Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.

Everyone has to be on guard against his friend.
Don’t trust any brother,
for every brother will certainly deceive,
and every friend spread slander.

Each one betrays his friend;
no one tells the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they wear themselves out doing wrong.

Their tongues are deadly arrows—
they speak deception.
With his mouth
a man speaks peaceably with his friend,
but inwardly he sets up an ambush.

The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it.

This is what each man is to say to his friend and to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’

Since it was the ninth month, the king was sitting in his winter quarters with a fire burning in front of him.

Now pay attention: Today I am setting you free from the chains that were on your hands. If it pleases you to come with me to Babylon, come, and I will take care of you. But if it seems wrong to you to come with me to Babylon, go no farther. Look—the whole land is in front of you. Wherever it seems good and right for you to go, go there.”