5 For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?
Who will mourn you?
Who will come to ask of your welfare?
6 You have rejected me,” says the LORD.
“You have gone backward.
Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you
and destroyed you.
I am weary of showing compassion.
7 I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land.
I have bereaved them of children.
I have destroyed my people.
They didn’t return from their ways.
8 Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas.
I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday.
I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
9 She who has borne seven languishes.
She has given up the spirit.
Her sun has gone down while it was yet day.
She has been disappointed and confounded.
I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD.
10 Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife,
and a man of contention to the whole earth!
I have not lent, neither have men lent to me;
yet every one of them curses me.
11 The LORD said,
“Most certainly I will strengthen you for good.
Most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil
and in the time of affliction.
12 Can one break iron,
even iron from the north, and bronze?
13 I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder without price,
and that for all your sins,
even in all your borders.
14 I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know;
for a fire is kindled in my anger,
which will burn on you.”
15 LORD, you know.
Remember me, visit me,
and avenge me of my persecutors.
You are patient, so don’t take me away.
Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.
16 Your words were found,
and I ate them.
Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart,
for I am called by your name, LORD, God of Hosts.
17 I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice.
I sat alone because of your hand,
for you have filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain perpetual,
and my wound incurable,
which refuses to be healed?
Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail?
19 Therefore the LORD says,
“If you return, then I will bring you again,
that you may stand before me;
and if you take out the precious from the vile,
you will be as my mouth.
They will return to you,
but you will not return to them.
20 I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall.
They will fight against you,
but they will not prevail against you;
for I am with you to save you
and to deliver you,” says the LORD.
21 “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,
and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”
16
1 Then the LORD’s word came to me, saying, 2 “You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.” 3 For the LORD says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: 4 “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”
5 For the LORD says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says the LORD, “even loving kindness and tender mercies. 6 Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them. 7 Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 “You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” 9 For the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. 10 It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ 11 then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says the LORD, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. 12 You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me. 13 Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
14 “Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that it will no more be said, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ 15 but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16 “Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. 18 First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
19 LORD, my strength, my stronghold,
and my refuge in the day of affliction,
the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth,
and will say,
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
vanity and things in which there is no profit.
20 Should a man make to himself gods
which yet are no gods?”
21 “Therefore behold, I will cause them to know,
this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might.
Then they will know that my name is the LORD.”
17
1 “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron,
and with the point of a diamond.
It is engraved on the tablet of their heart,
and on the horns of your altars.
2 Even their children remember their altars
and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills.
3 My mountain in the field,
I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder,
and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders.
4 You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you.
I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know,
for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.”
5 The LORD says:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man,
relies on strength of flesh,
and whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he will be like a bush in the desert,
and will not see when good comes,
but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
and whose confidence is in the LORD.
8 For he will be as a tree planted by the waters,
who spreads out its roots by the river,
and will not fear when heat comes,
but its leaf will be green,
and will not be concerned in the year of drought.
It won’t cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and it is exceedingly corrupt.
Who can know it?
10 “I, the LORD, search the mind.
I try the heart,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings.”
11 As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid,
so is he who gets riches, and not by right.
In the middle of his days, they will leave him.
At his end, he will be a fool.
12 A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning,
is the place of our sanctuary.
13 LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you will be disappointed.
Those who depart from me will be written in the earth,
because they have forsaken the LORD,
the spring of living waters.
14 Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed.
Save me, and I will be saved;
for you are my praise.
15 Behold, they ask me,
“Where is the LORD’s word?
Let it be fulfilled now.”
16 As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you.
I haven’t desired the woeful day. You know.
That which came out of my lips was before your face.
17 Don’t be a terror to me.
You are my refuge in the day of evil.
18 Let them be disappointed who persecute me,
but don’t let me be disappointed.
Let them be dismayed,
but don’t let me be dismayed.
Bring on
