A band of rogues.
2They bend their tongues like bows;
They are valorous in the land
For treachery, not for honesty;
They advance from evil to evil.
And they do not heed Me
—declares the LORD.
3Beware, every man of his friend!
Trust not even a brother!
For every brother takes advantage,
Every friend a-is base in his dealings.-a
4One man cheats the other,
They will not speak truth;
They have trained their tongues to speak falsely;
b-They wear themselves out working iniquity.
5You dwell in the midst of deceit.
In their deceit,-b they refuse to heed Me
—declares the LORD.
6Assuredly, thus said the LORD of Hosts:
Lo, I shall smelt and assay them—
b-For what else can I do because of My poor people?-b
7Their tongue is a sharpened arrow,
They use their mouths to deceive.
One speaks to his fellow in friendship,
But lays an ambush for him in his heart.
8Shall I not punish them for such deeds?
—says the LORD—
Shall I not bring retribution
On such a nation as this?
9For the mountains I take up weeping and wailing,
For the pastures in the wilderness, a dirge.
They are laid waste; no man passes through,
And no sound of cattle is heard.
Birds of the sky and beasts as well
Have fled and are gone.
10I will turn Jerusalem into rubble,
Into dens for jackals;
And I will make the towns of Judah
A desolation without inhabitants.
11What man is so wise
That he understands this?
To whom has the LORD’s mouth spoken,
So that he can explain it:
Why is the land in ruins,
Laid waste like a wilderness,
With none passing through?
12The LORD replied: Because they forsook the Teaching I had set before them. They did not obey Me and they did not follow it, 13but followed their own willful heart and followed the Baalim, as their fathers had taught them. 14Assuredly, thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to feed that people wormwood and make them drink a bitter draft. 15I will scatter them among nations which they and their fathers never knew; and I will dispatch the sword after them until I have consumed them.
16Thus said the LORD of Hosts:
Listen!
Summon the dirge-singers, let them come;
17Send for the skilled women, let them come.
Let them quickly start a wailing for us,
That our eyes may run with tears,
Our pupils flow with water.
18For the sound of wailing
Is heard from Zion:
How we are despoiled!
How greatly we are shamed!
Ah, we must leave our land,
Abandonc our dwellings!
19Hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
Let your ears receive the word of His mouth,
And teach your daughters wailing,
And one another lamentation.
20For death has climbed through our windows,
Has entered our fortresses,
To cut off babes from the streets,
Young men from the squares.
21Speak thus—says the LORD:
The carcasses of men shall lie
Like dung upon the fields,
Like sheaves behind the reaper,
With none to pick them up.
22Thus said the LORD:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom;
Let not the strong man glory in his strength;
Let not the rich man glory in his riches.
23But only in this should one glory:
In his earnest devotion to Me.
For I the LORD act with kindness,
Justice, and equity in the world;
For in these I delight
—declares the LORD.
24Lo, days are coming—declares the LORD—when I will take note of everyone d-circumcised in the foreskin:-d 25of Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the desert dwellers who have the hair of their temples clipped. For all these nations are uncircumcised, but all the House of Israel are e-uncircumcised of heart.-e
10 Hear the word which the LORD has spoken to you, O House of Israel!
2Thus said the LORD:
Do not learn to go the way of the nations,
And do not be dismayed by portents in the sky;
Let the nations be dismayed by them!
3For a-the laws of the nations-a are delusions:
For it is the work of a craftsman’s hands.
He cuts down a tree in the forest with an ax,
4He adorns it with silver and gold,
He fastens itb with nails and hammer,
So that it does not totter.
5They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber patch,
They cannot speak.
They have to be carried,
For they cannot walk.
Be not afraid of them, for they can do no harm;
Nor is it in them to do any good.
6O LORD, there is none like You!
You are great and Your name is great in power.
7Who would not revere You, O King of the nations?
For that is Your due,
Since among all the wise of the nations
And among all their royalty
There is none like You.
8But they are both dull and foolish;
c-[Their] doctrine is but delusion;-c
It is a piece of wood,
9Silver beaten flat, that is brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz,
The work of a craftsman and the goldsmith’s hands;
Their clothing is blue and purple,
All of them are the work of skilled men.
10But the LORD is truly God:
He is a living God,
The everlasting King.
At His wrath, the earth quakes,
And nations cannot endure His rage.
11dThus shall you say to them: Let the gods, who did not make heaven and earth, perish from the earth and from under these heavens.
12He made the earth by His might,
Established the world by His wisdom,
And by His understanding stretched out the skies.
13e-When He makes His voice heard,-e
There is a rumbling of water in the skies;
He makes vapors rise from the end of the earth,
He makes lightning for the rain,
And brings forth wind from His treasuries.
14Every man is proved dull, without knowledge;
Every goldsmith is put to shame because of the idol,
For his molten image is a deceit—
There is no breath in them.
15They are delusion, a work of mockery;
In their hour of doom, they shall perish.
16Not like these is the Portion of Jacob;
For it is He who formed all things,
And Israel is His very own tribe:
LORD of Hosts is His name.
17Gather up your bundlee from the ground,
You who dwell under siege!
18For thus said the LORD: I will fling away the inhabitants of the land this time: I will harass them so that they shall f-feel it.-f
19Woe unto me for my hurt,
My wound is severe!
I thought, “This is but a sickness
And I must bear it.”
20My tents are ravaged,
All my tent cords are broken.
My children have gone forth from me
And are no more;
No one is left to stretch out my tents
And hang my tent cloths.
21For the shepherdsg are dull
And did not seek the LORD;
Therefore they have not prospered
And all their flock is scattered.
22Hark, a noise! It is coming,
A great commotion out of the north,
That the towns of Judah may be made a desolation,
A haunt of jackals.
23I know, O LORD, that man’s road is not his [to choose],
That man, as he walks, cannot direct his own steps.
24Chastise me, O LORD, but in measure;
Not in Your wrath, lest You reduce me to naught.
25Pour out Your wrath on the nations who have not heeded You,
Upon the clans that have not invoked Your name.
For they have devoured Jacob,
Have devoured and consumed him,
And have laid desolate his homesteads.
11 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
2“Hear the terms of this covenant, and recite them to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem! 3And say to them, Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man who will not obey the terms of this covenant, 4which I enjoined upon your fathers when I freed them from the land of Egypt, the iron crucible, saying, ‘Obey Me and observe them,a just as I command you, that you may be My people and I may be your God’—5in order to fulfill the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as is now the case.” And I responded, “Amen, LORD.”
6And the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these things through the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the terms of this covenant, and perform them. 7For I have repeatedly and persistently warned your fathers fromb the time I brought them out of Egypt to this day, saying: Obey My commands. 8But they would not listen or give car; they all followed the willfulness of their evil hearts. So I have brought upon them all the termsc of this covenant, because they did not do what I commanded them to do.”
9The LORD said to me, “A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10They have returned to the iniquities of their fathers of old, who refused to heed My words. They, too, have followed other gods and served them. The House of Israel and the House of Judah have broken the covenant that I made with their fathers.”
11Assuredly, thus said the LORD: I am going to bring upon them disaster from which they will not be able to escape. Then they will cry out to me, but I will not listen to them. 12And the townsmend of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to which they sacrifice; but they will not be able to rescue them in their time of disaster. 13For your gods have become as many as your towns, O Judah, and you have set up as many altars to Shamee as there are streets in Jerusalem—altars for sacrifice to Baal.
14As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry of prayer on their behalf; for I will not listen when they call to Me on account of their disaster.
15Why should My beloved be in My House,
f-Who executes so many vile designs?
The sacral flesh will pass away from you,
For you exult while performing your evil deeds.-f
16The LORD named you
“Verdant olive tree,
Fair, with choice fruit.”
But with a great roaring sound
He has set it on fire,
And its boughs are broken.g
17The LORD of Hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster for you, because of the evil wrought by the House of Israel and the House of Judah, who angered Me
