"Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you. Before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."

Then the LORD said to me, "You have seen well; for I watch over my word to perform it."

I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

For, behold, I have made you this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its officials, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

Thus says the LORD, "What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.

"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

The young lions have roared at him, and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant.

The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.

"Haven't you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken the LORD your God, when he led you by the way?

Now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or what have you to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?

"Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backsliding shall reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you," says the Lord, GOD of Hosts.

"For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you said, 'I will not serve;' for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?

"How can you say, 'I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals'? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;

"Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. But you said, 'It is in vain. No, for I have loved strangers, and I will go after them.'

who tell wood, 'You are my father;' and a stone, 'You have brought me out:' for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, 'Arise, and save us.'

"But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah.

"Why will you contend with me? You all have transgressed against me," says the LORD.

"I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

Generation, consider the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, 'We have broken loose. We will come to you no more?'

"Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

How well you prepare your way to seek love. Therefore you have taught even the wicked women your ways.

"Yet you said, 'I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned away from me.' "Behold, I will judge you, because you say, 'I have not sinned.'

"They say, 'If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and become another man's, will he return to her again?' Wouldn't that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me," says the LORD.

"Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see. Where have you not been lain with? You have sat for them by the ways, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; yet you have a prostitute's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.

"'Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to the end?' Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way."

Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the prostitute.

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,'" says the LORD.

"Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel," says the LORD.

A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God.

"Return, you backsliding children, I will heal your backsliding." "Behold, we have come to you; for you are the LORD our God.

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day. We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God."

Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD. Surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, 'You shall have peace;' whereas the sword reaches to the heart."

"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.

"For my people are foolish, they do not know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge."

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."

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, "Woe is me now. For my soul faints before the murderers."

O LORD, do your eyes not look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of the LORD, and the law of their God." But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.

"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.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me," says the LORD.

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

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.'

'Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and do not see; who have ears, and do not hear:

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.'

"But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and gone.

"Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich.

They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They do not plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they do not judge the right of the needy.

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?

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.

They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace.' when there is no peace.

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.

They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.'"

"We have heard its report; our hands become feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

"I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among my people; that you may know and try their way."

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,

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.

Now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer:

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

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:

"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.

and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.

Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them," says the LORD of hosts.

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?

They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, "Peace, peace;" when there is no peace.

I will utterly consume them, says the LORD: no grapes shall be 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 fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for the LORD our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against 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.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: 'Isn't the LORD in Zion? Isn't her King in her?'" "Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?"

They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

The LORD says, "Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein,

but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them;

I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.'"

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.'"

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."

You shall say this to them: 'The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.'

For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered.

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."

They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.'

For the LORD of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have worked for themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense to Baal."

"But, the LORD of hosts, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, I shall see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause."

You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bring forth fruit: you are near in their mouth, and far from their heart.

"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?

For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; even they have cried aloud after you: do not believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you.

I have forsaken my house, I have cast off my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest: she has uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

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.

Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of the LORD devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.

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.

Thus says the LORD against all my evil neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: 'behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.