Lamentations Cross References - BSB

¹ How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave. ² She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. ³ Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress. ⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish. ⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy. ⁶ All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; they lack the strength to flee in the face of the hunter. ⁷ In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall. ⁸ Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. ⁹ Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed! ¹⁰ The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly. ¹¹ All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised. ¹² Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger? ¹³ He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long. ¹⁴ My transgressions are bound into a yoke, knit together by His hand; they are draped over my neck, and the Lord has broken my strength. He has delivered me into the hands of those I cannot withstand. ¹⁵ The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah. ¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed. ¹⁷ Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them. ¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity. ¹⁹ I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive. ²⁰ See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death. ²¹ People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me. ²² Let all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

²¹ And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

³³ And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned Jehoahaz at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he could not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁵ So Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh Neco, but to meet Pharaoh’s demand he taxed the land and exacted the silver and the gold from the people, each according to his wealth.

²⁶ He reigned over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt.

²⁰ And mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem and exercised authority over the whole region west of the Euphrates; and tribute, duty, and toll were paid to them.

⁴ Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.

³⁷ Its abundant harvest goes to the kings You have set over us because of our sins. And they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

⁴ where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.

²⁶ And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations.

² O city of commotion, O town of revelry? Your slain did not die by the sword, nor were they killed in battle.

¹ “Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate. ² Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams. ³ Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.” ⁴ Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel. ⁵ “Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms. ⁶ I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke. ⁷ You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome. ⁸ So now hear this, O lover of luxury who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’ ⁹ These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells. ¹⁰ You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ ¹¹ But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly. ¹² So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror! ¹³ You are wearied by your many counselors; let them come forward now and save you—your astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate. ¹⁴ Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside. ¹⁵ This is what they are to you—those with whom you have labored and traded from youth—each one strays in his own direction; not one of them can save you.

⁵ The Lord GOD has opened My ears, and I have not been rebellious, nor have I turned back.

² Shake off your dust! Rise up and sit on your throne, O Jerusalem. Remove the chains from your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.

⁷ How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

⁴ Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; do not be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated. For you will forget the shame of your youth and will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

¹¹ “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

⁹ Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore an oath to them and their men, assuring them, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.

²³ How the hammer of the whole earth lies broken and shattered! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

¹ How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger.

¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.

¹ How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁶ All the princes of the sea will descend from their thrones, remove their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments. Clothed with terror, they will sit on the ground, trembling every moment, appalled over you.

¹⁵ This carefree city that dwells securely, that thinks to herself: “I am it, and there is none besides me,” what a ruin she has become, a resting place for beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

⁴ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Old men and old women will again sit along the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in hand because of great age. ⁵ And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

⁷ As much as she has glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her the same measure of torment and grief. In her heart she says, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow and will never see grief.’

¹⁶ saying: “Woe, woe to the great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! ¹⁷ For in a single hour such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!” Every shipmaster, passenger, and sailor, and all who make their living from the sea, will stand at a distance

¹⁵ But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,

³ So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed me.

¹³ He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. ¹⁴ My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me.

⁶ I am weary from groaning; all night I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.

¹¹ Among all my enemies I am a disgrace, and among my neighbors even more. I am dreaded by my friends—they flee when they see me on the street.

² In the day of trouble I sought the Lord; through the night my outstretched hands did not grow weary; my soul refused to be comforted. ³ I remembered You, O God, and I groaned; I mused and my spirit grew faint. Selah ⁴ You have kept my eyes from closing; I am too troubled to speak. ⁵ I considered the days of old, the years long in the past. ⁶ At night I remembered my song; in my heart I mused, and my spirit pondered:

⁷ All the brothers of a poor man hate him—how much more do his friends avoid him! He may pursue them with pleading, but they are nowhere to be found.

¹⁸ Among all the sons she bore, there is no one to guide her; among all the sons she brought up, there is no one to take her hand. ¹⁹ These pairs have befallen you: devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Who will grieve for you? Who can comfort you?

¹ “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.

³⁰ And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.

¹ Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

¹⁷ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them. ¹⁸ Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water. ¹⁹ For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

¹⁷ But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

²⁰ Go up to Lebanon and cry out; raise your voice in Bashan; cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers have been crushed. ²¹ I warned you when you were secure. You said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from youth, that you have not obeyed My voice. ²² The wind will drive away all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Then you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness.

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.

⁹ Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed. ¹⁷ Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

¹⁹ I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

²¹ People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me.

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

³⁷ therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked.

²² Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side— ²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them—all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses. ²⁴ They will come against you with a host of peoples, with weapons, chariots, and wagons. They will array themselves against you on every side with buckler and shield and helmet. I will delegate judgment to them, and they will punish you according to their own standards. ²⁵ And I will set My jealous rage against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and ears, and your survivors will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your remnant will be consumed by fire.

⁷ She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’

⁵ Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.

¹³ These kings have one purpose: to yield their power and authority to the beast.

¹⁶ And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you. ³⁹ Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers.

⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. ⁶⁶ So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained. ¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

¹¹ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

²¹ There at Riblah in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death. So Judah was taken into exile, away from its own land.

²⁰ Those who escaped the sword were carried by Nebuchadnezzar into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. ²¹ So the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of the word of the LORD through Jeremiah.

¹⁹ The cities of the Negev have been shut tight, and no one can open them. All Judah has been carried into exile, wholly taken captive.

¹⁶ But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

⁹ I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

⁹ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away to Babylon the remnant of the people who had remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to him.

⁸ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him.

¹⁵ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the craftsmen.

²⁷ There at Riblah in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death. So Judah was taken into exile, away from its own land. ²⁸ These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews; ²⁹ in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem; ³⁰ in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away 745 Jews. So in all, 4,600 people were taken away.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

¹⁸ They stalked our every step, so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near, our time ran out, for our end had come! ¹⁹ Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

¹² A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.

¹ I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape. ² Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down. ³ Though they hide themselves atop Carmel, there I will track them and seize them; and though they hide from Me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. ⁴ Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

⁴ The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away. ⁵ The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

⁹ Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters. ¹⁰ In a little more than a year you will tremble, O secure ones. For the grape harvest will fail and the fruit harvest will not arrive. ¹¹ Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists. ¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines, ¹³ and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry. ¹⁴ For the palace will be forsaken, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—the delight of wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks—

²² Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

² “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again ¹¹ the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the LORD, saying: ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Hosts, for the LORD is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the LORD. ¹² This is what the LORD of Hosts says: In this desolate place, without man or beast, and in all its cities, there will once more be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.

¹¹ All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised. ¹² Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity. ¹⁹ I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive. ²⁰ See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest. ⁷ The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD. ¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. ¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. ²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? ²¹ Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.

¹³ Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.

⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. ⁹ Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD. ¹⁰ The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails. ¹¹ Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. ¹² The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up. ¹³ Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

¹² Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

¹⁵ and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, ¹⁶ then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸ And if after all this you will not obey Me, I will proceed to punish you sevenfold for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit. ²¹ If you walk in hostility toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times, according to your sins. ²² I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate. ²³ And if in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁴ then I will act with hostility toward you, and I will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied. ²⁷ But if in spite of all this you do not obey Me, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁸ then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you. ³¹ I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. ³² And I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who dwell in it will be appalled. ³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste. ³⁴ Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not receive during the Sabbaths when you lived in it. ³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you. ³⁹ Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers. ⁴⁰ But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me— ⁴¹ and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³ For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or despise them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵ But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.” ⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws that the LORD established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

²⁵ After you have children and grandchildren and you have been in the land a long time, if you then act corruptly and make an idol of any form—doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking Him to anger— ²⁶ I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

¹⁵ If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. ¹⁷ Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. ²⁰ The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him. ²¹ The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess. ²² The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish. ²³ The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. ²⁴ The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away. ²⁷ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, ²⁹ and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you. ³⁰ You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. ³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. ³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights you see. ³⁵ The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. ⁴² Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land. ⁴³ The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you. ⁴⁶ These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, ⁴⁸ you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. ⁵¹ They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates. ⁵⁸ If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God— ⁵⁹ He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. ⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. ⁶⁶ So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see. ⁶⁸ The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

¹⁸ Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹ because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. ²⁰ The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven ²¹ and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. ²² Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it. ²³ All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger. ²⁴ So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ ²⁵ And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book. ²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

¹⁶ And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them. ¹⁷ On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’ ¹⁸ And on that day I will surely hide My face because of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods.

²⁹ For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt and turn from the path I have commanded you. And in the days to come, disaster will befall you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke Him to anger by the work of your hands.”

¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶ They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear. ¹⁸ You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth. ¹⁹ When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters. ²⁰ He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness. ²¹ They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding. ²² For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them. ²⁴ They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust. ²⁵ Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man. ²⁶ I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind, ²⁷ if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”

¹⁴ Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the LORD, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Again and again the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers because He had compassion on them and on His dwelling place. ¹⁶ But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

³³ You are just in all that has befallen us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly. ³⁴ Our kings and leaders and priests and fathers did not obey Your law or listen to Your commandments and warnings that You gave them.

⁶ You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us.

⁴² You have exalted the right hand of his foes; You have made all his enemies rejoice.

⁷ For we are consumed by Your anger and terrified by Your wrath. ⁸ You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

¹⁸ For a short while Your people possessed Your holy place, but our enemies have trampled Your sanctuary.

³ O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent. ⁴ Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. ⁵ I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains. ⁶ Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous. ⁷ “Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes. ⁸ They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife. ⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

²⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

⁷ I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the love of My life into the hands of her enemies.

¹⁴ And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins. ¹⁵ Why do you cry out over your wound? Your pain has no cure! Because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins I have done these things to you.

²¹ “As for the incense you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—you, your fathers, your kings, your officials, and the people of the land—did the LORD not remember and bring this to mind? ²² So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed, and your land became a desolation, a horror, and an object of cursing, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.

¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

³⁹ Why should any mortal man complain, in view of his sins? ⁴⁰ Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD. ⁴¹ Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: ⁴² “We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven.” ⁴³ You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.

⁴⁶ All our enemies open their mouths against us.

¹⁷ “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose! ¹⁸ Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. Although they shout loudly in My ears, I will not listen to them.”

⁹ He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.’

²⁴ “Son of man, say to her, ‘In the day of indignation, you are a land that has not been cleansed, upon which no rain has fallen.’ ²⁵ The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They devour the people, seize the treasures and precious things, and multiply the widows within her. ²⁶ Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. ²⁷ Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain. ²⁸ Her prophets whitewash these deeds by false visions and lying divinations, saying, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and have exploited the foreign resident without justice. ³⁰ I searched for a man among them to repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, so that I should not destroy it. But I found no one. ³¹ So I have poured out My indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their ways down upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”

⁷ To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You. ⁸ O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him ¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us through His servants the prophets. ¹¹ All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You. ¹² You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. ¹³ Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquities and giving attention to Your truth. ¹⁴ Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it upon us. For the LORD our God is righteous in all He does; yet we have not obeyed His voice. ¹⁵ Now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who made for Yourself a name renowned to this day, we have sinned; we have acted wickedly. ¹⁶ O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.

⁹ Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right, ¹⁰ who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity. ¹¹ Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster can come upon us.” ¹² Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

⁸ Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. ⁹ Because I have sinned against Him, I must endure the rage of the LORD, until He argues my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see His righteousness. ¹⁰ Then my enemy will see and will be covered with shame—she who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will see her; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets.

¹ Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled! ² She heeded no voice; she accepted no correction. She does not trust in the LORD; she has not drawn near to her God. ³ Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning. ⁴ Her prophets are reckless, faithless men. Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to the law. ⁵ The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the unjust know no shame. ⁶ “I have cut off the nations; their corner towers are destroyed. I have made their streets deserted with no one to pass through. Their cities are laid waste, with no man, no inhabitant. ⁷ I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her. But they rose early to corrupt all their deeds. ⁸ Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD, “until the day I rise to testify. For My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them My indignation—all My burning anger. For all the earth will be consumed by the fire of My jealousy.

³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies.

²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

³⁰ How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

¹² This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they themselves have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you whatever is devoted to destruction. ¹³ Get up and consecrate the people, saying, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Among you, O Israel, there are things devoted to destruction. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

¹¹ How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!” ¹² So David commanded his young men, and they killed Rechab and Baanah. They cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies by the pool in Hebron, but they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb in Hebron.

²¹ This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

⁹ But You have rejected and humbled us; You no longer go forth with our armies. ¹⁰ You have made us retreat from the foe, and those who hate us have plundered us. ¹¹ You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.

² Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of all the earth, like the peaks of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the great King. ³ God is in her citadels; He has shown Himself to be a fortress.

² From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.

⁹ Worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth.

¹² If your sons keep My covenant and the testimony I will teach them, then their sons will also sit on your throne forever and ever.” ¹³ For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His home:

²¹ See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!

⁵ Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a canopy,

⁶ Cry out and sing, O citizen of Zion, for great among you is the Holy One of Israel.”

¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother: “Take a lowly seat, for your glorious crowns have fallen from your heads.”

⁵ Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. ⁶ Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”

⁴ This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

³ at the sound of the galloping hooves of stallions, the rumbling of chariots, and the clatter of their wheels. The fathers will not turn back for their sons; their hands will hang limp.

⁴¹ Kirioth has been taken, and the strongholds seized. In that day the heart of Moab’s warriors will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

³⁰ The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken. ³¹ One courier races to meet another, and messenger follows messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end. ³² The fords have been seized, the marshes set on fire, and the soldiers are terrified.”

⁷ Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah, ⁸ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him.

¹¹ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.

¹³ He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

¹ How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger. ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes. ³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. ⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. ⁵ The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

²⁰ His beautiful ornaments they transformed into pride and used them to fashion their vile images and detestable idols. Therefore I will make these into something unclean for them. ²¹ And I will hand these things over as plunder to foreigners and loot to the wicked of the earth, who will defile them. ²² I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My treasured place. Violent men will enter it, and they will defile it.

²² Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. ²³ And the glory of the LORD rose up from within the city and stood over the mountain east of the city.

²¹ Tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I am about to desecrate My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and the delight of your soul. And the sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword.’

²⁵ And you, son of man, know that on the day I take away their stronghold, their pride and joy—the desire of their eyes which uplifted their souls—and their sons and daughters as well,

¹⁴ Sing for joy, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! ¹⁵ The LORD has taken away your punishment; He has turned back your enemy. Israel’s King, the LORD, is among you; no longer will you fear any harm. ¹⁶ On that day they will say to Jerusalem: “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands fall limp. ¹⁷ The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.”

⁷ For what nation is great enough to have a god as near to them as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call on Him? ⁸ And what nation is great enough to have righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I set before you today?

³⁴ Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes? ³⁵ You were shown these things so that you would know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides Him. ³⁶ He let you hear His voice from heaven to discipline you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the fire. ³⁷ Because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by His presence and great power,

⁷ For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.

² “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me,

⁴ These things come to mind as I pour out my soul: how I walked with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and praise.

³ I remembered You, O God, and I groaned; I mused and my spirit grew faint. Selah

⁵ I considered the days of old, the years long in the past. ⁶ At night I remembered my song; in my heart I mused, and my spirit pondered: ⁷ “Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again? ⁸ Is His loving devotion gone forever? Has His promise failed for all time? ⁹ Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has His anger shut off His compassion?” Selah

⁴ We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us.

³ for there our captors requested a song; our tormentors demanded songs of joy: “Sing us a song of Zion.” ⁴ How can we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?

¹⁹ He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and judgments to Israel. ²⁰ He has done this for no other nation; they do not know His judgments. Hallelujah!

¹ I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ² He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! ³ “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. ⁴ What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?

⁷ “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt.

¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

¹⁷ All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.

¹¹ But now many nations have assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”

¹⁷ Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death!

²⁵ But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.

³⁰ Therefore, the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever. But now the LORD declares: Far be it from Me! For I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be disdained.

⁴⁶ When they sin against You—for there is no one who does not sin—and You become angry with them and deliver them to an enemy who takes them as captives to his own land, whether far or near, ⁴⁷ and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’

⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.

⁹ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

³ Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”

² But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. ³ For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters injustice. ⁴ No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. ⁵ They hatch the eggs of vipers and weave a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched. ⁶ Their cobwebs cannot be made into clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. ⁷ Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake. ⁸ The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have turned them into crooked paths; no one who treads on them will know peace. ⁹ Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom. ¹⁰ Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead. ¹¹ We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but find none, for salvation, but it is far from us. ¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities: ¹³ rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.

³¹ For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

²⁸ All are hardened rebels, walking around as slanderers. They are bronze and iron; all of them are corrupt.

²² And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.

²⁶ So I will pull your skirts up over your face, that your shame may be seen.

⁴ I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.

¹⁷ Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish. ⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.

¹¹ All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.

²⁰ See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death. ²¹ People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me. ²² Let all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

¹⁵ “Go away! Unclean!” men shouted at them. “Away, away! Do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered. Among the nations it was said, “They can stay here no longer.” ¹⁶ The presence of the LORD has scattered them; He regards them no more. The priests are shown no honor; the elders find no favor.

²¹ So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.

¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect. ¹³ Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood. ¹⁴ The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music. ¹⁵ Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. ¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹³ “Son of man, if a land sins against Me by acting unfaithfully, and I stretch out My hand against it to cut off its supply of food, to send famine upon it, and to cut off from it both man and beast, ¹⁴ then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord GOD. ¹⁵ Or if I send wild beasts through the land to leave it childless and desolate, with no man passing through it for fear of the beasts, ¹⁶ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate. ¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast, ¹⁸ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered. ¹⁹ Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast, ²⁰ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves. ²¹ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

³⁷ therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked. ³⁸ And I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and those who shed blood; so I will bring upon you the wrath of your bloodshed and jealousy. ³⁹ Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will level your mounds and tear down your lofty shrines. They will strip off your clothes, take your fine jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.

² “As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations ³ and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘O city who brings her own doom by shedding blood within her walls and making idols to defile herself, ⁴ you are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols you have made. You have brought your days to a close and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands. ⁵ Those near and far will mock you, O infamous city, full of turmoil. ⁶ See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood. ⁷ Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed. ⁸ You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths. ⁹ Among you are slanderous men bent on bloodshed; within you are those who eat on the mountain shrines and commit acts of indecency. ¹⁰ In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity. ¹¹ One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter. ¹² In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD. ¹³ Now look, I strike My hands together against your unjust gain and against the blood you have shed in your midst. ¹⁴ Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will act. ¹⁵ I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you throughout the lands; I will purge your uncleanness.

²⁹ They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity

⁴⁶ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Bring a mob against them and consign them to terror and plunder.

³ Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.

¹⁰ And then I will expose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of My hands.

¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

⁷ The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

¹⁷ And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

³¹ and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.

⁷ So we called out to the LORD, the God of our fathers; and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, toil, and oppression.

²⁷ if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”

²⁹ If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.

¹¹ And she made a vow, pleading, “O LORD of Hosts, if only You will look upon the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, not forgetting Your maidservant but giving her a son, then I will dedicate him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall ever come over his head.”

¹² Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today.”

²⁶ For the LORD saw that the affliction of the Israelites, both slave and free, was very bitter. There was no one to help Israel,

³² So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.

¹⁸ Consider my affliction and trouble, and take away all my sins.

⁸ They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely.” They burned down every place where God met us in the land. ⁹ There are no signs for us to see. There is no longer any prophet. And none of us knows how long this will last.

²² Rise up, O God; defend Your cause! Remember how the fool mocks You all day long. ²³ Do not disregard the clamor of Your adversaries, the uproar of Your enemies that ascends continually.

¹⁵³ Look upon my affliction and rescue me, for I have not forgotten Your law.

⁸ Grant not, O LORD, the desires of the wicked; do not promote their evil plans, lest they be exalted. Selah

¹ Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter.

⁸ For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the LORD, defying His glorious presence.

⁴ Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

¹⁷ Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

²³ Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁹ Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

² “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”

⁷ You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome.

¹¹ “O afflicted city, lashed by storms, without solace, surely I will set your stones in antimony and lay your foundations with sapphires.

³⁴ Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

¹⁷ But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive. ¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother: “Take a lowly seat, for your glorious crowns have fallen from your heads.”

²⁷ Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

⁷ No food will be offered to comfort those who mourn the dead; not even a cup of consolation will be given for the loss of a father or mother.

²⁶ “Make him drunk, because he has magnified himself against the LORD; so Moab will wallow in his own vomit, and he will also become a laughingstock.

²⁹ Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.

¹ How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave. ² She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

¹⁷ Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

¹³ What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?

¹² It has frustrated every effort; its thick rust has not been removed, even by the fire. ¹³ Because of the indecency of your uncleanness I tried to cleanse you, but you would not be purified from your filthiness. You will not be pure again until My wrath against you has subsided.

¹⁷ So now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate sanctuary. ¹⁸ Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion. ¹⁹ O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name.”

¹⁴ “Therefore, behold, I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly.

¹⁰ This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.

⁴ He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. ⁵ Do you not remember that I told you these things while I was still with you? ⁶ And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way. ⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.

¹⁷ For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?

³ No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation.

¹ At that time the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people, and in it they found the passage stating that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,

⁴ Your foes have roared within Your meeting place; they have unfurled their banners as signs, ⁵ like men wielding axes in a thicket of trees ⁶ and smashing all the carvings with hatchets and picks. ⁷ They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your Name. ⁸ They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely.” They burned down every place where God met us in the land.

¹ A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble. ² They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the air, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth. ³ They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead. ⁴ We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us. ⁵ How long, O LORD? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire? ⁶ Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, on the kingdoms that refuse to call on Your name, ⁷ for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland.

¹³ Therefore My people will go into exile for their lack of understanding; their dignitaries are starving and their masses are parched with thirst. ¹⁴ Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat and opens wide its enormous jaws, and down go Zion’s nobles and masses, her revelers and carousers!

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.

¹³ Your wealth and your treasures I will give up as plunder, without charge for all your sins within all your borders.

⁵ I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon.

⁵¹ “We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; disgrace has covered our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the LORD’s house.”

¹⁷ Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and they carried all the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸ They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes, and all the articles of bronze used in the temple service. ¹⁹ The captain of the guard also took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—anything made of pure gold or fine silver. ²⁰ As for the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls under it, and the movable stands that King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the weight of the bronze from all these articles was beyond measure.

⁷ In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.

²² I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My treasured place. Violent men will enter it, and they will defile it.

⁷ Then He told them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city.

⁷ In addition to all your other abominations, you brought in foreigners uncircumcised in both heart and flesh to occupy My sanctuary; you defiled My temple when you offered My food—the fat and the blood; you broke My covenant.

¹⁴ So when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

⁵² They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

¹¹ Now his men found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David. They gave the man water to drink and food to eat— ¹² a piece of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins. So he ate and was revived, for he had not had any food or water for three days and three nights.

²⁵ So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.

⁴ “Behold, I am insignificant. How can I reply to You? I place my hand over my mouth.

¹⁵ My eyes are always on the LORD, for He will free my feet from the mesh. ¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious, for I am lonely and afflicted. ¹⁷ The troubles of my heart increase; free me from my distress. ¹⁸ Consider my affliction and trouble, and take away all my sins. ¹⁹ Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with vicious hatred.

⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

⁹ “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.”

⁶ By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.

¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

⁴ The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any. ⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps. ⁶ The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her. ⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. ⁸ But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce. ¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹⁵ “Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.” ¹⁶ Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure. ¹⁷ So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.

¹⁶ When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food. ¹⁷ I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the wrath of the LORD of Hosts on the day of His burning anger.

¹⁶ They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.

²⁴ The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has fully accomplished the purposes of His heart. In the days to come you will understand this.

⁶ The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her. ⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. ⁸ But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce. ¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. ¹¹ The LORD has exhausted His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations.

¹² You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

²¹ For at that time there will be great tribulation, unmatched from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again.

²² For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. ²³ How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.

²⁸ But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ ³¹ For if men do these things while the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

²¹ They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding. ²² For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them. ²⁴ They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust. ²⁵ Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.

⁸ For his own feet lead him into a net, and he wanders into its mesh.

⁶ then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.

³⁰ My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.

¹⁰ For my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my iniquity has drained my strength, and my bones are wasting away.

⁴ May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame; may those who plan to harm me be driven back and confounded.

¹¹ You led us into the net; You laid burdens on our backs.

² May those who seek my life be ashamed and confounded; may those who wish me harm be repelled and humiliated. ³ May those who say, “Aha, aha!” retreat because of their shame.

³ For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers. ⁴ My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread. ⁵ Through my loud groaning my flesh clings to my bones.

⁵ May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame.

¹⁷ But those who trust in idols and say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’ will be turned back in utter shame.

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the pain in my chest! My heart pounds within me; I cannot be silent. For I have heard the sound of the horn, the alarm of battle. ²⁰ Disaster after disaster is proclaimed, for the whole land is laid waste. My tents are destroyed in an instant, my curtains in a moment. ²¹ How long must I see the signal flag and hear the sound of the horn? ²² “For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.” ²³ I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light. ²⁴ I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. ²⁵ I looked, and no man was left; all the birds of the air had fled. ²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the LORD, before His fierce anger. ²⁷ For this is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction. ²⁸ Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.” ²⁹ Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.

⁶ Therefore My wrath and anger poured out and burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so that they have become the desolate ruin they are today.

²² Let all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. ⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

¹⁷ All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us. ¹⁸ They stalked our every step, so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near, our time ran out, for our end had come! ¹⁹ Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness. ²⁰ The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

¹⁷ Because of this, our hearts are faint; because of these, our eyes grow dim—

¹³ But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

²⁰ I will spread My net over him and catch him in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment upon him there for the treason he committed against Me.

³ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will spread My net over you with a company of many peoples, and they will draw you up in My net.

¹² As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them when I hear them flocking together.

⁶ Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; even rocks are shattered before Him.

¹⁶ I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Yet I must wait patiently for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us.

⁸ in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

²⁹ “For our God is a consuming fire.”

⁴⁸ you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

²² The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.

²⁵ I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

⁶ I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

⁹ behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

⁸ As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.

¹² And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live!

¹⁴ For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.’”

⁵ He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will stay until I attend to him, declares the LORD. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.’”

²⁰ I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. ²¹ And I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon that had withdrawn from you.

¹⁷ Later, King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and received him in his palace, where he asked him privately, “Is there a word from the LORD?” “There is,” Jeremiah replied. “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

¹ In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army and laid siege to the city. ² And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached. ³ Then all the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-sarsekim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon. ⁴ When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him. ⁶ There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon. ⁸ The Chaldeans set fire to the palace of the king and to the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem. ⁹ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried away to Babylon the remnant of the people who had remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to him.

⁹ I will bring you out of the city and deliver you into the hands of foreigners, and I will execute judgments against you.

³¹ I will pour out My anger upon you; I will breathe the fire of My fury against you; I will hand you over to brutal men, skilled in destruction.

²⁸ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Surely I will deliver you into the hands of those you hate, from whom you turned away in disgust.

⁴ therefore I will indeed give you as a possession to the people of the East. They will set up their camps and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk.

⁷ therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’

¹⁴ For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them to pieces and then go away. I will carry them off where no one can rescue them.

³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

⁸ who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.

³³ “Throw her down!” yelled Jehu. So they threw her down, and her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses as they trampled her underfoot.

¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained. ¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.

⁴ Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah, ⁵ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him. ⁶ The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him. ⁷ And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

¹¹⁸ You reject all who stray from Your statutes, for their deceitfulness is in vain.

⁵ Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.

¹⁸ Your covenant with death will be dissolved, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be trampled by it.

² Who has aroused one from the east and called him to his feet in righteousness? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow.

³ “I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.

¹⁷ You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound.

²¹ Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

¹⁰ Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire army of the Chaldeans that is fighting against you, and only wounded men remained in their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”

²⁶ Come against her from the farthest border. Break open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain. Devote her to destruction; leave her no survivors.

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out.

³⁴ To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the land,

¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar, furious with rage, summoned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king,

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see and will be covered with shame—she who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will see her; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets.

³ Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.

²⁴ They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

²⁹ How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

¹⁹ So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes of the earth, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. ²⁰ And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and the blood that flowed from it rose as high as the bridles of the horses for a distance of 1,600 stadia.

¹⁵ And from His mouth proceeds a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

²⁰ Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found no one.

¹³⁶ My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.

¹⁰ I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.

²¹ For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

² She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy. ⁶ All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; they lack the strength to flee in the face of the hunter.

¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest.

²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? ²¹ Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion. ²² You summoned my attackers on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

⁴⁸ Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹ My eyes overflow unceasingly, without relief,

² How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands! ³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.

¹² Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them!

⁴¹ As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it ⁴² and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

¹ I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit. ² I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,

¹⁹ When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening. ²⁰ Anything on which she lies or sits during her menstruation will be unclean, ²¹ and anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening. ²² Whoever touches any furniture on which she was sitting must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening. ²³ And whether it is a bed or furniture on which she was sitting, whoever touches it will be unclean until evening. ²⁴ If a man lies with her and her menstrual flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will become unclean. ²⁵ When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days at a time other than her menstrual period, or if it continues beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, just as she is during the days of her menstruation. ²⁶ Any bed on which she lies or any furniture on which she sits during the days of her discharge will be unclean, like her bed during her menstrual period. ²⁷ Anyone who touches these things will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening.

²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,

³⁸ then may whatever prayer or petition Your people Israel make—each knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple—

² And the LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servants the prophets. ³ Surely this happened to Judah at the LORD’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done, ⁴ and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was unwilling to forgive.

¹ So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it.

¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

³ Shepherds and their flocks will come against her; they will pitch their tents all around her, each tending his own portion:

⁶ “Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

⁴ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city. ⁵ And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath.

²² Behold, I am going to give the command, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.

¹ How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger. ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes. ³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. ⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. ⁵ The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. ⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest. ⁷ The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast. ⁸ The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.

¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes. ¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

¹⁵ “Go away! Unclean!” men shouted at them. “Away, away! Do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered. Among the nations it was said, “They can stay here no longer.”

²³ Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence. ²⁴ So I will bring the most wicked of nations to take possession of their houses. I will end the pride of the mighty, and their holy places will be profaned.

¹⁷ “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds. Their behavior before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman’s impurity.

⁸ Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.

²⁷ Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. “This time I have sinned,” he said. “The LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. ³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. ³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights you see. ³⁵ The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.

⁴ He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

⁷ Then Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have gathered the scraps under my table. As I have done to them, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, where he died.

¹⁴ If you fear the LORD and serve Him and obey His voice, and if you do not rebel against the command of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the LORD your God, then all will be well. ¹⁵ But if you disobey the LORD and rebel against His command, then the hand of the LORD will be against you as it was against your fathers.

²³ For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.”

⁸ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

²¹ and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the commandment that the LORD your God gave you,

¹³ After all that has come upon us because of our evil deeds and our great guilt (though You, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us such a remnant as this),

⁶ let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to hear the prayer that I, Your servant, now pray before You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins that we Israelites have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷ We have behaved corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that You gave Your servant Moses. ⁸ Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations,

²⁶ But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

³³ You are just in all that has befallen us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly.

¹¹ because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.

⁷⁵ I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.

¹⁷ The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.

¹ Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

⁸ And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’ ⁹ Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

²⁸ If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, you are to tell them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘You most certainly must drink it! ²⁹ For behold, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears My Name, so how could you possibly go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of Hosts.’

¹² For this is what the LORD says: “If those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, can you possibly remain unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for you must drink it too.

¹² Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

⁴² “We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven.”

²² Yet, behold, some survivors will be left in it—sons and daughters who will be brought out. They will come out to you, and when you see their conduct and actions, you will be comforted regarding the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem—all that I have brought upon it. ²³ They will bring you consolation when you see their conduct and actions, and you will know that it was not without cause that I have done all these things within it,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

⁷ To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You.

⁵ The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the unjust know no shame.

⁵ But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

³ and they sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations! ⁴ Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

⁵ And I heard the angel of the waters say: “Righteous are You, O Holy One, who is and was, because You have brought these judgments. ⁶ For they have spilled the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink, as they deserve.” ⁷ And I heard the altar reply: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are Your judgments.”

¹³ He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. ¹⁴ My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵ My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight. ¹⁶ I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth. ¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family. ¹⁸ Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me. ¹⁹ All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.

²⁸ But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.

¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end! ¹⁶ And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them. ¹⁷ You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound. ¹⁸ If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”

¹¹ “For both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the LORD. ¹² “Therefore their path will become slick; they will be driven away into the darkness and fall into it. For I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment,” declares the LORD. ¹³ “Among the prophets of Samaria I saw an offensive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray. ¹⁴ And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”

¹³ Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴ Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say, ‘You must not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they are prophesying to you a lie. ¹⁵ For I have not sent them, declares the LORD, and yet they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

⁷ “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt. ⁸ Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down. ⁹ This is what the LORD says: Do not deceive yourselves by saying, ‘The Chaldeans will go away for good,’ for they will not!

⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. ⁸ But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

⁴⁰ But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me— ⁴¹ and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

²⁵ Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.

⁴⁷ and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’ ⁴⁸ and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray to You in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name, ⁴⁹ then may You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place, their prayer and petition, and may You uphold their cause. ⁵⁰ May You forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all the transgressions they have committed against You, and may You grant them compassion in the eyes of their captors to show them mercy.

²⁷ I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.

²⁷ Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.

³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.

¹³ He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

¹¹ Therefore my heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir-heres.

¹⁴ I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”

³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD.

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the pain in my chest! My heart pounds within me; I cannot be silent. For I have heard the sound of the horn, the alarm of battle.

²¹ For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares. ²² Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”

¹⁸ If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”

²⁰ Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me, a delightful child? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD.

³⁶ Therefore My heart laments like a flute for Moab; it laments like a flute for the men of Kir-heres, because the wealth they acquired has perished.

¹⁵ The sword is outside; plague and famine are within. Those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.

⁸ How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

¹⁸ I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’

¹³ But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

⁴¹ when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me. ⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood, while My sword devours flesh—the blood of the slain and captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.” ⁴³ Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, and let all God’s angels worship Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His children. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and repay those who hate Him; He will cleanse His land and His people.

¹⁵ But when I stumbled, they assembled in glee; they gathered together against me. Assailants I did not know slandered me without ceasing.

¹³ but the Lord laughs, seeing that their day is coming.

¹⁶ For I said, “Let them not gloat over me—those who taunt me when my foot slips.”

⁷ Remember, O LORD, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!” ⁸ O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, blessed is he who repays you as you have done to us. ⁹ Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

¹ This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received: ² Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles. ³ I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph. ⁴ Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The LORD of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war. ⁵ They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country. ⁶ Wail, for the Day of the LORD is near; it will come as destruction from the Almighty. ⁷ Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt. ⁸ Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear. ⁹ Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming—cruel, with fury and burning anger—to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it. ¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. ¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will end the haughtiness of the arrogant and lay low the pride of the ruthless. ¹² I will make man scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir. ¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the wrath of the LORD of Hosts on the day of His burning anger. ¹⁴ Like a hunted gazelle, like a sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land.

²² Thus says your Lord, the LORD, even your God, who defends His people: “See, I have removed from your hand the cup of staggering. From that goblet, the cup of My fury, you will never drink again. ²³ I will place it in the hands of your tormentors, who told you: ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you,’ so that you made your back like the ground, like a street to be traversed.”

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the LORD’s hand and made all the nations drink from it, each one to whom the LORD had sent me, ¹⁸ to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials; ¹⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt, his officials, his leaders, and all his people; ²⁰ all the mixed tribes; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines: Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹ Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites; ²² all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair; ²⁴ all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert; ²⁵ all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media; ²⁶ all the kings of the north, both near and far, one after another—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach will drink it too. ²⁷ “Then you are to tell them that this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Drink, get drunk, and vomit. Fall down and never get up again, because of the sword I will send among you.’

¹⁶ Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries—every one of them—will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.

¹ This is the word of the LORD about the nations—the word that came to Jeremiah the prophet ² concerning Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah: ³ “Deploy your shields, small and large; advance for battle! ⁴ Harness the horses; mount the steeds; take your positions with helmets on! Polish your spears; put on armor! ⁵ Why am I seeing this? They are terrified, they are retreating; their warriors are defeated, they flee in haste without looking back; terror is on every side!” declares the LORD. ⁶ “The swift cannot flee, and the warrior cannot escape! In the north by the River Euphrates they stumble and fall. ⁷ Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters churn? ⁸ Egypt rises like the Nile, and its waters churn like rivers, boasting, ‘I will rise and cover the earth; I will destroy the cities and their people.’ ⁹ Advance, O horses! Race furiously, O chariots! Let the warriors come forth—Cush and Put carrying their shields, men of Lydia drawing the bow. ¹⁰ For that day belongs to the Lord GOD of Hosts, a day of vengeance against His foes. The sword will devour until it is satisfied, until it is quenched with their blood. For the Lord GOD of Hosts will hold a sacrifice in the land of the north by the River Euphrates. ¹¹ Go up to Gilead for balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt! In vain you try many remedies, but for you there is no healing. ¹² The nations have heard of your shame, and your outcry fills the earth, because warrior stumbles over warrior and both of them have fallen together.” ¹³ This is the word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to strike the land of Egypt: ¹⁴ “Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.’ ¹⁵ Why have your warriors been laid low? They cannot stand, for the LORD has thrust them down. ¹⁶ They continue to stumble; indeed, they have fallen over one another. They say, ‘Get up! Let us return to our people and to the land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor.’ ¹⁷ There they will cry out: ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt was all noise; he has let the appointed time pass him by.’ ¹⁸ As surely as I live, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts, there will come one who is like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea. ¹⁹ Pack your bags for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt! For Memphis will be laid waste, destroyed and uninhabited. ²⁰ Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her. ²¹ Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time of their punishment. ²² Egypt will hiss like a fleeing serpent, for the enemy will advance in force; with axes they will come against her like woodsmen cutting down trees. ²³ They will chop down her forest, declares the LORD, dense though it may be, for they are more numerous than locusts; they cannot be counted. ²⁴ The Daughter of Egypt will be put to shame; she will be delivered into the hands of the people of the north.” ²⁵ The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I am about to punish Amon god of Thebes, along with Pharaoh, Egypt with her gods and kings, and those who trust in Pharaoh. ²⁶ I will deliver them into the hands of those who seek their lives—of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and his officers. But after this, Egypt will be inhabited as in days of old, declares the LORD. ²⁷ But you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid. ²⁸ And you, My servant Jacob, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, for I am with you. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have banished you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

²⁷ Was not Israel your object of ridicule? Was he ever found among thieves? For whenever you speak of him you shake your head.

¹¹ “Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,

¹⁵ Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

³¹ “Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts, “for your day has come, the time when I will punish you.

²⁴ Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and all the dwellers of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion,” declares the LORD.

⁴⁹ “Babylon must fall on account of the slain of Israel, just as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.

⁸ Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

²¹ So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself. ²² O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

¹ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites and prophesy against them. ³ Tell the Ammonites to hear the word of the Lord GOD, for this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you exclaimed, “Aha!” when My sanctuary was profaned, when the land of Israel was laid waste, and when the house of Judah went into exile, ⁴ therefore I will indeed give you as a possession to the people of the East. They will set up their camps and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels, and Ammon a resting place for sheep. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁶ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt, ⁷ therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁸ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Moab and Seir said, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations,” ⁹ therefore I will indeed expose the flank of Moab beginning with its frontier cities—Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim—the glory of the land. ¹⁰ I will give it along with the Ammonites as a possession to the people of the East, so that the Ammonites will no longer be remembered among the nations. ¹¹ So I will execute judgments on Moab, and they will know that I am the LORD.’ ¹² This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt, ¹³ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword. ¹⁴ I will take My vengeance on Edom by the hand of My people Israel, and they will deal with Edom according to My anger and wrath. Then they will know My vengeance, declares the Lord GOD.’ ¹⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because the Philistines acted in vengeance, taking vengeance with malice of soul to destroy Judah with ancient hostility, ¹⁶ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the remnant along the coast. ¹⁷ I will execute great vengeance against them with furious reproof. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I lay My vengeance upon them.’”

² “Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken; it has swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will be filled,’

¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the Day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

¹ These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel. ² He said: “The LORD roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.” ³ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron. ⁴ So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael to consume the citadels of Ben-hadad. ⁵ I will break down the gates of Damascus; I will cut off the ruler of the Valley of Aven and the one who wields the scepter in Beth-eden. The people of Aram will be exiled to Kir,” says the LORD. ⁶ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they exiled a whole population, delivering them up to Edom. ⁷ So I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza, to consume its citadels. ⁸ I will cut off the ruler of Ashdod and the one who wields the scepter in Ashkelon. I will turn My hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord GOD. ⁹ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they delivered up a whole congregation of exiles to Edom and broke a covenant of brotherhood. ¹⁰ So I will send fire upon the walls of Tyre to consume its citadels.” ¹¹ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and stifled all compassion; his anger raged continually, and his fury flamed incessantly. ¹² So I will send fire upon Teman to consume the citadels of Bozrah.” ¹³ This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their territory. ¹⁴ So I will kindle a fire in the walls of Rabbah to consume its citadels amid war cries on the day of battle and a violent wind on the day of tempest. ¹⁵ Their king will go into exile—he and his princes together,” says the LORD.

¹² But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their distress. ¹³ You should not enter the gate of My people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over their affliction in the day of their disaster, nor loot their wealth in the day of their disaster.

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin until they are drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! ¹⁶ You will be filled with shame instead of glory. You too must drink and expose your uncircumcision! The cup in the LORD’s right hand will come around to you, and utter disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷ For your violence against Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of animals will terrify you, because of your bloodshed against men and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers.

⁶ Give back to her as she has done to others; pay her back double for what she has done; mix her a double portion in her own cup.

⁴ Hear us, O God, for we are despised. Turn their scorn back upon their own heads, and let them be taken as plunder to a land of captivity. ⁵ Do not cover up their iniquity or let their sin be blotted out from Your sight, for they have provoked the builders.

¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out. ¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the LORD, that He may cut off their memory from the earth.

⁷ Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt.

¹⁸ My sorrow is beyond healing; my heart is faint within me.

²⁵ Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

²³ But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.

³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

¹³ He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

³¹ For if men do these things while the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

¹³ So I ask you not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our blood and judge those who dwell upon the earth?”