Jeremiah 6

¹⁴The Dung Gate was repaired by Malchijah son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem. He rebuilt it and installed its doors, bolts, and bars.

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.

²So Joab sent to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner; put on clothes for mourning and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned for the dead a long time.

⁶He built up Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

²¹The Benjamites, however, failed to drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. So to this day the Jebusites live there among the Benjamites.

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.

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

⁸And the Daughter of Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city besieged.

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

¹⁶The Lord also says: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty—walking with heads held high and wanton eyes, prancing and skipping as they go, jingling the bracelets on their ankles—

¹⁷the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will make their foreheads bare.”

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

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

¹In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army and laid siege to the city.

²And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached.

¹⁰At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.

¹¹And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.

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.

¹⁸O king of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your officers sleep. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.

¹⁰Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.

⁸I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay.

⁴For Gaza will be abandoned, and Ashkelon left in ruins. Ashdod will be driven out at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted.

⁹Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war; rouse the mighty men; let all the men of war advance and attack!

²⁰“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, but we have not been saved.”

¹⁷Before the day breaks and shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether.

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.

¹⁴For the palace will be forsaken, the busy city abandoned. The hill and the watchtower will become caves forever—the delight of wild donkeys and a pasture for flocks—

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

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.

¹⁹Then the Chaldeans set fire to the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem. They burned down all the palaces and destroyed every article of value.

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

³God is in her citadels; He has shown Himself to be a fortress.

²⁴See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

¹⁹When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?

²⁰But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

²³Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.

¹¹Their violence has grown into a rod to punish their wickedness. None of them will remain: none of their multitude, none of their wealth, and nothing of value.

⁸For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the Lord has become to me a reproach and derision all day long.

²⁰But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck.

¹⁰Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, this should not be!

¹¹Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?

¹Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?

²You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

¹⁸When Oholibah openly prostituted herself and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.

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

²³Yet they would not listen or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and would not listen or receive My discipline.

¹³“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem: ‘Will you not accept discipline and obey My words?’ declares the Lord.

¹⁴The words of Jonadab son of Rechab have been carried out. He commanded his sons not to drink wine, and they have not drunk it to this very day because they have obeyed the command of their forefather. But I have spoken to you again and again, and you have not obeyed Me!

⁷I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her. But they rose early to corrupt all their deeds.

¹⁷For you hate My instruction and cast My words behind you.

⁹If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted?

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

⁵“If thieves came to you, if robbers by night—oh, how you will be ruined—would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings?

⁶But how Esau will be pillaged, his hidden treasures sought out!

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

²⁹in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

¹⁸Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.”

⁵¹You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

²⁶Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

⁷The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify that its works are evil.

¹²But in the Lord’s presence Moses replied, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, then why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I am unskilled in speech?”

¹Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

⁹If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.

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

¹⁸For I am full of words, and my spirit within me compels me.

¹⁹Behold, my belly is like unvented wine; it is about to burst like a new wineskin.

⁸As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the Lord, with justice and courage, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

²⁰For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

¹⁴So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord upon me.

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

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.

³Indeed, He keeps turning His hand against me all day long.

¹³Their wealth will be plundered and their houses laid waste. They will build houses but not inhabit them, and plant vineyards but never drink their wine.

³We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.

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.

¹¹“For both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the Lord.

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

¹¹Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the Lord, saying, “Is not the Lord among us? No disaster can come upon us.”

¹⁷“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”

²You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

³You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

¹⁷I was enraged by his sinful greed, so I struck him and hid My face in anger; yet he kept turning back to the desires of his heart.

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

¹⁷They keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord says that you will have peace,’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, ‘No harm will come to you.’

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, how completely You have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

¹⁴The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

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.’”

¹¹They dress the wound of the daughter of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.

¹²Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse, says the Lord.

¹²Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse, says the Lord.

¹⁴Disregard them! They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

³Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed.

¹⁹Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things.

¹A man who remains stiff-necked after much reproof will suddenly be shattered beyond recovery.

²⁴you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.

²⁵At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.

²¹And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

⁷Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you.

¹⁵Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway.

²⁸Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

²⁹Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

²³but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

⁶Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him,

⁴And the Lord has sent all His servants the prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear.

¹“Cry aloud, do not hold back! Raise your voice like a ram’s horn. Declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins.

¹¹This is the burden against Dumah: One calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?”

¹¹But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.

¹I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the ramparts. I will watch to see what He will say to me, and how I should answer when corrected.

¹⁰Israel’s watchmen are blind, they are all oblivious; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they are dreamers lying around, loving to slumber.

⁴He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people:

⁵“Gather to Me My saints, who made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”

⁵My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may acknowledge the righteousness of the Lord.’”

³“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard.

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, how completely You have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

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

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

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.

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.

¹⁰I, the Lord, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve.

⁹The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom do they really have?

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

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:

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

¹¹“What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the Lord. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.

⁶With what shall I come before the Lord when I bow before the God on high? Should I come to Him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?

⁷Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

⁶Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.

⁷“Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, your God.

⁸I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are ever before Me.

²¹This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!

²²For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

¹⁴And He will be a sanctuary—but to both houses of Israel a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, to the dwellers of Jerusalem a trap and a snare.

²⁰Now if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. If you did not warn him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous acts he did will not be remembered. And I will hold you responsible for his blood.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.

¹⁴So the Lord will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day.

¹⁵The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies.

⁵And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone!

⁶Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

³I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

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

⁴¹Behold, an army is coming from the north; a great nation and many kings are stirred up from the ends of the earth.

⁴²They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Babylon.

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

¹⁵For I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north,” declares the Lord. “Their kings will come and set up their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will attack all her surrounding walls and all the other cities of Judah.

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

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.

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.

¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.

⁴²They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Babylon.

¹³Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!

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

²²Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side—

²³the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them—all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses.

⁶For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

⁷They are dreaded and feared; from themselves they derive justice and sovereignty.

⁴³The king of Babylon has heard the report, and his hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped him, pain like that of a woman in labor.

²⁴Damascus has become feeble; she has turned to flee. Panic has gripped her; anguish and pain have seized her like a woman in labor.

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

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.

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

²⁰Disaster after disaster is proclaimed, for the whole land is laid waste. My tents are destroyed in an instant, my curtains in a moment.

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?

²⁹They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’

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

¹³For I hear the slander of many; there is terror on every side. They conspire against me and plot to take my life.

¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.”

¹¹Terrors frighten him on every side and harass his every step.

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.

¹⁰Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

⁸So put on sackcloth, mourn and wail, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us.”

⁶The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant without a hand turned to help her.

¹³this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly—in an instant!

¹⁷This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.

¹⁸Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

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.

¹⁸Now behold, this day I have made you like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.

²⁰Then I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to save and deliver you, declares the Lord.

⁷Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?

⁸Behold, I will make your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

⁹I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.”

⁴Will you judge them, will you judge them, son of man? Confront them with the abominations of their fathers

²“As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations

⁴“Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.

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

¹⁸Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”

¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; they are but the dross of silver.

¹⁹Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because all of you have become dross, behold, I will gather you into Jerusalem.

²For His judgments are true and just. He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. He has avenged the blood of His servants that was poured out by her hand.”

¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.”

³A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.

⁴But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength in futility and vanity; yet My vindication is with the Lord, and My reward is with My God.”

¹²Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you.

⁹This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”

¹³Because of the indecency of your uncleanness I tried to cleanse you, but you would not be purified from your filthiness. You will not be pure again until My wrath against you has subsided.

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

¹⁷My God will reject them because they have not obeyed Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

²²Your silver has become dross; your fine wine is diluted with water.

¹¹⁹All the wicked on earth You discard like dross; therefore I love Your testimonies.

²⁵I will turn My hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross; I will remove all your impurities.

¹⁹Have You rejected Judah completely? Do You despise Zion? Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing? We hoped for peace, but no good has come, and for the time of healing, but there was only terror.

²⁹Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’