Lamentations Cross References - NHEB

¹ How the city sits solitary, that was full of people. She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations. She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer. ² She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies. ³ Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and harsh servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her in the midst of her distress. ⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. ⁵ Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary. ⁶ All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion: her leaders have become like deer that find no pasture, they fled exhausted before the pursuer. ⁷ Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all her precious things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations. ⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she groans, and turns away. ⁹ Her filthiness was in her skirts; she did not remember her latter end; therefore her fall was astonishing; she has no comforter. "Look, LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself." ¹⁰ The adversary has spread out his hand on all her precious things: for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly. ¹¹ All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to refresh the soul. "Look, LORD, and see, for I am despised." ¹² Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. ¹³ From on high he has sent fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all the day. ¹⁴ My transgressions are bound into a yoke; by his hand they are fastened together, they are set upon my neck; he has made my strength to fail. The LORD has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand. ¹⁵ The LORD has rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The LORD has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. ¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed. ¹⁷ Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing. ¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please listen all you people, and see my suffering. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity. ¹⁹ I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city, while they searched for food to refresh their souls. ²⁰ See, LORD, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves, in the house it is like death. ²¹ They have heard that I groan; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. Bring the day that you have proclaimed, so that they shall end up like me. ²² Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

²¹ And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms, from the River, and to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

³³ Pharaoh Necoh put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of one hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.

³⁵ Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of everyone according to his taxation, to give it to Pharaoh Necoh.

²⁶ He ruled over all the kings from the River even to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.

²⁰ There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, who have ruled over all the country beyond the River; and tribute, custom, and toll, was paid to them.

⁴ There were also some who said, "We have borrowed money for the king's tribute using our fields and our vineyards as collateral.

³⁷ It yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins: also they have power over our bodies, and over our livestock, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

⁴ where the tribes go up, even the tribes of the LORD, according to an ordinance for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.

²⁶ Her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn. How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low.

² You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

¹ "Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans: for you shall no more be called tender and delicate. ² Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. ³ Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man," ⁴ says our Redeemer; the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. ⁵ "Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. ⁶ I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you showed them no mercy; on the aged you have very heavily laid your yoke. ⁷ You said, 'I shall be a mistress forever;' so that you did not lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the latter end of it. ⁸ "Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, 'I am, and there is no other besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:' ⁹ but these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come on you, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells. ¹⁰ For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, No one sees me; your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you, and you have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no other besides me.' ¹¹ Therefore disaster will come on you; you won't know when it dawns: and calamity will fall on you; you will not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come on you suddenly and unexpectedly. ¹² "Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail. ¹³ You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; those who conjure the heavens, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save you from the things that shall come on you. ¹⁴ Look, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before. ¹⁵ Thus shall the things be to you in which you have labored: those who have trafficked with you from your youth shall wander everyone to his quarter; there shall be none to save you.

⁵ The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward.

² Shake yourself from the dust. Arise, sit up, Jerusalem. Release yourself from the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion.

⁷ How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of good things, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

⁴ "Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame, nor will you be humiliated, for you will not be disgraced. For you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.

¹¹ "I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant."

⁹ Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore to them and to their men, saying, "Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.

²³ How is the hammer of the whole earth cut apart and broken. How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations.

¹ How the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger. He has cast down from heaven to the earth the splendor of Israel, and hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

¹ How the gold has become dim. How the most pure gold has changed. The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

¹⁶ The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned.

¹⁶ Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit on the ground, and shall tremble every moment, and be astonished at you.

¹⁵ This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is none besides me." How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in. Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

⁴ Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Old men and old women will again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for very age. ⁵ The streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in its streets."

⁷ However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.'

¹⁶ saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls. ¹⁷ For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.' Every shipmaster, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away,

¹⁵ My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;

³ so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

¹³ "He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. ¹⁴ My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

⁶ I am weary with my groaning. Every night I drench my bed; I melt my couch with my tears.

¹¹ Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, A fear to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.

² In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and did not get tired. My soul refused to be comforted. ³ I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah. ⁴ You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I can't speak. ⁵ I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. ⁶ I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires:

⁷ All the relatives of the poor shun him: how much more do his friends avoid him. He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone.

¹⁸ There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons who she has brought up. ¹⁹ These two things have happened to you. Who will grieve for you? Desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword. Who will console you?

¹ "They say, 'If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and become another man's, will he return to her again?' Wouldn't that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me," says the LORD.

³⁰ You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you dress yourselves with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain do you make yourself beautiful; your lovers despise you, they seek your life.

¹ Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

¹⁷ Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come:" ¹⁸ "and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. ¹⁹ For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, 'How are we ruined. We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.'"

¹⁷ But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is taken captive."

²⁰ Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed. ²¹ I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, 'I will not hear.' This has been your way from your youth, that you did not obey my voice. ²² The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you: for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased.

⁹ Her filthiness was in her skirts; she did not remember her latter end; therefore her fall was astonishing; she has no comforter. "Look, LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself."

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed. ¹⁷ Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

¹⁹ I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city, while they searched for food to refresh their souls.

²¹ They have heard that I groan; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. Bring the day that you have proclaimed, so that they shall end up like me.

¹¹ My eyes are worn out from weeping, my stomach is churning. My heart is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the LORD. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no respite; do not let your tears cease. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

³⁷ therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated; I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

²² "Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: 'Look, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side: ²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, all of them governors and officials, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴ They shall come against you from the north with chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples; they shall set themselves against you with buckler and shield and helmet all around; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. ²⁵ I will set my jealousy against you, and they shall deal with you in fury; they shall take away your nose and your ears; and your residue shall fall by the sword: they shall take your sons and your daughters; and your residue shall be devoured by the fire.

⁷ She will follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.'

⁵ Do not trust in a neighbor. Do not put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth.

¹³ These have one mind, and they give their power and authority to the beast.

¹⁶ The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire.

³⁶ "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹ Those of you who are left will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of their enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they rot away with them.

⁶⁴ The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵ Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; ⁶⁶ and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, "I wish it were evening." and at evening you shall say, "I wish it were morning." for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.

¹⁴ He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the officials, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, except the poorest sort of the people of the land. ¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the chief men of the land, carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

¹¹ Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude.

²¹ The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

²⁰ He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: ²¹ to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

¹⁹ The cities toward the Negev are shut, and there is no one to open them: Judah is carried away into exile, all of it; it is wholly carried away into exile.'"

¹⁶ Look, I will send for many fishermen," says the LORD, "and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

⁹ I will make them a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them.

⁹ Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the residue of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the residue of the people who remained.

⁸ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

¹⁵ Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude.

²⁷ The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land. ²⁸ This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand twenty-three Jews; ²⁹ in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; ³⁰ in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty-five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.

⁹ Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

¹⁸ They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets. Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come. ¹⁹ Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

¹² A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

¹ I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, "Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape. ² Though they dig into Sheol, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. ³ Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. ⁴ Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for disaster, and not for good.

⁴ The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish. ⁵ The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the law, violated the statute, and broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.

⁹ Rise up, you women who are at ease. Hear my voice. You careless daughters, give ear to my speech. ¹⁰ For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage shall fail. The harvest won't come. ¹¹ Tremble, you women who are at ease. Be troubled, you careless ones. Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked, and put sackcloth on your waist. ¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. ¹³ Thorns and briars will come up on my people's land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city. ¹⁴ For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;

²² The voice of news, look, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

² "Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

¹⁰ "Thus says the LORD: 'Yet again there shall be heard in this place, about which you say, "It is waste, without man and without animal," even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal, ¹¹ the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, "Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his loving kindness endures forever; who bring thanksgiving into the house of the LORD." For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first,' says the LORD. ¹² Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

¹¹ All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to refresh the soul. "Look, LORD, and see, for I am despised." ¹² Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please listen all you people, and see my suffering. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity. ¹⁹ I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city, while they searched for food to refresh their souls. ²⁰ See, LORD, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves, in the house it is like death.

⁶ He has done violence to his temple, as if it were a vineyard; he has destroyed his place of assembly. The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and he has spurned in his fierce anger king and priest and prince. ⁷ The LORD has rejected his altar, he has disowned his sanctuary, and has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have made a shout in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

⁹ Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD. ¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. ¹¹ My eyes are worn out from weeping, my stomach is churning. My heart is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street. ²⁰ Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done like this. Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the LORD? ²¹ The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, without pity.

¹³ The young men grind at the mill; the boys stagger under loads of wood.

⁸ Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. ⁹ The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the LORD's house. The priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn. ¹⁰ The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. ¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers. Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. ¹² The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. ¹³ Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests. Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God's house.

¹² Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

¹⁵ and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; ¹⁶ I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸ "'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze; ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. ²¹ "'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. ²² I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate. ²³ "'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; ²⁴ then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. ²⁵ I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. ²⁷ "'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me; ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. ³² I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. ³³ I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. ³⁴ Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it did not have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it. ³⁶ "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹ Those of you who are left will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of their enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they rot away with them. ⁴⁰ "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, ⁴¹ I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; ⁴² then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. ⁴³ The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God; ⁴⁵ but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth 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, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.

²⁵ When you shall father children, and children's children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make an engraved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke him to anger; ²⁶ I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over the Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days on it, but shall utterly be destroyed. ²⁷ The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the LORD will drive you.

¹⁵ But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you. ¹⁶ You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field. ¹⁷ Your basket and your kneading trough shall be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock shall be cursed. ¹⁹ You shall be cursed when you come in, and you shall be cursed when you go out. ²⁰ The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. ²¹ The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land, where you go in to possess it. ²² The LORD will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish. ²³ Your sky that is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth that is under you shall be iron. ²⁴ The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust: from the sky shall it come down on you, until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away. ²⁷ The LORD will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸ The LORD will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; ²⁹ and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you. ³⁰ You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell in it: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not use its fruit. ³¹ Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it: your donkey shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to save you. ³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand. ³³ The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you do not know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always; ³⁴ so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. ³⁵ The LORD will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. ³⁷ You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where the LORD shall lead you away. ³⁸ You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor harvest; for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. ⁴² All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess. ⁴³ The foreigner who is in the midst of you shall mount up above you higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses shall come on you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, until you are destroyed; because you did not listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you: ⁴⁶ and they shall be on you for a sign and for a wonder, and on your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from a distant land, as the eagle flies; a nation whose language you shall not understand; ⁵⁰ a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not respect the person of the old, nor show favor to the young, ⁵¹ and shall eat the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; that also shall not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining; ⁵⁵ so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, ⁵⁷ and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates. ⁵⁸ If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, The LORD your God; ⁵⁹ then the LORD will make your plagues extraordinary, and the plagues of your descendants, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long continuance. ⁶⁰ He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the sky for multitude; because you did not listen to the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ It shall happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it. ⁶⁴ The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵ Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; ⁶⁶ and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, "I wish it were evening." and at evening you shall say, "I wish it were morning." for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. ⁶⁸ The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall buy you.

¹⁸ lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood; ¹⁹ and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry." ²⁰ God will not be willing to forgive him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book shall rest on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ The LORD will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law. ²² The generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick; ²³ and that the whole land of it is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: ²⁴ even all the nations shall say, "Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?" ²⁵ Then men shall say, "Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶ and went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods that they did not know, and that he had not given to them: ²⁷ therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring on it all the curse that is written in this book; ²⁸ and the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day."

¹⁶ The LORD said to Moses, "Look, you shall sleep with your fathers; and this people will rise up, and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. ¹⁷ Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, 'Haven't these evils come on us because our God is not among us?' ¹⁸ I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evil which they shall have worked, in that they are turned to other gods.

²⁹ For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will happen to you in the latter days; because you will do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands."

¹⁵ But Jacob ate his fill. Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶ They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they did not know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers did not dread. ¹⁸ the Rock who fathered you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth. ¹⁹ The LORD saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. ²⁰ He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. ²¹ They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. ²² For a fire is kindled in my anger, and burns to the lowest Sheol, and devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire. ²³ "I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. ²⁴ They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling creatures of the dust. ²⁵ Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man. ²⁶ I said, I want to cut them to pieces. I will remove the memory of them from men; ²⁷ were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted, the LORD has not done all this.'"

¹⁴ Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the LORD which he had made holy in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: ¹⁶ but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

³³ However you are just in all that has come on us; for you have dealt truly, but we have done wickedly; ³⁴ neither have our kings, our leaders, our priests, nor our fathers, kept your law, nor listened to your commandments and your testimonies with which you testified against them.

⁶ You make us a source of contention to our neighbors. Our enemies have mocked us.

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

⁷ For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath. ⁸ You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

¹⁸ Your holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

³ O LORD, do your eyes not look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return. ⁴ Then I said, "Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they do not know the way of the LORD, nor the law of their God. ⁵ I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of the LORD, and the law of their God." But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. ⁶ Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased. ⁷ "How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes' houses. ⁸ They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife. ⁹ Shouldn't I punish them for these things?" says the LORD; "and shouldn't my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

²⁹ "Shall I not punish for these things?" says the LORD. "Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

⁷ I have forsaken my house, I have cast off my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you: for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased. ¹⁵ Why do you cry for your hurt? Your pain is incurable: for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.

²¹ "The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your leaders, and the people of the land. Did not the LORD remember them, and did not it come into his mind, ²² so that the LORD could no longer bear because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed? Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please listen all you people, and see my suffering. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

¹⁷ The LORD has done that which he purposed, he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to gloat over you and exalted the horn of your adversaries.

³⁹ Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? ⁴⁰ Let us examine and search our ways, and return to the LORD. ⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens. ⁴² We have transgressed and have rebelled, and you have not forgiven. ⁴³ You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without sparing.

⁴⁶ All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

¹⁷ Then he said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger: and look, they put the branch to their nose. ¹⁸ therefore I will also deal in wrath; my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them."

⁹ Then he said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perversion: for they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD doesn't see.'

²⁴ "Son of man, tell her, 'You are a land that is not cleansed, nor rained on in the day of indignation.' ²⁵ There is a conspiracy of her princes in its midst, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in its midst. ²⁶ Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. ²⁷ Her officials in its midst are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. ²⁸ Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, 'Thus says the Lord GOD,' when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully. ³⁰ "And I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none. ³¹ Therefore have I poured out my indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I brought on their heads, says the Lord GOD."

⁷ Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds that they have committed against you. ⁸ LORD, to us belongs open shame, to our kings, to our leaders, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for 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 by his servants the prophets. ¹¹ Yes, all Israel has transgressed your law, and turned away, refusing to obey your voice. Therefore has the curse been poured out on us, and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. ¹² He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing on us a great calamity; for under the whole heaven such has not been done as has been done on Jerusalem. ¹³ As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us. Yet have we not tried to gain the favor of the LORD our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in your truth. ¹⁴ Therefore has the LORD watched over the calamity, and brought it on us, for the LORD our God is just in all he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. ¹⁵ "And now, Lord our God, who has brought your people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, even to this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. ¹⁶ Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.

⁹ Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity. ¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. ¹¹ Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on the LORD, and say, "Isn't the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster will come on us." ¹² Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

⁸ Do not rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. ⁹ I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light. I will see his righteousness. ¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the LORD your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

¹ Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city. ² She did not obey the voice. She did not receive correction. She did not trust in the LORD. She did not draw near to her God. ³ Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day. ⁴ Her prophets are arrogant and treacherous people. Her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law. ⁵ The LORD, in the midst of her, is righteous. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn't fail, but the unjust know no shame. ⁶ I have cut off nations. Their battlements are desolate. I have made their streets waste, so that no one passes by. Their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, so that there is no inhabitant. ⁷ I said, "Just fear me. Receive correction, so that her dwelling won't be cut off, according to all that I have appointed concerning her." But they rose early and corrupted all their doings. ⁸ "Therefore wait for me," says the LORD, "until the day that I rise up as a witness. For my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour on them my indignation, even all my fierce anger. For all the earth will be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

³⁶ "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies.

²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

³⁰ How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had delivered them up?

¹² Therefore the children of Israel can't stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will not be with you any more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. ¹³ Get up. Sanctify the people, and say, 'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, for the LORD, the God of Israel, says, "There is a devoted thing in the midst of you, Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted thing from among you."

¹¹ How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?" ¹² David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbaal, and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.

²¹ This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: "The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

⁹ But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonor, and do not go out with our armies. ¹⁰ You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take spoil for themselves. ¹¹ You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations.

² Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. ³ God has shown himself in her citadels as a refuge.

² Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

⁹ Worship the LORD in holy array. Tremble before him, all the earth.

¹² If your children will keep my covenant, my testimony that I will teach them, their children also will sit on your throne forevermore." ¹³ For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling.

²¹ How the faithful city has become a prostitute. She was full of justice; righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

⁵ The LORD will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.

⁶ Cry aloud and shout, you inhabitant of Zion; for the Holy One of Israel is great in the midst of you."

¹⁸ "Say to the king and to the queen mother, 'Take a lowly seat, for your glorious crowns have come down from your heads.

⁵ Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. ⁶ The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage."

⁴ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon:

³ At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers do not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

⁴¹ Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized, and the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken. ³¹ One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter: ³² and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened.

⁷ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around;) and they went toward the Arabah. ⁸ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

¹¹ He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

¹³ and he burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire.

¹ How the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger. He has cast down from heaven to the earth the splendor of Israel, and hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. ² The LORD has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground; he has humiliated the kingdom and its rulers. ³ He has cut off in fierce anger all the strength of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the enemy. He has blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand he has positioned like an adversary. He killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire. ⁵ The LORD has become as an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces and has destroyed its strongholds. He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

²⁰ As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things. Therefore I will render it an unclean thing to them. ²¹ I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall profane it. ²² My face will I turn also from them, and they shall profane my secret place; and robbers shall enter into it, and profane it.

²² Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels were beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. ²³ The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city.

²¹ 'Speak to the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord GOD: Look, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind shall fall by the sword.

²⁵ "You, son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters,

¹⁴ Sing, daughter of Zion. Shout, Israel. Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. ¹⁵ The LORD has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in the midst of you. You will not be afraid of evil any more. ¹⁶ In that day, it will be said to Jerusalem, "Do not be afraid, Zion. Do not let your hands be weak." ¹⁷ The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

⁷ For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as the LORD our God is whenever we call on him? ⁸ What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

³⁴ Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ It was shown to you so that you might know that the LORD is God. There is no one else besides him. ³⁶ Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. ³⁷ Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;

⁷ For the LORD your God brings you into a good and spacious land, a land of brooks of water, of springs, and underground water flowing into valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; ⁹ a land in which you shall eat bread without scarcity, and in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.

² "Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;

⁴ These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go in the tent of the Majestic One, to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.

³ I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.

⁵ I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. ⁶ I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires: ⁷ "Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more? ⁸ Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Does his promise fail for generations? ⁹ Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?" Selah.

⁴ We have become objects of contempt to our neighbors, mocked and ridiculed by those who are around us.

³ For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion." ⁴ How can we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?

¹⁹ He shows his word to Jacob; his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. ²⁰ He has not done this for just any nation. They do not know his ordinances. Praise the LORD.

¹ Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. ² He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. ³ "Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴ What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

⁷ "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: "Look, Pharaoh's army, which has come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that men called 'The perfection of beauty,' 'The joy of the whole earth'?" ¹⁶ All your enemies have opened wide their mouth against you. They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, "We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it."

¹⁷ Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

¹¹ Now many nations have assembled against you, that say, "Let her be defiled, and let our eye gloat over Zion."

¹⁷ But when he came to himself he said, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying here with hunger.

²⁵ "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.

³⁰ "Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says, 'I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.' But now the LORD says, 'Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

⁴⁶ If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn't sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; ⁴⁷ yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and repent and make petition to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;'

⁷ then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

⁹ And they shall answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.'"

³ Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man,"

² but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. ³ For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. ⁴ None sues in righteousness, and none pleads in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. ⁵ They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. ⁶ Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. ⁷ Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; destruction and calamity are in their paths. ⁸ The way of peace they do not know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes in it does not know peace. ⁹ Therefore is justice far from us, neither does righteousness overtake us: we look for light, but, look, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. ¹⁰ We grope for the wall like the blind; yes, we grope as those who have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; among those who are lusty we are as dead men. ¹¹ We roar all like bears, and moan bitterly like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. ¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: ¹³ transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

³¹ For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, "Woe is me now. For my soul faints before the murderers."

²⁸ "They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron: they all of them deal corruptly.

²² If you say in your heart, 'Why are these things come on me?' for the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and your heels suffer violence.

²⁶ therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame shall appear.

⁴ I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

¹⁷ Therefore thus says the LORD: "You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: look, I proclaim to you a liberty, says the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. ⁵ Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

¹¹ All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their precious things for food to refresh the soul. "Look, LORD, and see, for I am despised."

²⁰ See, LORD, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled. Outside the sword bereaves, in the house it is like death. ²¹ They have heard that I groan; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. Bring the day that you have proclaimed, so that they shall end up like me. ²² Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

¹⁵ "Go away." they cried to them, "Unclean. Away, away. Do not touch." When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, "They shall not live here anymore." ¹⁶ The LORD himself has scattered them; he will no more regard them. They did not respect the priests, they did not favor the elders.

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass through to you also; you will get drunk, and shall make yourself naked.

¹² Princes were hung by their hands; elders were shown no respect. ¹³ The young men grind at the mill; the boys stagger under loads of wood. ¹⁴ The elders have gone from the gate, the young men from their music. ¹⁵ The joy of our heart has ceased; our dancing is turned into mourning. ¹⁶ The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned.

¹³ "Son of man, when a land sins against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread, and send famine on it, and cut off from it man and animal; ¹⁴ though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord GOD." ¹⁵ "If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the animals; ¹⁶ though these three men were in it, as I live," says the Lord GOD, "they should deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only should be delivered, but the land should be desolate. ¹⁷ "Or if I bring a sword on that land, and say, 'Sword, go through the land'; so that I cut off from it man and animal; ¹⁸ though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they should deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only should be delivered themselves. ¹⁹ "Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal; ²⁰ though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they could not save either son nor daughter; they would save only their own souls by their righteousness. ²¹ "For thus says the Lord GOD: 'How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal.

³⁷ therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated; I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. ³⁸ I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. ³⁹ I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places; and they shall strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels; and they shall leave you naked and bare.

² "You, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Then cause her to know all her abominations. ³ You shall say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Woe to the city that sheds blood in the midst of her, so that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to defile her. ⁴ You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made; and you have caused your days to draw near, and have come even to your years: therefore have I made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. ⁵ Those who are near, and those who are far from you, shall mock you, you infamous one and full of tumult. ⁶ "'"Look, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. ⁷ In you have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the foreigner; in you have they wronged the fatherless and the widow. ⁸ You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths. ⁹ Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood; and in you they have eaten on the mountains: in the midst of you they have committed lewdness. ¹⁰ In you have they uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in you have they humbled her who was unclean in her impurity. ¹¹ One has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter. ¹² In you have they taken bribes to shed blood; you have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,' says the Lord GOD. ¹³ "'"Look, therefore, I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been in the midst of you. ¹⁴ Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken it, and will do it. ¹⁵ I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries; and I will consume your filthiness out of you.

²⁹ and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.

⁴⁶ "For thus says the Lord GOD: 'I will bring up a company against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.

³ Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

¹⁰ Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.

¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to put on your eyes, that you may see.

⁷ The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

¹⁷ and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hethite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."'

³¹ The people believed, and when they heard that God had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

⁷ and we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression;

²⁷ were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted, the LORD has not done all this.'"

²⁹ Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.

¹¹ She vowed a vow, and said, "LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your handmaid, and remember me, and not forget your handmaid, but will give to your handmaid a son, then I will set him before you as a Nazirite until the day of his death. And he will not drink wine or strong drink, and no razor will come on his head."

¹² It may be that the LORD will look on my affliction and return good to me for his cursing today."

²⁶ For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter; for there was none shut up nor left at large, neither was there any helper for Israel.

³² Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, do not let all the travail seem little before you, that has come on us, on our kings, on our leaders, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.

¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my travail. Forgive all my sins.

⁸ They said in their heart, "We will crush them completely." They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped. ⁹ We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there among us anyone who knows how long.

²² Arise, God. Plead your own cause. Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day. ²³ Do not forget the voice of your adversaries. The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.

¹⁵³ RESH. Consider my affliction, and deliver me, for I do not forget your Law.

⁸ LORD, do not grant the desires of the wicked. Do not let their evil plans succeed, or they will become proud. Selah.

¹ Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and look, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

⁸ For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

⁴ It may be the LORD your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.'"

¹⁷ Turn your ear, LORD, and hear. Open your eyes, LORD, and look. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.

²³ Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁹ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

² "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins."

⁷ You said, 'I shall be a mistress forever;' so that you did not lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the latter end of it.

¹¹ "You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, look, I will set your stones in beautiful colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires.

³⁴ Also the blood of the souls of the innocent poor is found in your skirts. You did not find them breaking in; but it is because of all these things.

³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

¹⁷ But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is taken captive." ¹⁸ "Say to the king and to the queen mother, 'Take a lowly seat, for your glorious crowns have come down from your heads.

²⁷ I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem. You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?'"

⁷ neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

²⁶ 'Make him drunk; for he magnified himself against the LORD: and Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision.

²⁹ "Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; camp against her all around; let none of it escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.

¹ How the city sits solitary, that was full of people. She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations. She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer. ² She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.

¹⁷ Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

¹³ What shall I testify of you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is great like the sea. Who can heal you?

¹² She has wearied herself with toil; yet her great rust doesn't go forth out of her; her rust doesn't go forth by fire. ¹³ In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed you and you weren't cleansed, you shall not be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.

¹⁷ Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. ¹⁸ My God, turn your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and see our desolation, and the city which is called by your name. For we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercy. ¹⁹ Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and take action. Do not delay, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name."

¹⁴ "Therefore, look, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

¹⁰ This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the LORD of hosts.

¹⁹ Many of the Jewish people had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.

⁴ he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. ⁵ Do you not remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? ⁶ Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. ⁸ Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;

¹⁷ For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins first with us, what will happen to those who do not obey the Good News of God?

³ An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them enter into the assembly of the LORD forever:

¹ On that day they read in the scroll of Moses in the audience of the people; and in it was found written, that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever,

⁴ Your adversaries have roared in the midst of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs. ⁵ They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. ⁶ Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers. ⁷ They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. ⁸ They said in their heart, "We will crush them completely." They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.

¹ [A Psalm by Asaph.] God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. ² They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your faithful to the animals of the earth. ³ Their blood they have shed like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them. ⁴ We have become objects of contempt to our neighbors, mocked and ridiculed by those who are around us. ⁵ How long, LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? ⁶ Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you; on the kingdoms that do not call on your name; ⁷ For they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

¹³ Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst. ¹⁴ Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become like a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid waste.

¹³ Your substance and your treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders.

⁵ Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all the precious things of it, yes, all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies; and they shall make them a prey, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.

⁵¹ "We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the LORD's house."

¹⁷ The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of the LORD in pieces, and carried all their bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸ They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered. ¹⁹ The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver. ²⁰ They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the sea, and the stands which king Solomon had made for the house of the LORD. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight.

⁷ Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all her precious things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations.

²² My face will I turn also from them, and they shall profane my secret place; and robbers shall enter into it, and profane it.

⁷ He said to them, "Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth." They went forth, and struck in the city.

⁷ in that you have brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to profane it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and you have broken my covenant, to add to all your abominations.

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

⁵² They shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining; ⁵⁵ so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, ⁵⁷ and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates.

¹¹ They found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he ate; and they gave him water to drink. ¹² They gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins. When he had eaten, his spirit came again to him; for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.

²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria. Look, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.

⁴ "Look, I am of small account. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

¹⁵ My eyes are ever on the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. ¹⁶ Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted. ¹⁷ Relieve me from the distresses of my heart, and bring me out of my distresses. ¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my travail. Forgive all my sins. ¹⁹ Consider my enemies, for they are many. They hate me with cruel hatred.

⁹ I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them."'

⁹ "My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city."

⁶ In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

¹² They tell their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" When they faint as the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in their mothers' bosom.

²⁰ Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done like this. Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the LORD?

⁴ The nursing infant's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, but no one gives to them. ⁵ Those who ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps. ⁶ For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, and no hands were laid on her. ⁷ Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance was like lapis lazuli. ⁸ They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹⁵ Then he said to me, "Look, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon." ¹⁶ Moreover he said to me, "Son of man, look, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay: ¹⁷ that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

¹⁶ when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread; ¹⁷ and I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you: I, the LORD, have spoken it.'"

¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁶ to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head.

²⁴ The fierce anger of the LORD will not return, until he has executed, and until he has performed the intentions of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it.

⁶ For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, and no hands were laid on her. ⁷ Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance was like lapis lazuli. ⁸ They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. ¹¹ The LORD has accomplished his wrath, he has poured out his fierce anger; he has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

¹² He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing on us a great calamity; for under the whole heaven such has not been done as has been done on Jerusalem.

²¹ for then there will be great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.

²² For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. ²³ Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days. For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.

²⁸ But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For look, the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.' ³¹ For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?"

⁶⁵ Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul;

²¹ They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. ²² For a fire is kindled in my anger, and burns to the lowest Sheol, and devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire. ²³ "I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. ²⁴ They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling creatures of the dust. ²⁵ Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

⁸ For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.

⁶ know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

³⁰ My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me.

¹⁰ For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones waste away.

⁴ Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded.

¹¹ You brought us into prison. You laid a burden on our backs.

² Let them be put to shame and confounded who seek my soul. Let those who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. ³ Let them be turned back because of their shame who say to me, "Aha. Aha."

³ For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned like a hearth. ⁴ My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread. ⁵ By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.

⁵ Let them be disappointed and turned backward, all those who hate Zion.

¹⁷ "Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, 'You are our gods' will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish. I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can't hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰ Destruction on destruction is proclaimed; for the whole land is laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment. ²¹ How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? ²² "For my people are foolish, they do not know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." ²³ I saw the earth, and, look, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. ²⁴ I saw the mountains, and look, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. ²⁵ I saw, and look, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled. ²⁶ I saw, and look, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD; before his fierce anger they were destroyed. ²⁷ For thus says the LORD, "The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. ²⁸ For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not relented, neither will I turn back from it." ²⁹ Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into caves, and they hide themselves in the thickets, and climb up on the rocks; every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells in it.

⁶ Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day.'

²² Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them, as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.

³ He has cut off in fierce anger all the strength of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the enemy. He has blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand he has positioned like an adversary. He killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.

¹⁷ Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save. ¹⁸ They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets. Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come. ¹⁹ Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness. ²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, "Under his shadow we can live among the nations."

¹⁷ For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes grow dim.

¹³ My net also will I spread on him, and he shall be taken in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.

²⁰ I will spread my net on him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgment with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me.

³ "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples; and they shall bring you up in my net.

¹² When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard.

⁶ Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.

¹⁶ I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

⁸ giving vengeance to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

²⁹ for our God is a consuming fire.

⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he has destroyed you.

²² The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.

²⁵ that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders.

⁶ I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you showed them no mercy; on the aged you have very heavily laid your yoke.

⁹ look, I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the LORD, 'and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

⁸ It shall happen, that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, says the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

¹² I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, "Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live.

¹⁴ For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the animals of the field also."'"

⁵ and he shall bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he shall be there until I visit him," says the LORD: "though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper?"'"

²⁰ I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth. ²¹ And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, who have gone away from you.

¹⁷ Then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, "Is there any word from the LORD?" Jeremiah said, "There is." He said also, "You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon."

¹ It happened when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it; ² in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city). ³ Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the Middle Gate, Nergal-sar-ezer of Samgar, Nebu-sar-sekim the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, with all the rest of the officers of the king of Babylon. ⁴ It happened that, when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment on him. ⁶ Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon killed all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. ⁸ The Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. ⁹ Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the residue of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the residue of the people who remained.

⁹ 'I will bring you forth out of its midst, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.

³¹ I will pour out my indignation on you; I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skillful to destroy.

²⁸ "'For thus says the Lord GOD: Look, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated;

⁴ therefore, look, I will deliver you to the people of the east for a possession, and they shall set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you; they shall eat your fruit, and they shall drink your milk.

⁷ therefore, look, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a spoil to the nations; and I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries: I will destroy you; and you shall know that I am the LORD."'"

¹⁴ For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver.

³³ The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you do not know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always;

⁸ And they shattered and oppressed the children of Israel that year. Eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

³³ He said, "Throw her down." So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses. Then he trampled her under foot.

¹⁴ He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the officials, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, except the poorest sort of the people of the land. ¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the chief men of the land, carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

⁴ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and they went by the way of the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶ Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment on him. ⁷ They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

¹¹⁸ You reject all those who stray from your statutes, for their deceit is in vain.

⁵ Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down.

¹⁸ Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it.

² Who has raised up one from the east? Whom he called to his foot in righteousness? He hands over nations to him, and makes him rule over kings. He gives them like the dust to his sword, like the driven stubble to his bow.

³ "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me: yes, I trod them in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing.

¹⁷ "You shall say this word to them, 'Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men struck of the sword in battle.

¹⁰ For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yes would they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire."'"

²⁶ Come against her from the utmost border; open her storehouses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; let nothing of her be left.

³⁴ 'Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me out.

³⁴ To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth;

¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king.

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the LORD your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

³ You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make," says the LORD of hosts.

²⁴ And they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled down by non-Jewish people until the times are fulfilled. And there will be times of the non-Jewish people.

²⁹ How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

¹⁹ The angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. ²⁰ The winepress was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out from the winepress, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as one hundred eighty four miles.

¹⁵ Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of the God of hosts.

²⁰ Insults have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.

¹³⁶ Streams of tears run down my eyes, because they do not observe your Law.

¹⁰ "For the mountains I will take up weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled, they are gone."

²¹ 'For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.'

² She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.

⁵ Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary. ⁶ All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion: her leaders have become like deer that find no pasture, they fled exhausted before the pursuer.

¹⁸ Their heart cried to the LORD. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no respite; do not let your tears cease.

²⁰ Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done like this. Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the LORD? ²¹ The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, without pity. ²² You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was none that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD's anger. Those that I have borne and brought up has my enemy destroyed.

⁴⁸ Streams of tears run down from my eyes because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹ My tears flow and do not cease, without respite,

² The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How they are regarded as clay jars, the work of the hands of the potter. ³ Even the jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young ones, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

¹² Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them.

⁴¹ When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, "If you, even you, had known today the things that make for peace. But now, they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come on you, when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

¹ I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit, ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers' sake, my physical relatives according to the flesh,

¹⁹ "'If a woman has a discharge, and her discharge in her flesh is blood, she shall be in her impurity seven days: and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. ²⁰ "'Everything that she lies on in her impurity shall be unclean. Everything also that she sits on shall be unclean. ²¹ Whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. ²² Whoever touches anything that she sits on shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. ²³ If it is on the bed, or on anything whereon she sits, when he touches it, he shall be unclean until the evening. ²⁴ "'If any man lies with her, and her monthly flow is on him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lies shall be unclean. ²⁵ "'If a woman has a discharge of her blood many days not in the time of her period, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her period; all the days of the discharge of her uncleanness shall be as in the days of her period: she is unclean. ²⁶ Every bed whereon she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her period: and everything whereon she sits shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her period. ²⁷ Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.

²² Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven. Now Solomon had made a bronze scaffold, eight feet and seven inches long, and eight feet and seven inches broad, and five feet and two inches high, and had set it in the midst of the court; and on it he stood, and kneeled down on his knees before all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven.

³⁸ whatever prayer and petition is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

² The LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Arameans, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely at the commandment of the LORD this came on Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, ⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood: and the LORD would not pardon.

¹ It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and camped against it; and they built forts against it around it.

¹⁵ When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

³ Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed everyone in his place."

⁶ Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;

⁴ 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, "Look, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them into the midst of this city. ⁵ I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation.

²² Look, I will command, says the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant."'"

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.

¹ How the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger. He has cast down from heaven to the earth the splendor of Israel, and hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. ² The LORD has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground; he has humiliated the kingdom and its rulers. ³ He has cut off in fierce anger all the strength of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the enemy. He has blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand he has positioned like an adversary. He killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire. ⁵ The LORD has become as an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces and has destroyed its strongholds. He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. ⁶ He has done violence to his temple, as if it were a vineyard; he has destroyed his place of assembly. The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and he has spurned in his fierce anger king and priest and prince. ⁷ The LORD has rejected his altar, he has disowned his sanctuary, and has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have made a shout in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly. ⁸ The LORD has determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

¹⁷ The LORD has done that which he purposed, he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to gloat over you and exalted the horn of your adversaries. ¹⁸ Their heart cried to the LORD. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no respite; do not let your tears cease. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

¹⁵ "Go away." they cried to them, "Unclean. Away, away. Do not touch." When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, "They shall not live here anymore."

²³ "Make the chain; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. ²⁴ Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pride of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be profaned.

¹⁷ "Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their way and by their doings: their way before me was as the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity.

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

²⁷ Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "I have sinned this time. The LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand. ³³ The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you do not know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always; ³⁴ so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. ³⁵ The LORD will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. ³⁷ You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where the LORD shall lead you away. ³⁸ You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor harvest; for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A faithful God and without iniquity, just and right is he.

⁷ Adoni-Bezek said, "Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, scavenged under my table: as I have done, so God has requited me." They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

¹⁴ If you will fear the LORD, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and both you and also the king who reigns over you are followers of the LORD your God, then he will rescue you. ¹⁵ But if you will not listen to the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you, and against your king to destroy you.

²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."

⁸ And this house, which is exalted, will become a heap of ruins. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and will whistle, and they will say, 'Why has the LORD done this to this land, and to this house?' ⁹ And they shall answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.'"

²¹ and he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because you have been disobedient to the mouth of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,

¹³ "After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant,

⁶ Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may listen to the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Yes, I and my father's house have sinned. ⁷ We have dealt very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which you commanded your servant Moses. ⁸ "Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples;

²⁶ "Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their back, and killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.

³³ However you are just in all that has come on us; for you have dealt truly, but we have done wickedly;

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

⁷⁵ LORD, I know that your judgments are righteous, that in faithfulness you have humbled me.

¹⁷ The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and faithful in all his deeds.

¹ You are righteous, LORD, when I contend with you; yet I would reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

⁸ Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this great city?' ⁹ Then they shall answer, 'Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.'

²⁸ It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall tell them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "You shall surely drink. ²⁹ For, look, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth,"' says the LORD of hosts.

¹² For thus says the LORD: 'Look, they to whom it did not pertain to drink of the cup shall certainly drink; and are you he who shall altogether go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink.

¹² Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

⁴² We have transgressed and have rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

²² Yet, look, there shall be left a remnant that shall be carried forth, both sons and daughters: look, they shall come forth to you, and you shall see their way and their doings; and you shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought on it. ²³ They shall comfort you, when you see their way and their doings; and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it,' says the Lord GOD."

⁷ Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds that they have committed against you.

⁵ The LORD, in the midst of her, is righteous. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn't fail, but the unjust know no shame.

⁵ But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.

³ They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God of hosts. Righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations. ⁴ Who would not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed."

⁵ I heard the angel of the waters saying, "You are righteous, who is and who was, the Holy One, because you have judged these things. ⁶ For they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this." ⁷ I heard the altar saying, "Yes, Lord God of hosts, true and righteous are your judgments."

¹³ "He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. ¹⁴ My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵ Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. ¹⁶ I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. ¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. ¹⁸ Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. ¹⁹ All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁸ "But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble. For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem they were sacrificing to Baal.

¹⁵ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I did not send them, yet they say, 'Sword and famine shall not be in this land:' 'By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.' ¹⁶ The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them—them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them." ¹⁷ "You shall say this word to them, 'Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. ¹⁸ If I go forth into the field, then, look, the slain with the sword. And if I enter into the city, then, look, those who are sick with famine. For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.'"

¹¹ for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness," says the LORD. ¹² "Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall in it; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation," says the LORD. ¹³ "I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah. ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: 'Look, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is ungodliness gone forth into all the land.'

¹³ Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴ Do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, 'You shall not serve the king of Babylon'; for they prophesy a lie to you. ¹⁵ 'For I have not sent them,' says the LORD, 'but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.'"

⁷ "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: "Look, Pharaoh's army, which has come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. ⁸ The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and burn it with fire." ⁹ Thus says the LORD, "Do not deceive yourselves, saying, 'The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us'; for they shall not depart.

⁷ Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance was like lapis lazuli. ⁸ They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

¹² Princes were hung by their hands; elders were shown no respect.

⁴⁰ "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, ⁴¹ I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; ⁴² then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.

²⁵ Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

⁴⁷ yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and repent and make petition to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;' ⁴⁸ if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name: ⁴⁹ then hear their prayer and their petition in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause; ⁵⁰ and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them

²⁷ My heart is troubled, and doesn't rest. Days of affliction have come on me.

²⁷ He sings before men, and says, 'I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it did not profit me.

³ For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me. ⁴ Against you, and you only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

¹³ He who conceals his sins doesn't prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

¹¹ Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

¹⁴ I chip like a swallow or a thrush. I moan like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward.LORD, I am oppressed. Be my security.”

³⁵ "Yet you said, 'I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned away from me.' "Look, I will judge you, because you say, 'I have not sinned.'

¹³ Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,'" says the LORD.

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish. I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can't hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

²¹ 'For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.' ²² Speak, 'Thus says the LORD, "The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather them."'"

¹⁸ If I go forth into the field, then, look, the slain with the sword. And if I enter into the city, then, look, those who are sick with famine. For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.'"

²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him," says the LORD.

³⁶ Therefore my heart sounds for Moab like pipes, and my heart sounds like pipes for the men of Kir Heres: therefore the abundance that he has gotten is perished.

¹⁵ The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within: he who is in the field shall die with the sword: and he who is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

⁸ "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.

¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants."'

¹³ But the tax collector, standing far away, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner.' ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

⁴¹ if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me. ⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy.'" ⁴³ Rejoice, O heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him. Rejoice, O nations, with his people, and let all the children of God strengthen themselves in him. For he will avenge the blood of his children, and he will render vengeance to his enemies, and he will recompense them that hate him, and he atones for the land of his people.

¹⁵ But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I did not know it. They tore at me, and did not cease.

¹³ The Lord will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming.

¹⁶ For I said, "Do not let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips."

⁷ Remember, LORD, against the descendants of Edom, the day of Jerusalem; who said, "Raze it. Raze it even to its foundation." ⁸ Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be blessed who rewards you, as you have served us. ⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

¹ The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw: ² Set up a banner on the bare mountain. Lift up your voice to them. Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. ³ I have commanded my consecrated ones; I have also called my mighty men to carry out my anger, my proudly exulting ones. ⁴ The noise of a multitude is in the mountains, as of a great people; the noise of an uproar of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together. The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for the battle. ⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. ⁶ Wail; for the day of the LORD is at hand. It will come as destruction from Shaddai. ⁷ Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone's heart will melt. ⁸ They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame. ⁹ Look, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it. ¹⁰ For the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. ¹¹ I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the haughtiness of the terrible. ¹² I will make people more rare than fine gold, even a person than the pure gold of Ophir. ¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. ¹⁴ It will happen that like a hunted gazelle, and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land.

²² Thus says your Lord, the LORD, and your God who pleads the cause of his people, "Look, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath; you shall no more drink it again: ²³ and I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, 'Bow down, that we may walk over you;' and you have laid your back as the ground, and as the street, to those who walk over."

¹⁷ Then took I the cup at the LORD's hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom the LORD had sent me: ¹⁸ Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and its kings, and its officials, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; ¹⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his officials, and all his people; ²⁰ and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of the Uz, and all the kings of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹ Edom, and Moab, and the people of Ammon; ²² and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³ Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; ²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia, [and all the kings of the mixed people] who dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵ and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; ²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. ²⁷ "You shall tell them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you."'

¹⁶ Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, everyone of them, shall go into captivity; and those who plunder you shall be plundered, and all who prey on you I will make a prey.

¹ The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. ² Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Perath in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah. ³ "Prepare the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle. ⁴ Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail. ⁵ Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled in haste, and do not look back: terror is on every side," says the LORD. ⁶ "Do not let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Perath have they stumbled and fallen. ⁷ Who is this who rises up like the Nile, whose waters toss themselves like the rivers? ⁸ Egypt rises up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers: and he says, 'I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I will destroy cities and its inhabitants.' ⁹ Go up, you horses; and rage, you chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow. ¹⁰ For that day is of the Lord, the LORD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Perath. ¹¹ Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain do you use many medicines; there is no healing for you. ¹² The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them together." ¹³ The word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt. ¹⁴ "Declare in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes: say, 'Stand forth, and prepare; for the sword has devoured around you.' ¹⁵ Why are your strong ones swept away? They did not stand, because the LORD pushed them. ¹⁶ He made many to stumble, yes, they fell one on another: and they said, 'Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.' ¹⁷ They cried there, 'Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he has let the appointed time pass by.'" ¹⁸ "As I live," says the King, "whose name is the LORD of hosts, surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so shall he come. ¹⁹ You daughter who dwells in Egypt, furnish yourself to go into captivity; for Memphis shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up, without inhabitant. ²⁰ Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but a horsefly from the north is coming against her. ²¹ Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation. ²² The sound of it shall go like the serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters. ²³ They shall cut down her forest, says the LORD, though it can't be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. ²⁴ The daughter of Egypt shall be disappointed; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north." ²⁵ "The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: 'Look, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her kings; even Pharaoh, and those who trust in him: ²⁶ and I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants; and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old,' says the LORD. ²⁷ 'But do not be afraid, Jacob my servant, neither be dismayed, Israel: for, look, I will save you from afar, and your descendants from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. ²⁸ Do not be afraid, O Jacob my servant,' says the LORD; 'for I am with you: for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.'"

²⁷ For wasn't Israel a derision to you? Was he found among thieves? For as often as you speak of him, you shake your head.

¹¹ Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;

¹⁵ Shout against her all around: she has submitted herself; her towers are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of the LORD: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her.

³¹ "Look, I am against you, you proud one," says the Lord, the LORD of hosts; for your day has come, the time that I will visit you.

²⁴ I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight," says the LORD.

⁴⁹ As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she groans, and turns away.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that men called 'The perfection of beauty,' 'The joy of the whole earth'?"

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass through to you also; you will get drunk, and shall make yourself naked. ²² The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins.

¹ The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² "Son of man, set your face toward the people of Ammon, and prophesy against them: ³ and tell the people of Ammon, 'Hear the word of the Lord GOD: Thus says the Lord GOD, "Because you said, 'Aha,' against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity: ⁴ therefore, look, I will deliver you to the people of the east for a possession, and they shall set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you; they shall eat your fruit, and they shall drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the people of Ammon a resting place for flocks: and you shall know that I am the LORD." ⁶ For thus says the Lord GOD: "Because you have clapped your hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the despite of your soul against the land of Israel; ⁷ therefore, look, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a spoil to the nations; and I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries: I will destroy you; and you shall know that I am the LORD."'" ⁸ "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Because Moab and Seir say, "Look, the house of Judah is like all the nations"; ⁹ therefore, look, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth Jeshimoth, Baal Meon, and Kiriathaim, ¹⁰ to the people of the east, to go against the people of Ammon; and I will give them for a possession, that the people of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations. ¹¹ and I will execute judgments on Moab; and they shall know that I am the LORD.'" ¹² "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and revenged himself on them'; ¹³ therefore thus says the Lord GOD, 'I will stretch out my hand on Edom, and will cut off man and animal from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; even to Dedan shall they fall by the sword. ¹⁴ I will lay my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel; and they shall do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath; and they shall know my vengeance, says the Lord GOD.'" ¹⁵ "Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy with perpetual enmity; ¹⁶ therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Look, I will stretch out my hand on the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. ¹⁷ I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance on them.'"

² "Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, 'Aha, she is broken: the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste':

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

¹ The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. ² He said: "The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Carmel will wither." ³ Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed the pregnant women of Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; ⁴ but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. ⁵ I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Wickedness, and him who holds the scepter from Beth Eden; and the people of Aram shall go into captivity to Kir," says the LORD. ⁶ Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they carried away captive the whole community, to deliver them up to Edom; ⁷ but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces. ⁸ I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish," says the LORD. ⁹ Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and did not remember the brotherly covenant; ¹⁰ but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces." ¹¹ Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever; ¹² but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah." ¹³ Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of the people of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border. ¹⁴ But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind; ¹⁵ and their king will go into captivity, he and his officials together," says the LORD.

¹² But do not look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction. Do not speak proudly in the day of distress. ¹³ Do not enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Do not look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity.

¹⁵ "Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies. ¹⁶ You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed. The cup of the LORD's right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men's blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.

⁶ Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double.

⁴ "Hear, our God; for we are despised; and turn back their insults on their own head, give them up for a spoil in a land of captivity; ⁵ do not cover their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before you; for they have insulted the builders."

¹⁴ Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by the LORD. Do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out. ¹⁵ Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth;

⁷ Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone's heart will melt.

¹⁸ "My joy for me is sorrow. My heart is faint within me.

²⁵ Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on the families that do not call on your name: for they have devoured Jacob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation."

²³ Yet, LORD, you know all their counsel against me to kill me; do not forgive their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from your sight; but let them be overthrown before you; deal you with them in the time of your anger."

³⁵ The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon,' shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, 'My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,' shall Jerusalem say.

¹³ From on high he has sent fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all the day.

³¹ For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?"

¹³ Therefore I ask that you not be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which is your glory.

¹⁰ They called out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"