Jerusalem’s Godlessness
“aRoam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
And look now and take note.
And seek in her open squares,
If you can bfind a man,
cIf there is one who does justice, who seeks truth,
Then I will pardon her.
2 “And aalthough they say, ‘As the Lord lives,’
Surely they swear falsely.”
3 O Lord, do not aYour eyes look for truth?
You have bsmitten them,
But they did not weaken;
You have consumed them,
But they crefused to take correction.
They have dmade their faces harder than rock;
They have refused to repent.
4 Then I said, “They are only the poor,
They are foolish;
For they ado not know the way of the Lord
Or the ordinance of their God.
5 “I will go to the great
And will speak to them,
For athey know the way of the Lord
And the ordinance of their God.”
But they too, with one accord, have bbroken the yoke
And burst the bonds.
6 Therefore aa lion from the forest will slay them,
A bwolf of the deserts will destroy them,
A cleopard is watching their cities.
Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces,
Because their dtransgressions are many,
Their apostasies are numerous.
7 “Why should I pardon you?
Your sons have forsaken Me
And asworn by those who are bnot gods.
When I had fed them to the full,
They ccommitted adultery
And trooped to the harlot’s house.
8 “They were well‑fed lusty horses,
Each one neighing after his aneighbor’s wife.
9 “Shall I not punish these people,” declares the Lord,
“And on a nation such as this
aShall I not avenge Myself?
10 “Go up through her vine rows and destroy,
But do not execute a complete destruction;
Strip away her branches,
For they are not the Lord’s.
11 “For the ahouse of Israel and the house of Judah
Have dealt very treacherously with Me,” declares the Lord.
12 They have alied about the Lord
And said, “bNot He;
Misfortune will cnot come on us,
And we dwill not see sword or famine.
13 “The aprophets are as wind,
And the word is not in them.
Thus it will be done to them!”
Judgment Proclaimed
14 Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts,
“Because you have spoken this word,
Behold, I am amaking My words in your mouth fire
And this people wood, and it will consume them.
15 “Behold, I am abringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord.
“It is an enduring nation,
It is an ancient nation,
A nation whose blanguage you do not know,
Nor can you understand what they say.
16 “Their aquiver is like an bopen grave,
All of them are mighty men.
17 “They will adevour your harvest and your food;
They will devour your sons and your daughters;
They will devour your flocks and your herds;
They will devour your bvines and your fig trees;
They will demolish with the sword your cfortified cities in which you trust.
18 “Yet even in those days,” declares the Lord, “I will not make you a complete destruction. 19 It shall come about awhen they say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will bserve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
20 “Declare this in the house of Jacob
And proclaim it in Judah, saying,
21 ‘Now hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
Who have aeyes but do not see;
Who have ears but do not hear.
22 ‘Do you not afear Me?’ declares the Lord.
‘Do you not tremble in My presence?
For I have bplaced the sand as a boundary for the sea,
An eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it.
Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail;
Though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it.
23 ‘But this people has a astubborn and rebellious heart;
They have turned aside and departed.
24 ‘They do not say in their heart,
“Let us now fear the Lord our God,
Who agives rain in its season,
Both bthe autumn rain and the spring rain,
Who keeps for us
The cappointed weeks of the harvest.”
25 ‘Your ainiquities have turned these away,
And your sins have withheld good from you.
26 ‘For wicked men are found among My people,
They awatch like fowlers lying in wait;
They set a trap,
They catch men.
27 ‘Like a cage full of birds,
So their houses are full of adeceit;
Therefore they have become great and rich.
28 ‘They are afat, they are sleek,
They also excel in deeds of wickedness;
They do not plead the cause,
The cause of the borphan, that they may prosper;
And they do not defend the rights of the poor.
29 ‘aShall I not punish these people?’ declares the Lord,
‘On a nation such as this
Shall I not avenge Myself?’
30 “An appalling and ahorrible thing
Has happened in the land:
31 The aprophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests rule on their own authority;
And My people blove it so!
But what will you do at the end of it?
Destruction of Jerusalem Impending
“Flee for safety, O sons of aBenjamin,
From the midst of Jerusalem!
Now blow a trumpet in Tekoa
And raise a signal over bBeth‑haccerem;
For evil looks down from the cnorth,
And a great destruction.
2 “The comely and adainty one, bthe daughter of Zion, I will cut off.
3 “aShepherds and their flocks will come to her,
They will bpitch their tents around her,
They will pasture each in his place.
4 “aPrepare war against her;
Arise, and let us attack at bnoon.
Woe to us, for the day declines,
For the shadows of the evening lengthen!
5 “Arise, and let us attack by night
And adestroy her palaces!”
6 For thus says the Lord of hosts,
“aCut down her trees
And cast up a bsiege against Jerusalem.
This is the city to be punished,
In whose midst there is only coppression.
7 “aAs a well keeps its waters fresh,
So she keeps fresh her wickedness.
bViolence and destruction are heard in her;
cSickness and wounds are ever before Me.
8 “aBe warned, O Jerusalem,
Or bI shall be alienated from you,
And make you a desolation,
A land not inhabited.”
9 Thus says the Lord of hosts,
“They will athoroughly glean as the vine the bremnant of Israel;
Pass your hand again like a grape gatherer
Over the branches.”
10 To whom shall I speak and give warning
That they may hear?
Behold, their aears are closed
And they cannot listen.
Behold, bthe word of the Lord has become a reproach to them;
They have no delight in it.
11 But I am afull of the wrath of the Lord;
I am bweary with holding it in.
“cPour it out on the children in the street
And on the gathering of young men together;
For both husband and wife shall be taken,
The aged and the very old.
12 “Their ahouses shall be turned over to others,
Their fields and their wives together;
For I will bstretch out My hand
Against the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord.
13 “For afrom the least of them even to the greatest of them,
Everyone is bgreedy for gain,
And from the prophet even to the priest
Everyone deals falsely.
14 “They have ahealed the brokenness of My people superficially,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
But there is no peace.
15 “Were they aashamed because of the abomination they have done?
They were not even ashamed at all;
They did not even know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
At the time that I punish them,
They shall be cast down,” says the Lord.
16 Thus says the Lord,
“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the aancient paths,
Where the good way is, and walk in it;
And byou will find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
17 “And I set awatchmen over you, saying,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ‘We will not listen.’
18 “Therefore hear, O nations,
And know, O congregation, what is among them.
19 “aHear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people,
The bfruit of their plans,
Because they have not listened to My words,
And as for My law, they have crejected it also.
20 “aFor what purpose does bfrankincense come to Me from Sheba
And the csweet cane from a distant land?
dYour burnt offerings are not acceptable
And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.”
21 Therefore, thus says the Lord,
“Behold, aI am laying stumbling blocks before this people.
And they will stumble against them,
bFathers and sons together;
Neighbor and friend will perish.”
The Enemy from the North
22 Thus says the Lord,
“Behold, aa people is coming from the north land,
And a great nation will be aroused from the bremote parts of the earth.
23 “They seize abow and spear;
They are bcruel and have no mercy;
Their voice croars like the sea,
And they ride on horses,
Arrayed as a man for the battle
Against you, O daughter of Zion!”
24 We have aheard the report of it;
Our hands are limp.
bAnguish has seized us,
Pain as of a woman in childbirth.
25 aDo not go out into the field
And bdo not walk on the road,
For the enemy has a sword,
cTerror is on every side.
26 O daughter of my people, aput on sackcloth
And broll in ashes;
cMourn as for an only son,
A lamentation most bitter.
For suddenly the destroyer
Will come upon us.
27 “I have amade you an assayer and a tester among My people,
That you may know and assay their way.”
28 All of them are stubbornly rebellious,
aGoing about as a talebearer.
They are bbronze and iron;
They, all of them, are corrupt.
29 The bellows blow fiercely,
The lead is consumed by the fire;
In vain the refining goes on,
But the awicked are not separated.
30 aThey call them rejected silver,
Because the bLord has rejected them.
Message at the Temple Gate
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 “aStand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord!’” 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “aAmend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 aDo not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5 For aif you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly bpractice justice between a man and his neighbor, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the aorphan, or the widow, and do not shed binnocent blood in this place, nor cwalk after other gods to your own ruin, 7 then I will let you adwell in this place, in the bland that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8 “Behold, you are trusting in adeceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and aoffer sacrifices to Baal and walk after bother gods that you have not known, 10 then acome and stand before Me in bthis house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? 11 Has athis house, which is called by My name, become a bden of robbers in your sight? Behold, cI, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.
12 “But go now to My place which was in aShiloh, where I bmade My name dwell at the first, and csee what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord, “and I spoke to you, arising up early and bspeaking, but you did not hear, and I ccalled you but you did not answer, 14 therefore, I will do to the ahouse which is called by My name, bin which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I cdid to Shiloh. 15 I will acast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of bEphraim.
16 “As for you, ado not pray for this people, and do not lift up cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me; for I do not hear you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they apour out drink offerings to other gods in order to bspite Me. 19 aDo they spite Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves they spite, to their own bshame?” 20 Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, My aanger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the btrees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”
21 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your aburnt offerings to your sacrifices and beat flesh. 22 For I did not aspeak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘aObey My voice, and bI will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may cbe well with you.’ 24 Yet they adid not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and bwent backward and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have asent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. 26 Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but astiffened their neck; they bdid more evil than their fathers.
27 “You shall aspeak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will bnot answer you. 28 You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that adid not obey the voice of the Lord their God or accept correction; btruth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
29 ‘aCut off your hair and cast it away,
And btake up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For the Lord has crejected and forsaken
The generation of His wrath.’
30 For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the Lord, “they have aset their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 31 They have abuilt the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to bburn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I cdid not command, and it did not come into My mind.
32 “aTherefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bbury in Topheth because there is no other place. 33 The adead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34 Then I will make to acease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the bland will become a ruin.