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 by sacrificing to Baal.
18The LORD informed me, and I knew—
Then You let me see their deeds.
19For I was like a docile lamb
Led to the slaughter;
I did not realize
That it was against me
They fashioned their plots:
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,h
Let us cut him off from the land of the living.
That his name be remembered no more!”
20O LORD of Hosts, O just Judge,
Who test the thoughts and the mind,
Let me see Your retribution upon them,
For I lay my case before You.
21Assuredly, thus said the LORD of Hosts concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life and say, “You must not prophesy any more in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand”—22Assuredly, thus said the LORD of Hosts: “I am going to deal with them: the young men shall die by the sword, their boys and girls shall die by famine. 23No remnant shall be left of them, for I will bring disaster on the men of Anathoth, the year of their doom.”
12
You will win,a O LORD,if I make claim against You,
Yet I shall present charges against You:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are the workers of treachery at ease?
2You have planted them, and they have taken root,
They spread, they even bear fruit.
You are present in their mouths,
But far from their thoughts.
3Yet You, LORD, have noted and observed me;
You have tested my heart, and found it with You.
Drive them out like sheep to the slaughter,
Prepare them for the day of slaying!
4How long must the land languish,
And the grass of all the countryside dry up?
Must beasts and birds perish,
Because of the evil of its inhabitants,
Who say, “He will not look upon our future”?b
5cIf you race with the foot-runners and they exhaust you,
How then can you compete with horses?
If you are d-secure only-d in a tranquil land,
How will you fare in the jungle of the Jordan?
6For even your kinsmen and your father’s house,
Even they are treacherous toward you,
They cry after you as a mob.
Do not believe them
When they speak cordially to you.
7I have abandoned My House,
I have deserted My possession,
I have given over My dearly beloved
Into the hands of her enemies.
8My own peoplee acted toward Me
Like a lion in the forest;
She raised her voice against Me—
Therefore I have rejected her.
9f-My own people acts toward Me
Like a bird of prey [or] a hyena;
Let the birds of prey surround her!-f
Go, gather all the wild beasts,
Bring them to devour!
10Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard,
Have trampled My field,
Have made My delightful field
A desolate wilderness.
11g-They have-g made her a desolation;
Desolate, she pours out grief to Me.
The whole land is laid desolate,
But no man gives it thought.
12Spoilers have come
Upon all the bare heights of the wilderness.
For a sword of the LORD devours
From one end of the land to the other;
No flesh is safe.
13They have sown wheat and reaped thorns,
They have endured pain to no avail.
Be shamed, then, by your harvest—
By the blazing wrath of the LORD!
14Thus said the LORD: As for My wicked neighbors who encroach on the heritage that I gave to My people Israel—I am going to uproot them from their soil, and I will uproot the House of Judah out of the midst of them. 15Then, after I have uprooted them, I will take them back into favor, and restore them each to his own inheritance and his own land. 16And if they learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name—“As the LORD lives”—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be h-built up in the midst of-h My people. 17But if they do not give heed, I will tear out that nation, tear it out and destroy it— declares the LORD.
13 Thus the LORD said to me: “Go buy yourself a loincloth of linen, and put it around your loins, but do not dip it into water.” 2So I bought the loincloth in accordance with the LORD’s command, and put it about my loins. 3And the word of the LORD came to me a second time: 4“Take the loincloth which you bought, which is about your loins, and go at once to Peratha and cover it up there in a cleft of the rock.” 5I went and buried it at Perath, as the LORD had commanded me. 6Then, after a long time, the LORD said to me, “Go at once to Perath and take there the loincloth which I commanded you to bury there.” 7So I went to Perath and dug up the loincloth from the place where I had buried it; and found the loincloth ruined; it was not good for anything.
8The word of the LORD came to me: 9Thus said the LORD: Even so will I ruin the overweening pride of Judah and Jerusalem. 10This wicked people who refuse to heed My bidding, who follow the willfulness of their own hearts, who follow other gods and serve them and worship them, shall become like that loincloth, which is not good for anything. 11For as the loincloth clings close to the loins of a man, so I brought close to Me the whole House of Israel and the whole House of Judah—declares the LORD—that they might be My people, for fame, and praise, and splendor. But they would not obey.
12And speak this word to them: Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: “Every jar should be filled with wine.” And when they say to you,
