Lamentations Cross References - WEB

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 slave! ² She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. ³ Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude. She dwells among the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her within the straits. ⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. ⁵ Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for Yahweh 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 princes have become like deer that find no pasture. They have gone without strength before the pursuer. ⁷ Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant 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 unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs, and turns backward. ⁹ Her filthiness was in her skirts. She didn’t remember her latter end. Therefore she has come down astoundingly. She has no comforter. “See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.” ¹⁰ The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant 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 pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become 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 Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. ¹³ “From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long. ¹⁴ “The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are knit together. They have come up on my neck. He made my strength fail. The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand. ¹⁵ “The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men within me. He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a wine press. ¹⁶ “For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.” ¹⁷ Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing. ¹⁸ “Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. 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 gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls. ²⁰ “Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death. ²¹ “They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be 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 sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

²¹ Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River 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, from everyone according to his assessment, 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 also been mighty kings 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 Yah’s tribes, according to an ordinance for Israel, to give thanks to Yahweh’s name.

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

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, 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 will no longer be called tender and delicate. ² Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers. ³ Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.” ⁴ Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel. ⁵ “Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer 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. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged. ⁷ You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results. 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 one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’ ⁹ But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. ¹⁰ For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ ¹¹ Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand. ¹² “Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. ¹³ You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. ¹⁴ Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. ¹⁵ The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.

⁵ The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear. I was not rebellious. I have not turned back.

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, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

⁴ “Don’t be afraid, for you will not be ashamed. Don’t be confounded, for you will not be disappointed. For you will forget the shame of your youth. You will remember the reproach of your widowhood no more.

¹¹ “I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. 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, “Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you.

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

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

¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep 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! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

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

¹⁶ Then all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground, and will 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 no one 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 Yahweh of Armies says: “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 ship master, 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 I am 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 flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.

¹¹ Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror 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 didn’t 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 no one to guide her among all the sons to whom she has given birth; and there is no one who takes her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up. ¹⁹ These two things have happened to you— who will grieve with you?— desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort you?

¹ “They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should 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 Yahweh.

³⁰ You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. 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 Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come. ¹⁸ 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 we are 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 will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

²⁰ “Go up to Lebanon, and cry. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed. ²¹ I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice. ²² The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t 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 didn’t remember her latter end. Therefore she has come down astoundingly. She has no comforter. “See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.”

¹⁶ “For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.” ¹⁷ Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh 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 gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

²¹ “They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

¹¹ My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon 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 relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest. 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, who 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, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, 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, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴ They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples. They will set themselves against you with buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will commit the judgment to them, and they will judge you according to their judgments. ²⁵ I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will 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 Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t 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, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, 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. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹ Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

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

¹⁴ He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. No one remained, except the poorest people of the land. ¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them 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 attacked 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 Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

¹⁹ The cities of the South are shut up, and there is no one to open them. Judah is carried away captive: all of them. They are wholly carried away captive.

¹⁶ “Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

⁹ I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will 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 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 number of 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 twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty-five people: all the people were four thousand six hundred.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not. Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.

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 set an ambush for us in the wilderness.

¹² A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. 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 from there; and though they be hidden 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 evil, 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 laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are 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 will 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 briers 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, behold, 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. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.

¹⁰ Yahweh says: “Yet again there will 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 Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh. ¹² Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will 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 pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become 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 Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁸ “Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. 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 gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls. ²⁰ “Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death.

⁶ He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest. ⁷ The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in Yahweh’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not. Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh. ¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep 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 fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon 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, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. ²⁰ “Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should 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, and not pitied.

¹³ The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled 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 Yahweh’s house. The priests, Yahweh’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. 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 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. Your roads will become desolate. ²³ “‘If by these things you won’t be turned back 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. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. 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. 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. I will also 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. 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. 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 didn’t 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. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹ Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine 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, 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 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 Yahweh their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’” ⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh 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 a carved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight to provoke him to anger, ²⁶ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed. ²⁷ Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away.

¹⁵ But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. ¹⁷ Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. ²⁰ Yahweh 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 Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. ²² Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. ²³ Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. ²⁴ Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. ²⁵ Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷ Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸ Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. ²⁹ You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. ³⁰ You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. ³¹ Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³² Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³ A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴ so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵ Yahweh will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶ Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away. ³⁸ You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴² Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³ The foreigner who is among you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. ⁴⁶ They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. ⁴⁷ Because you didn’t serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸ therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹ They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which Yahweh your God has given you. ⁵³ You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, 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 will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, ⁵⁷ toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will 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, YAHWEH your God, ⁵⁹ then Yahweh will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. ⁶⁰ He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, Yahweh will bring them on you until you are destroyed. ⁶² You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice. ⁶³ It will happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. ⁶⁴ Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵ Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul. ⁶⁶ Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see. ⁶⁸ Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

¹⁸ lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison; 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 Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky. ²¹ Yahweh will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law. ²² The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick, ²³ that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath. ²⁴ Even all the nations will say, “Why has Yahweh done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?” ²⁵ Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶ and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. ²⁸ Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

¹⁶ Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. 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 have done, in that they have turned to other gods.

²⁹ For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn away 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 Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”

¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected 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 didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread. ¹⁸ Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth. ¹⁹ Yahweh 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 will 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, that burns to the lowest Sheol, 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 venom of vipers that glide in the dust. ²⁵ Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man. ²⁶ I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among 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, Yahweh 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 Yahweh’s house which he had made holy in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Yahweh, 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 Yahweh’s wrath 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 Also our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not 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 laugh among themselves.

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 Yahweh, don’t your eyes 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 don’t know Yahweh’s way, 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 Yahweh, 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 will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has 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 Yahweh. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

²⁹ “Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shouldn’t 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 I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t 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 over your injury? Your pain is incurable. For the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins have 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 princes, and the people of the land, didn’t Yahweh remember them, and didn’t it come into his mind? ²² Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, 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 today.

¹⁸ “Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

¹⁷ Yahweh has done that which he planned. 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 rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

³⁹ Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? ⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh. ⁴¹ Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens. ⁴² “We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned. ⁴³ “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.

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. Behold, they put the branch to their nose. ¹⁸ Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will 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, ‘Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh 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 prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it. 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. So I am profaned among them. ²⁷ Her princes within it 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, ‘The Lord Yahweh says,’ when Yahweh 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 “I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. ³¹ Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord Yahweh.

⁷ “Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as it is today; 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 trespass that they have trespassed against you. ⁸ Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him. ¹⁰ We haven’t obeyed Yahweh our God’s voice, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. ¹¹ Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, turning aside, that they should not obey your voice. “Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us; for we have sinned against him. ¹² He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem. ¹³ As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, that we should turn from our iniquities and have discernment in your truth. ¹⁴ Therefore Yahweh has watched over the evil, and brought it on us; for Yahweh our God is righteous in all his works which he does, and we have not obeyed his voice. ¹⁵ “Now, Lord our God, who has brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten yourself renown, as it is today; 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 Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among 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 Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me. ⁹ I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out 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 Yahweh 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 didn’t obey the voice. She didn’t receive correction. She didn’t trust in Yahweh. She didn’t draw near to her God. ³ Her princes within 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 Yahweh, within 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 Yahweh, “until the day that I rise up to the prey, 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. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies.

²⁵ Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will 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 Yahweh 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 Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, “There is a devoted thing among 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, should I not now require his blood from your hand, and rid the earth of you?” ¹² David commanded his young men, and they killed them, cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth, and buried it in Abner’s grave in Hebron.

²¹ This is the word that Yahweh 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 don’t go out with our armies. ¹⁰ You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take plunder 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, on the north sides, 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 out.

⁹ Worship Yahweh 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 forever more.” ¹³ For Yahweh has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his habitation.

²¹ How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

⁵ Yahweh 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 among you!”

¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory.

⁵ Yes, the doe in the field also 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 vegetation.

⁴ Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives 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 don’t look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

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

³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have stopped fighting, they remain in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They have 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 So the passages are seized. They have burned the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.”

⁷ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went 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. The men of war went toward the Arabah, ⁸ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was 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 He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

¹ How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. ² The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. ³ He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. Has 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. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

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 therein. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing. ²¹ I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they will profane it. ²² I will also turn my face from them, and they will profane my secret place. Robbers will enter into it, and profane it.

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

²¹ ‘Speak to the house of Israel, “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, 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 will fall by the sword.

²⁵ “You, son of man, shouldn’t it 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 Yahweh has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you. You will not be afraid of evil any more. ¹⁶ In that day, it will be said to Jerusalem, “Don’t be afraid, Zion. Don’t let your hands be weak.” ¹⁷ Yahweh, your God, is among you, 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 Yahweh 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 today?

³⁴ Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh 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. On earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire. ³⁷ Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;

⁷ For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs, and underground water flowing into valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; ⁹ a land in which you shall eat bread without scarcity, you shall not lack anything in it; 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 with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, 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 a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to 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 Yahweh’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 don’t know his ordinances. Praise Yah!

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 the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press 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 “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, will 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 their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. 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 with hunger!

²⁵ “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted, and you are in anguish.

³⁰ “Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed.

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 repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication 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 I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

⁹ and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.’”

³ Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”

² But your iniquities have separated 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 No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and give birth to 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 won’t become garments. They won’t cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and acts of violence are in their hands. ⁷ Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their paths. ⁸ They don’t know the way of peace; and there is no justice in their ways. They have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them doesn’t know peace. ⁹ Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see 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 noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men. ¹¹ We all roar 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 Yahweh, 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 gives birth to 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 around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly.

²² If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

²⁶ Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will 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 Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you a liberty,” says Yahweh, “to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will make you 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 sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness. ⁵ Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for Yahweh 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 pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become despised.”

²⁰ “Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death. ²¹ “They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be 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 sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

¹⁵ “Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.” ¹⁶ Yahweh’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favor the elders.

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.

¹² Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored. ¹³ The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood. ¹⁴ The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music. ¹⁵ The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning. ¹⁶ The crown has 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 would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness,” says the Lord Yahweh. ¹⁵ “If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is 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 Yahweh, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They only would be delivered, but the land would 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 Yahweh, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only would 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 Yahweh, “they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness.” ²¹ For the Lord Yahweh says: “How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, the famine, 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 will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will 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, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “A city that sheds blood within herself, 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! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come even to your years. Therefore I have 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, will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult. ⁶ “‘“Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. ⁷ In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have 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. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you. 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. 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 Yahweh. ¹³ “‘“Behold, therefore I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been within you. ¹⁴ Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I will deal with you? I, Yahweh, have spoken it, and will do it. ¹⁵ I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will consume your filthiness out of you.

²⁹ They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.

⁴⁶ “For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘I will bring up a mob 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 anoint your eyes, that you may see.

⁷ Yahweh 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 I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, 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 Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

⁷ Then we cried to Yahweh, the God of our fathers. Yahweh heard our voice, and saw our affliction, 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, Yahweh 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, “Yahweh of Armies, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a boy, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head.”

¹² It may be that Yahweh will look on the wrong done to me, and that Yahweh will repay me good for the cursing of me today.”

²⁶ For Yahweh saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter; for all, slave and free, and there was no helper for Israel.

³² Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, don’t let all the travail seem little before you, that has come on us, on our kings, on our princes, on our priests, on our prophets, 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 Don’t 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 don’t forget your law.

⁸ Yahweh, don’t grant the desires of the wicked. Don’t 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 behold, 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 Yahweh, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

⁴ It may be Yahweh 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 Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

¹⁷ Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. 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 comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”

⁷ You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results.

¹¹ “You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, behold, 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 didn’t 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 will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive. ¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory.

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 will it yet be?”

⁷ Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

²⁶ “Make him drunken; for he magnified himself against Yahweh. Moab will wallow in his vomit, and he also will be in derision.

²⁹ “Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, 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 slave! ² She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

¹⁷ Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh 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 to 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 breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?

¹² She is weary with toil; yet her great rust, rust by fire, doesn’t leave her. ¹³ “‘“In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you won’t 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 desolations, 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 mercies’ sake. ¹⁹ Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and do. Don’t defer, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

¹⁴ “Therefore behold, 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 Yahweh of Armies.

¹⁹ Many of the Jews had joined the women around 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 as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. ⁵ Don’t you 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. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God?

³ An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into Yahweh’s assembly forever,

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

⁴ Your adversaries have roared in the middle 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 saints to the animals of the earth. ³ They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them. ⁴ We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us. ⁵ How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? ⁶ Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, on the kingdoms that don’t 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 a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burned with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.

¹³ I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder 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 its precious things, yes, I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies. They will make them captives, 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 Yahweh’s house.”

¹⁷ The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in Yahweh’s house, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in Yahweh’s house in pieces, and carried all of 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 lamp stands, 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 bases, which king Solomon had made for Yahweh’s house. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight.

⁷ Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant 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 I will also turn my face from them, and they will profane my secret place. Robbers will enter into it, and profane it.

⁷ He said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” They went out, 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 they have broken my covenant, to add to all your abominations.

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

⁵² They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which Yahweh your God has given you. ⁵³ You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, 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 will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, ⁵⁷ toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will 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, and drank no water for three days and three nights.

²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, 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 “Behold, I am of small account. What will I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

¹⁵ My eyes are ever on Yahweh, 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 The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Oh 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. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will 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. 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 ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

²⁰ “Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

⁴ The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them. ⁵ Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills. ⁶ For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment. No hands were laid on her. ⁷ Her nobles were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was like sapphire. ⁸ Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹⁵ Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.” ¹⁶ Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay; ¹⁷ that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

¹⁶ when I send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread. ¹⁷ I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’”

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

¹⁶ to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

²⁴ The fierce anger of Yahweh will not return until he has accomplished, 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 as in a moment. No hands were laid on her. ⁷ Her nobles were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was like sapphire. ⁸ Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. ¹¹ Yahweh 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 judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.

²¹ for then there will be great suffering, 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, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, 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 tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell 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 will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, 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, that burns to the lowest Sheol, 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 venom of vipers that glide in the dust. ²⁵ Outside the sword will 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. 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 iniquity. My bones are wasted 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 disappointed and confounded who seek my soul. Let those who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace. ³ Let them be turned because of their shame who say, “Aha! Aha!”

³ For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch. 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 trembles within 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 decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment. ²¹ How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet? ²² “For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.” ²³ I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light. ²⁴ I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. ²⁵ I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled. ²⁶ I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger. ²⁷ For Yahweh says, “The whole land will 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 planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.” ²⁹ Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers. They go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks. Every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.

⁶ Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

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

³ He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. Has 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 set an ambush for us in the wilderness. ²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, under his shadow we will live among the nations.

¹⁷ For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim.

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

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

³ The Lord Yahweh says: “I will spread out my net on you with a company of many peoples; and they will 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 punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

²⁹ for our God is a consuming fire.

⁴⁸ therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke 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. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.

⁹ behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “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. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

⁸ “‘“‘It will happen that I will punish 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,’ says Yahweh, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with 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 Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they will serve him. I have also given him the animals of the field.”’”

⁵ and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says Yahweh: “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper?”’”

²⁰ I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ²¹ “I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their life and into the hands of the king of Babylon’s army, who has gone away from you.

¹⁷ then Zedekiah the king sent, and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?” Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

¹ In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came 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 All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. ⁴ When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went 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 them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. ⁶ Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also 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 out of the middle of it, 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. I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skillful to destroy.

²⁸ “For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, 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, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession. They will set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk.

⁷ therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries. I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.”

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 A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always,

⁸ They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For 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 princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. No one remained, except the poorest people of the land. ¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them 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 fit 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 the king went by the way of the Arabah. ⁵ But the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶ Then they captured the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him. ⁷ They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, 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, 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? Who called him 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 wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. 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. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

¹⁰ For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with fire.’”

²⁶ Come against her from the farthest border. Open her storehouses. Cast her up as heaps. 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 mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out.

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

¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and fury commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. Then these men were brought before the king.

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Yahweh 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 Yahweh of Armies.

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

²⁹ How much worse punishment do you think he will 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 wine press of the wrath of God. ²⁰ The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.

¹⁵ Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty.

²⁰ Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. 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 don’t observe your law.

¹⁰ I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

²¹ For death has come up into our windows. It has 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. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one 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 Yahweh 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 princes have become like deer that find no pasture. They have gone without strength 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 relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest.

²⁰ “Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should 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, and not pitied. ²² “You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.

⁴⁸ My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹ My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,

² The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! ³ Even the jackals offer their 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 came near, he saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your 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 didn’t 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 pain in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my 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. 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 she sits on, 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 he lies on 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 she lies on all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her period. Everything she sits on 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 Yahweh’s altar in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven;

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

² Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to Yahweh’s word, which he spoke by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely at the commandment of Yahweh 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 Yahweh would not pardon.

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

¹⁵ When you spread out 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 will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

⁶ Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.

⁴ ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel says, “Behold, 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 outside the walls; and I will gather them into the middle of this city. ⁵ I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation.

²² Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

¹⁶ “For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

¹ How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. ² The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. ³ He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around. ⁴ He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. Has 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. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah. ⁶ He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest. ⁷ The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in Yahweh’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly. ⁸ Yahweh has purposed 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 lament. They languish together.

¹⁷ Yahweh has done that which he planned. 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 rejoice over you. He has 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 relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest. 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, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

¹⁵ “Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.”

²³ “‘Make chains; 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 will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.

¹⁷ “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and by their deeds. 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. Yahweh is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

³² Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³ A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴ so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵ Yahweh will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶ Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away. ³⁸ You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

⁴ The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.

⁷ Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

¹⁴ If you will fear Yahweh, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then both you and also the king who reigns over you are followers of Yahweh your God. ¹⁵ But if you will not listen to Yahweh’s voice, but rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then Yahweh’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

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

⁸ Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land, and to this house?’ ⁹ and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.’”

²¹ and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Yahweh says, ‘Because you have been disobedient to Yahweh’s mouth, and have not kept the commandment which Yahweh 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 trespass, I will scatter you among the peoples;

²⁶ “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, 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 Yahweh, I know that your judgments are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

¹⁷ Yahweh is righteous in all his ways, and gracious in all his works.

¹ You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to 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 will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this great city?’ ⁹ Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, 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, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “You shall surely drink. ²⁹ For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You will not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says Yahweh of Armies.”’

¹² For Yahweh says: “Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup will certainly drink; and are you he who will altogether go unpunished? You won’t go unpunished, but you will 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 Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

⁴² “We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned.

²² Yet, behold, there will be left a remnant in it that will be carried out, both sons and daughters. Behold, they will come out to you, and you will see their way and their doings. Then you will be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought on it. ²³ They will comfort you, when you see their way and their doings; then you will know that I have not done all that I have done in it without cause,” says the Lord Yahweh.

⁷ “Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as it is today; 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 trespass that they have trespassed against you.

⁵ Yahweh, within 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 treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and 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, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations. ⁴ Who wouldn’t 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 are and who were, O Holy One, because you have judged these things. ⁶ For they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.” ⁷ I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, 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 consider me a stranger. I am an alien 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 you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

¹⁵ Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. ¹⁶ The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or 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 out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, 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 I have found their wickedness,” says Yahweh. ¹² Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh. 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 I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

¹³ Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴ Don’t 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 Yahweh, “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 “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, will return to Egypt into their own land. ⁸ The Chaldeans will come again, and fight against this city. They will take it and burn it with fire.”’ ⁹ “Yahweh says, ‘Don’t deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely depart from us;” for they will not depart.

⁷ Her nobles were purer than snow. They were whiter than milk. They were more ruddy in body than rubies. Their polishing was like sapphire. ⁸ Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

¹² Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored.

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, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.

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

⁴⁷ yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication 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 supplication 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 didn’t profit me.

³ For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me. ⁴ Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so 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 chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned 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.’ “Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

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

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within 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 has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets. ²² Speak, “Yahweh says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

¹⁸ If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, 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 still earnestly remember him. therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.

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 has perished.

¹⁵ “‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence.

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 more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”’

¹³ But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t 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 glittering sword, my hand grasps it in judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay 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, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.

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

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

¹⁶ For I said, “Don’t let them gloat over me, or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips.”

⁷ Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!” ⁸ Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us. ⁹ Happy 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; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even 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! Yahweh of Armies is mustering the army for the battle. ⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. ⁶ Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. 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 Behold, the day of Yahweh 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 out, 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 arrogance 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 Yahweh of Armies’ wrath, 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 Your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more. ²³ 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, like a street to those who walk over.”

¹⁷ Then I took the cup at Yahweh’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom Yahweh had sent me: ¹⁸ Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; ¹⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people; ²⁰ and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹ Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon; ²² and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; ²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵ and all the kings of Zimri, 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. The king of Sheshach will drink after them. ²⁷ “You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “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 will be devoured. All your adversaries, everyone of them, will go into captivity. Those who plunder you will be plunder. I will make all who prey on you become prey.

¹ Yahweh’s word which 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 Euphrates 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 up with your helmets. Polish the spears, put on the coats of mail. ⁵ Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward. Their mighty ones are beaten down, have fled in haste, and don’t look back. Terror is on every side,” says Yahweh. ⁶ “Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. In the north by the river Euphrates they have 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. He says, ‘I will rise up. I will cover the earth. I will destroy cities and its inhabitants.’ ⁹ Go up, you horses! Rage, you chariots! Let the mighty men go out: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow. ¹⁰ For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his adversaries. The sword will devour and be satiated, and will drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates. ¹¹ Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt. You use many medicines in vain. 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 both fall together.” ¹³ The word that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt. ¹⁴ “Declare in Egypt, publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes: say, ‘Stand up, and prepare; for the sword has devoured around you.’ ¹⁵ Why are your strong ones swept away? They didn’t stand, because Yahweh pushed them. ¹⁶ He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise! Let’s 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 Yahweh of Armies, “surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so he will come. ¹⁹ You daughter who dwells in Egypt, furnish yourself to go into captivity; for Memphis will become a desolation, and will be burned up, without inhabitant. ²⁰ “Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the north has come. It has come. ²¹ Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation. ²² Its sound will go like the serpent; for they will march with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters. ²³ They will cut down her forest,” says Yahweh, “though it can’t be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. ²⁴ The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.” ²⁵ Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, 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 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. Afterwards it will be inhabited, as in the days of old,” says Yahweh. ²⁷ “But don’t you be afraid, Jacob my servant. Don’t be dismayed, Israel; for, behold, I will save you from afar, and your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return, and will be quiet and at ease. No one will make him afraid. ²⁸ Don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant,” says Yahweh; “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 bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

³¹ “Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies; “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 Yahweh.

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

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

⁸ Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.

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 dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will 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 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face toward the children of Ammon, and prophesy against them. ³ Tell the children of Ammon, ‘Hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says, “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, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession. They will set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the children of Ammon a resting place for flocks. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ⁶ For the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you have clapped your hands, stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the contempt of your soul against the land of Israel; ⁷ therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries. I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ⁸ “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Moab and Seir say, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the nations;’ ⁹ therefore, behold, 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 children of the east, to go against the children of Ammon; and I will give them for a possession, that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations. ¹¹ I will execute judgments on Moab. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.” ¹² “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and taken revenge on them;” ¹³ therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “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. They will fall by the sword even to Dedan. ¹⁴ I will lay my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel. They will do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath. Then they will know my vengeance,” says the Lord Yahweh. ¹⁵ “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because the Philistines have taken revenge, and have taken vengeance with contempt of soul to destroy with perpetual hostility;” ¹⁶ therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, 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. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I lay my vengeance on them.”’”

² “Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken! She who was the gateway of the peoples has been returned to me. I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste;’

¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of Yahweh 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: “Yahweh 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 Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed 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 Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says Yahweh. ⁶ Yahweh says: “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 Yahweh. ⁹ Yahweh says: “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 didn’t remember the brotherly covenant; ¹⁰ but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces.” ¹¹ Yahweh says: “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 Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of the children 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 princes together,” says Yahweh.

¹² But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress. ¹³ Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t 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 Yahweh’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. Turn back their reproach on their own head. Give them up for a plunder in a land of captivity. ⁵ Don’t cover their iniquity. Don’t 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 Yahweh. Don’t let the sin of his mother be blotted out. ¹⁵ Let them be before Yahweh continually, that he may cut off their memory from the earth;

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

¹⁸ Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

²⁵ Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

²³ Yet, Yahweh, you know all their counsel against me to kill me. Don’t forgive their iniquity. Don’t blot out their sin from your sight, Let them be overthrown before you. Deal with them in the time of your anger.

³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.

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

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

¹³ Therefore I ask that you may not lose heart at my troubles for you, which are your glory.

¹⁰ They cried 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?”