Jeremiah 2

²⁸Let the prophet who has a dream retell it, but let him who has My word speak it truthfully. For what is straw compared to grain?” declares the Lord.

¹On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

¹¹And the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

¹And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

⁶⁰But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

⁸Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord God.

⁶Then the Lord said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

⁷Indeed, the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The Lord your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.

⁷I will make known the Lord’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the Lord has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion.

⁸For He said, “They are surely My people, sons who will not be disloyal.” So He became their Savior.

²“Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.

⁴These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.

¹¹Behold, all who rage against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will be reduced to nothing and will perish.

⁶For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

¹⁶If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

²²Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the Lord says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,

²³and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’”

¹“At that time,” declares the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.”

¹Hear now what the Lord says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

²⁴Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all those of Judah who are in the land of Egypt.

²⁵This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hands your words: ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have made to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.’ Go ahead, then, do what you have promised! Keep your vows!

¹“Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn.

²Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one; then I blessed him and multiplied him.

⁴Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the Lord says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;

¹⁵Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant, for the Lord has spoken.

¹⁵They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

⁸Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.

¹⁴Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

⁸Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.

⁹All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.

¹⁴then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹⁵He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint.

⁴Yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but Me, for there is no Savior besides Me.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

⁸The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.

²¹before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,

²²to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

¹⁸And I will first repay them double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and they have filled My inheritance with their abominations.”

²⁷And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

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

⁹Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

³⁸They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

³⁹They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

¹⁸What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

²¹For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

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

²Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not practice deceit, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by open proclamation of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

¹⁷Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God;

¹⁸if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;

⁶My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

³⁵And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, where I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

³⁶Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord God.

⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

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

²Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel:

⁵then I will set My face against that man and his family and cut off from among their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech.

²⁶Remind Me, let us argue the matter together. State your case, so that you may be vindicated.

⁵Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!

²⁴Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.”

⁴And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Rodanites.

⁵From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.

¹It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.

¹When David was old and full of years, he installed his son Solomon as king over Israel.

¹²The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel—four in all.

²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

¹⁹They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

²⁰They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.

²⁰Can man make gods for himself? Such are not gods!”

⁵Though all the nations may walk in the name of their gods, yet we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

⁴Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.

²Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.

¹Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

²Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel:

¹⁹Hear, O earth! I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their own schemes, because they have paid no attention to My word and have rejected My instruction.

²⁹O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!

⁴⁵From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

³⁷On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

⁶And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.

¹³O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the Lord, the fountain of living water.

⁹For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

¹Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

²²Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the Lord says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,

³Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

¹This is what the Lord says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Look, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

⁷I acquired menservants and maidservants, and servants were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me,

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

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

²⁹Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away, and no one can rescue it.

⁷Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

⁷So like a lion I will pounce on them; like a leopard I will lurk by the path.

⁸Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast tearing them apart.

¹⁴“Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.’

⁷So they entered the land of Egypt because they did not obey the voice of the Lord, and they went as far as Tahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes:

¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools; the princes of Memphis are deceived. The cornerstones of her tribes have led Egypt astray.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews living in the land of Egypt—in Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis—and in the land of Pathros:

²⁰Concerning Gad he said: “Blessed is he who enlarges the domain of Gad! He lies down like a lion and tears off an arm or a head.

¹⁶I will set fire to Egypt, Pelusium will writhe in anguish, Thebes will be split open, and Memphis will face daily distress.

¹⁸“Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”

¹⁹Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord God of Hosts.

¹³“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁵and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,

¹⁶then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.

³from the Shihor east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north (considered to be Canaanite territory)—that of the five Philistine rulers of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, as well as that of the Avvites;

³⁶How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.

¹Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the Lord.

¹¹So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.

²⁰Then Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz but afflicted him rather than strengthening him.

²¹Although Ahaz had taken a portion from the house of the Lord, from the royal palace, and from the princes and had presented it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

⁵Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

⁶Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet:

⁹The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.

¹⁸“Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”

¹⁷Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way?

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. An oracle is in my heart regarding the transgression of the wicked man: There is no fear of God before his eyes.

⁵Israel’s arrogance testifies against them; Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; even Judah stumbles with them.

⁷My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them.

²Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.

¹³I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness.

²Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.

³Then I said to her, “You must live with me for many days; you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you.”

⁸On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, I will break the yoke off their necks and tear off their bonds, and no longer will strangers enslave them.

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

⁴What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?

¹⁷You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O Lord, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.

¹“I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard.

⁸You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it.

²With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

³⁷Because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by His presence and great power,

¹“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.

¹⁷My transgression would be sealed in a bag, and You would cover over my iniquity.

¹²The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up.

³If You, O Lord, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?

³⁰If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,

³¹then You would plunge me into the pit, and even my own clothes would despise me.

¹⁷For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.

³¹They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

¹²There is a generation of those who are pure in their own eyes and yet unwashed of their filth.

²“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

²⁰This is the way of an adulteress: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong.’

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

¹⁷You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

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

⁶Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”

¹⁵Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

⁵Who set the wild donkey free? Who released the swift donkey from the harness?

⁶I made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling.

²⁷say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’

¹²But a witless man can no more become wise than the colt of a wild donkey can be born a man!

¹⁶They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

¹²But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

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

²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

⁴The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

⁶For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east; they are soothsayers like the Philistines; they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

⁷From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

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

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

³²because of all the evil the children of Israel and of Judah have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem.

³⁰Men do not despise the thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger.

³¹Yet if caught, he must pay sevenfold; he must give up all the wealth of his house.

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

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

²⁹Surely you will be ashamed of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be embarrassed by the gardens that you have chosen.

¹⁶O Lord, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer.

¹⁴They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me.

⁶They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship.

⁷They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.

¹⁸What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

¹⁹Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”

¹⁶So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

²⁴a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her.

³⁷He will say: “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

¹³Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

²⁰Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.

¹⁴Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you in your time of trouble.”

³⁰The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima,

³¹the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim.

⁷They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.

¹¹All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.

¹³“For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

¹“Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares. If you can find a single person, anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, then I will forgive the city.

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

²“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

³“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the Lord.

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

¹⁵who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,

⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—

³O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

²⁰Now there was another man prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land the same things that Jeremiah did.

²¹King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials heard his words, and the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah found out about it, he fled in fear and went to Egypt.

⁵Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

⁷Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

⁸I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁹I have not spoken in secret, from a place in a land of darkness. I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a wasteland.’ I, the Lord, speak the truth; I say what is right.

⁹The voice of the Lord calls out to the city (and it is sound wisdom to fear Your name): “Heed the rod and the One who ordained it.

⁶When they had pasture, they became satisfied; when they were satisfied, their hearts became proud, and as a result they forgot Me.

¹⁵I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other!

¹⁶So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth!

²¹They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,

²⁵This is your lot, the portion I have measured to you,” declares the Lord, “because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

²¹A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the Lord their God.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—

¹⁴Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has multiplied its fortified cities. But I will send fire upon their cities, and it will consume their citadels.

⁷On a high and lofty hill you have made your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifices.

⁸Behind the door and doorpost you have set up your memorial. Forsaking Me, you uncovered your bed; you climbed up and opened it wide. And you have made a pact with those whose bed you have loved; you have gazed upon their nakedness.

⁴⁷And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.

⁵For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

⁶Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.

²³“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

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

²“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

⁹So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

⁴and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was unwilling to forgive.

⁴because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

²If a thief is caught breaking in and is beaten to death, no one shall be guilty of bloodshed.

⁵who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

⁷Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake.

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

⁸If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

⁹If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

⁹Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

³“Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

⁹Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the Lord, and I will bring a case against your children’s children.

²³“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

²²How long will you wander, O faithless daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the land—a woman will shelter a man.”

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

¹⁶At that time King Ahaz sent for help from the king of Assyria.

¹Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

²⁰Then Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz but afflicted him rather than strengthening him.

²¹Although Ahaz had taken a portion from the house of the Lord, from the royal palace, and from the princes and had presented it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

²³“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

¹⁹And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore her robe. And putting her hand on her head, she went away crying aloud.

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

⁸Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down.

¹⁵But this king rebelled against Babylon by sending his envoys to Egypt to ask for horses and a large army. Will he flourish? Will the one who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and yet escape?’

¹⁶‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

⁵This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes mere flesh his strength and turns his heart from the Lord.

³⁶How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.

⁴Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.