Jeremiah 4

¹²“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”

²²“Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the Lord our God.

⁹Now let them remove far from Me their prostitution and the funeral offerings for their kings, and I will dwell among them forever.

²So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.

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.

¹²Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will not be angry forever.

¹⁶Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth, and whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth. For the former troubles will be forgotten and hidden from My sight.

¹⁸And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

²⁴But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

¹⁷Rather, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

²⁰You are to fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name.

¹²Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of loving devotion; break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the Lord until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain.

¹⁴The seeds that fell among the thorns are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature.

⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the seedlings.

⁷Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return.

⁸The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

¹⁸Others are like the seeds sown among the thorns. They hear the word,

¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings.

¹⁶Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.

²⁸A man is not a Jew because he is one outwardly, nor is circumcision only outward and physical.

²⁹No, a man is a Jew because he is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise does not come from men, but from God.

⁶The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

¹¹In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.

²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

¹²O house of David, this is what the Lord says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds.

¹⁴Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the Lord our God has doomed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.

²⁰So Joshua and the Israelites continued to inflict a terrible slaughter until they had finished them off, and the remaining survivors retreated to the fortified cities.

¹“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

¹Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the Lord, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.

⁶If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?

¹²Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?

²“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’

¹³Again the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “What do you see?” “I see a boiling pot,” I replied, “and it is tilting toward us from the north.”

¹⁴Then the Lord said to me, “Disaster from the north will be poured out on all who live in the land.

²⁷“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

²²This is what the Lord says: “Behold, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is stirred up from the ends of the earth.

²¹How long must I see the signal flag and hear the sound of the horn?

¹²Raise a banner against the walls of Babylon; post the guard; station the watchmen; prepare the ambush. For the Lord has both devised and accomplished what He spoke against the people of Babylon.

¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

⁷For this is what the Lord God says: ‘Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with cavalry and a great company of troops.

⁸He will slaughter the villages of your mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp to your walls, and raise his shields against you.

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

¹⁵The young lions have roared at him; they have sounded their voices. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.

⁶Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.

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.”

²⁶O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.

¹²On that day the Lord God of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.

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.

²⁵Therefore the anger of the Lord burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹¹Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

³All your rulers have fled together, captured without a bow. All your fugitives were captured together, having fled to a distant place.

⁴Therefore I said, “Turn away from me, let me weep bitterly! Do not try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

⁹Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.

¹⁰For the Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

⁹My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord God.

¹⁰Because they have led My people astray, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and whitewashing any flimsy wall that is built,

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear beneath the uplifted hand of the Lord of Hosts, when He brandishes it against them.

¹⁹Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, claiming, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you or this land’?

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.

¹²They have lied about the Lord and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,

¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

³⁵‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

¹³“Ah, Lord God!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

²⁸Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.

¹⁵Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come—a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert. His fountain will fail, and his spring will run dry. The wind will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

¹⁰Even if it is transplanted, will it flourish? Will it not completely wither when the east wind strikes? It will wither on the bed where it sprouted.’”

¹⁶You will winnow them, and a wind will carry them away; a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the Lord; you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

¹⁹Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away: “Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images, with their worthless foreign idols?”

²³Behold, the storm of the Lord has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.

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

¹⁶I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me, and they have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

⁸Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Behold, I Myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.

¹¹This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stomp your feet, and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel, who will fall by sword and famine and plague.

¹²He who is far off will die by the plague, he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains will die by famine. So I will vent My fury upon them.

⁸Very soon I will pour out My wrath upon you and vent My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and repay you for all your abominations.

⁹I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who strikes the blow.

¹This is the burden against Egypt: Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud; He is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him, and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them.

¹⁵For behold, the Lord will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.

¹⁹Those who chased us were swifter than the eagles in the sky; they pursued us over the mountains and ambushed us in the wilderness.

⁸Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.

²⁸Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.

⁵They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the Lord and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.

⁸Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁷Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

²²Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for the intent of your heart.

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.

³⁹Then the Lord said, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.

²⁰And again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”

¹⁶The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.

²⁹They named it Dan, after their forefather Dan, who was born to Israel—though the city was formerly named Laish.

¹⁵Joshua answered them, “If you have so many people that the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go to the forest and clear for yourself an area in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim.”

⁷So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

¹“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

¹Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

²²In his right hand appears the portent for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to call for the slaughter, to lift a battle cry, to direct the battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp, and to erect a siege wall.

¹⁵Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.

³Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came to me from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”

¹⁵The young lions have roared at him; they have sounded their voices. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.

¹⁰Hear, O nations, the word of the Lord, and proclaim it in distant coastlands: “The One who scattered Israel will gather them and keep them as a shepherd keeps his flock.

⁶Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.

²³But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone away.

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

²And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

³“Son of man,” He said to me, “I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me. To this very day they and their fathers have rebelled against Me.

⁴They are obstinate and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you are to say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’

⁴³For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side.

⁴⁴They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

⁹These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the Lord’s instruction.

²⁰But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

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

¹⁷Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.

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.

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

³¹So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

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.

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.

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

⁴Therefore I said, “Turn away from me, let me weep bitterly! Do not try to console me over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

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

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

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

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

⁷Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and waves have rolled over me.

¹⁵Alas for the day! For the Day of the Lord is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁹They will suffer the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might,

²⁵Anguish is coming! They will seek peace, but find none.

²⁶Disaster upon disaster will come, and rumor after rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but instruction from the priests will perish, as will counsel from the elders.

²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander; its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon some of the articles from the house of the Lord, and he put them in his temple in Babylon.

²⁵Then Jeremiah lamented over Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers recite laments over Josiah. They established them as a statute for Israel, and indeed they are written in the Book of Laments.

¹⁰In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the Lord. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

⁵Announce in Judah, proclaim in Jerusalem, and say: “Blow the ram’s horn throughout the land. Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves and let us flee to the fortified cities.’

⁶Raise a signal flag toward Zion. Seek refuge! Do not delay! For I am bringing disaster from the north, and terrible destruction.

³And the king of Egypt dethroned him in Jerusalem and imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

¹“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

²⁰Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.

¹⁹Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.

²¹“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.

¹¹There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

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.

²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

²⁴But in those days, after that tribulation: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

²⁵the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

¹⁵The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine.

¹⁶The Lord will roar from Zion and raise His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth will tremble. But the Lord will be a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

²Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

²⁵There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves.

²⁶Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

²⁰The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that crawls upon the ground, and all mankind on the face of the earth will tremble at My presence. The mountains will be thrown down, the cliffs will collapse, and every wall will fall to the ground.

²⁵Therefore the anger of the Lord burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹⁰But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.

⁵The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles at His presence—the world and all its dwellers.

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

⁴O Lord, when You went out from Seir, when You marched from the land of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens poured out rain, and the clouds poured down water.

⁵The mountains quaked before the Lord, the One of Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled; they were shaken because He burned with anger.

²“I will completely sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

³“I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and the idols with their wicked worshipers. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

⁴How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

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

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

³⁴and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.

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

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

³The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.

²⁰On that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates—the king of Assyria—to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to remove your beard as well.

²¹On that day a man will raise a young cow and two sheep,

⁴How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger.

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

²⁸And you, My servant Jacob, do not be afraid, declares the Lord, for I am with you. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have banished you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

¹⁸“Yet even in those days,” declares the Lord, “I will not make a full end of you.

¹⁰Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the Lord.

¹¹For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

²⁸For the Lord will carry out His sentence on the earth thoroughly and decisively.”

¹³Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord God, will You bring the remnant of Israel to a complete end?”

¹⁹God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?

⁴How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

³I clothe the heavens in black and make sackcloth their covering.”

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

³⁰I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.

³¹The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord.

³⁰In that day they will roar over it, like the roaring of the sea. If one looks over the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be obscured by clouds.

¹⁹Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.

²⁰In that day men will cast away to the moles and bats their idols of silver and gold—the idols they made to worship.

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.

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

¹⁶And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

¹⁷A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

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

³⁰Now when Jehu arrived in Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. So she painted her eyes, adorned her head, and looked down from a window.

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

³What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

³⁶This is what the Lord God says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them,

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

⁹Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians for whom she lusted.

¹⁰They exposed her nakedness, seized her sons and daughters, and put her to the sword. Thus she became a byword among women, and they executed judgment against her.

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

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

²¹What will you say when He sets over you close allies whom you yourself trained? Will not pangs of anguish grip you, as they do a woman in labor?

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

²¹Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.

²³O inhabitant of Lebanon, nestled in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you, agony like a woman in labor.”