm my people have suffered. They say, 'Everything will be all right!' But everything is not all right!

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

Thus said Jehovah: Stand ye by the ways and see, and ask for paths of old, Where is this -- the good way? and go ye in it, And find rest for yourselves. And they say, 'We do not go.'

The Lord said, "I appointed prophets as watchmen to warn you, saying: 'Pay attention to the warning sound of the trumpet!'" But they said, "We will not pay attention!"

So the Lord said, "Hear, you nations! Be witnesses and take note of what will happen to these people.

Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.

They shall 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 men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

Then shall this cry be heard, "Our arms are feeble! Heaviness and sorrow is come upon us, as upon a woman travailing with child!

Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.

“I [the Lord] have set you as an assayer [O Jeremiah] and as a tester [of the ore] of My people,
That you may know and analyze their acts.”

All of them are turned aside by apostates, Walking slanderously -- brass and iron, All of them are corrupters.

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.

They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has given them up.

Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah, and thou hast proclaimed there this word, and hast said, Hear a word of Jehovah, all ye of Judah, who are coming in at these gates, to bow before Jehovah:

The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says, Let your ways and your doings be changed for the better and I will let you go on living in this place.

if you do not oppress the transient and the foreigner, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood [by oppression and by unjust judicial murders] in Jerusalem, nor follow after other gods to your own ruin,

Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you;

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

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

So, go to the place in Shiloh where I allowed myself to be worshiped in the early days. See what I did to it because of the wicked things my people Israel did.

Therefore will I do unto this 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.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

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

Yet they didn’t listen or pay attention but followed their own advice and according to their own stubborn, evil heart. They went backward and not forward.

However, they wouldn’t listen to Me or pay attention but became obstinate; they did more evil than their ancestors.

So tell them: 'This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore.

Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go, and let a song of grief go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is turned away from the generation of his wrath and has given them up.

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

And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burning their sons and their daughters there in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me and never came into my mind.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.

And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

“At that time”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of her officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the residents of Jerusalem will be brought out of their graves.

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts.

Further, you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Will those who are falling not be lifted up again? will he who has gone away not come back?

Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.

Even the stork knows when it is time to move on. The turtledove, swallow, and crane recognize the normal times for their migration. But my people pay no attention to what I, the Lord, require of them.

“The wise men are shamed,
They are dismayed and caught.
Behold, they have [manipulated and] rejected the [truth in the] word of the Lord,
And what kind of wisdom and insight do they have?

They offer only superficial help for the hurt my dear people have suffered. They say, "Everything will be all right!" But everything is not all right!

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: 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 do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

"Then shall the noise of his horses be heard from Dan; the whole land shall be afraid at the neigh of his strong horses. For they shall go in, and devour the land, with all that is in it: the cities, and those that dwell therein.

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

The harvest passed by, the summer was completed, and we were not saved.

I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.

Who doth make my head waters, And mine eye a fountain of tears? And I weep by day and by night, For the wounded of the daughter of my people.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

“Let everyone beware of his neighbor
And do not trust any brother.
For every brother is a supplanter [like Jacob, a deceiver, ready to grab his brother’s heel],
And every neighbor goes around as a slanderer.

They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another. They refuse to pay attention to me," says the Lord.

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts,

“Behold, I will refine them [through suffering] and test them;
For how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?

Their tongue a deadly arrow, speaking deceit; in his mouth he will speak peace to his neighbor, and be will lay his wait in his midst

Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

The Lord said, "I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. I will destroy the towns of Judah so that no one will be able to live in them."

What man is so wise, as to understand this? Or to whom hath the LORD spoken by mouth, that he may show this, and say, "O thou land, why perishest thou so? Wherefore art thou so burnt up, and like a wilderness that no man goeth through?"

And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law which I put before them, giving no attention to my voice and not being guided by it;

Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water.

For the sound of wailing is soon to be heard in Zion. They will wail, 'We are utterly ruined! We are completely disgraced! For our houses have been torn down and we must leave our land.'"

Now hear the word of the Lord, you women.
Pay attention to the word of His mouth.
Teach your daughters a lament
and one another a dirge,

That death Hath come up through our windows, Hath entered our palaces, - Cutting off The boy from the street, The young men from the broadways.

Speak, Thus saith Jehovah: Yea, the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the reaper, and there shall be none to gather.

But if any man has pride, let it be in this, that he has the wisdom to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord, working mercy, giving true decisions, and doing righteousness in the earth: for in these things I have delight, says the Lord.

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

For the statutes of the peoples are vanity; for it is a tree cut out of the forest, worked with a chisel by the hands of the artizan;

They make it beautiful with silver and gold; they make it strong with nails and hammers, so that it may not be moved.

They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, because you deserve to be revered. For there is no one like you among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings.