But the prophets, shall prove to be wind, And there is no one speaking in them, - Thus, shall it be done to themselves!

For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

and have grown fat and sleek. There is no limit to their evil deeds. They don't argue the case of the orphan to secure justice. They don't defend the rights of the poor.

For the Lord of hosts has said,

“Cut down her trees
And build a siege [mound] against Jerusalem.
This is the city which must be punished;
There is nothing but oppression inside her [walls].

Like as a conduit aboundeth in water, even so this city aboundeth in wickedness. Robbery and unrighteousness is heard in her, sorrow and wounds are ever there in my sight.

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

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

And therefore thus sayeth the LORD, 'Behold, I will make this people fall, and there shall fall from among them the father with the children; one neighbour shall perish with another.'"

Moreover, thus sayeth the LORD, "Behold, there shall come a people from the North, and a great people shall arise from the ends of the earth;

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

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. The process of refining them has proved useless. The wicked have not been purged.

Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

Do not trust in the deceptive and lying words [of the false prophets who claim that Jerusalem will be protected by God because of the temple], saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

But go now to my place which is in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell there at the first, and see what I did to it from the face of the evil of my people Israel.

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 carcase of this people hath been for food To a fowl of the heavens, and to a beast of the earth, And there is none troubling.

And death was chosen above life to all the remnant of those being left from this evil family, in all the places being left where I cast them out there, says Jehovah of armies.

I hearkened and heard: they speak not what is right; there is no man who repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turneth to his course, like a horse rushing into the battle.

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

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.

Peace is looked for, and there is no good; a time of healing, and behold, terror.

For behold, I send among you serpents, vipers against which there is no charm, and they shall bite you, saith Jehovah.

Then I said, "There is no cure for my grief! I am sick at heart!

Listen! My people cry from a distant land: "Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is her king no longer there?" "Why did they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign gods?"

Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the living-place of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a waste, with no man living there.

For there is a lamentable noise heard of Zion: 'O how are we so sore destroyed? O how are we so piteously confounded? We must forsake our own natural country, and we are shot out of our own lodgings.'"

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.

Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of skilful men.

When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

The sound of a report, it's coming now! There is a great commotion from a land in the north to make the towns of Judah desolate, a refuge for jackals."

And the Lord said to me, There is an evil design at work among the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

Judah, you have as many gods as you have towns, and you have set up as many altars to the shameful idols as there are streets in Jerusalem. You burn incense to Baal on these altars.

The LORD called thee a green olive tree, a fair one, a fruitful one, a goodly one: but now that there is a contrary report of thee abroad, he will burn thee up, and destroy thy branches.

But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death; I had no thought that they were designing evil against me, saying, Come and let us make trouble his food, cutting him off from the land of the living, so that there may be no more memory of his name.

And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

He hath made it become a desolation, The desolation hath mourned unto Me, Desolated hath been all the land, But there is no one laying it to heart.

On all high places in the plain have spoilers come in, For the sword of Jehovah is consuming, From the end of the land even unto the end of the land, There is no peace to any flesh.

"I, the Lord, also have something to say concerning the wicked nations who surround my land and have attacked and plundered the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. I say: 'I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there.

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me a second time, saying,

Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.

And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.

And I shall go to Euphrates, and dig, and take the girdle from the place which I hid it there: and behold, the girdle was corrupted, it will not profit for anything.

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying, 'Thus said Jehovah:

The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly carried away captive.

But there is little hope for you ever doing good, you who are so accustomed to doing evil. Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard remove its spots?

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water.

Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.

Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.

And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, though I did not send them, and who say, ‘There will never be sword or famine in this land.’ By sword and famine these prophets will meet their end.

and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, because of the famine and the sword; and there shall be none to bury them, them, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters; and I will pour their wickedness upon them.

If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.

Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

“Then I will make your enemies bring [you along with] your possessions
Into a land which you do not know [for there you will serve your conquerors];
For a fire has been kindled in My anger,
Which will burn upon you.”

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying:

"You shall not take for yourself a wife, there shall not be for you sons and daughters in this place."

Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

For this is what the LORD says: "Don't go to a house where there is mourning, don't go to lament, nor to express sorrow to them. For I've taken my peace away from this people," declares the LORD, "as well as gracious love and compassion.

There shall not one visit another, to mourn with them for their dead, or to comfort them. One shall not offer another the cup of consolation, to forget their heaviness for father and mother.

and you, ye have done still worse than your fathers; and there ye are walking every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, not to hearken unto me:

Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour.

But Jehovah lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he thrust them away there: and I turned them back upon their land which I gave to their fathers.

For my eyes are on all their ways: there is no cover for them from my face, and their evil-doing is not kept secret from my eyes.

O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

For he shall be as a tree, that is planted by the waterside: which spreadeth out the root unto moistness, whom the heat cannot harm, when it cometh, but his leaves are green. And though there grow but little fruit because of drought yet is he not careful, but he never leaveth off to bring forth fruit.

Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever.

There shall come men also from the cities of Judah; from about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin; from the plain fields; from the mountains and from the wilderness; which shall bring burnt offerings, sacrifices, oblations, and incense, and offer up thanksgiving in the house of the LORD.

Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

So I went down [to] the house of the potter and look, there he was doing work at the potter's wheels.

Now and then there would be something wrong with the pot he was molding from the clay with his hands. So he would rework the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit.

And there is a word of Jehovah to me, saying:

There are times, Jeremiah, when I threaten to uproot, tear down, and destroy a nation or kingdom.

And there are times when I promise to build up and establish a nation or kingdom.

And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.

Then some people said, "Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God's word. Come on! Let's bring charges against him and get rid of him! Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says."

Let there be heard a cry out of their houses, When thou shalt bring in upon them a troop, suddenly, - Because they digged a pit to capture me, And snares, did they hide for my feet.

And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

And Jeremiah will come from Tophet where Jehovah sent him there to prophesy; and he will stand in the enclosure of the house of Jehovah and say to all the people,

And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.

And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain .

For I have heard the whispering and defaming words of many,
“Terror on every side!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
All my familiar and trusted friends,
[Those who are] watching for my fall, say,
“Perhaps he will be persuaded and deceived; then we will overcome him,
And take our revenge on him.”

A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.

Accursed, be the man who carried tidings to my father saying, There is born to thee a man-child!

House of David, thus saith Jehovah: Judge with justice in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire and burn, and there be none to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Thus saith the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,

For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.

Let there be no weeping for the dead, and make no songs of grief for him: but make bitter weeping for him who has gone away, for he will never come back or see again the country of his birth.

For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, [and] who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more.