Lamentations 2 Cross References - BSB

¹ How 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. ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes. ³ In fierce anger He has cut off every horn of Israel and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. ⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. ⁵ The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. ⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest. ⁷ The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast. ⁸ The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away. ⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD. ¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. ¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. ¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers. ¹³ What 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? ¹⁴ The 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. ¹⁵ All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?” ¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!” ¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes. ¹⁸ The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest. ¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. ²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? ²¹ Both 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. ²² You summoned my attackers on every side, as for the day of an appointed feast. In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived; my enemy has destroyed those I nurtured and reared.

²¹ And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” because the ark of God had been captured and her father-in-law and her husband had been killed.

¹⁹ “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!

² Then King David rose to his feet and said, “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. It was in my heart to build a house as a resting place for the ark of the covenant of the LORD and as a footstool for our God. I had made preparations to build it,

⁵ Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at His footstool; He is holy!

⁷ Let us go to His dwelling place; let us worship at His footstool.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations. ¹³ You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north. ¹⁴ I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” ¹⁵ But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.

¹¹ Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.

¹ How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

⁴³ You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity. ⁴⁴ You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through.

¹ How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

²⁰ His beautiful ornaments they transformed into pride and used them to fashion their vile images and detestable idols. Therefore I will make these into something unclean for them. ²¹ And I will hand these things over as plunder to foreigners and loot to the wicked of the earth, who will defile them. ²² I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My treasured place. Violent men will enter it, and they will defile it.

²¹ Tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I am about to desecrate My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and the delight of your soul. And the sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword.’

¹⁴ You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for I had ordained you. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. ¹⁵ From the day you were created you were blameless in your ways—until wickedness was found in you. ¹⁶ By the vastness of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and I banished you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.

¹⁸ The day will be darkened in Tahpanhes when I break the yoke of Egypt and her proud strength comes to an end. A cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.

⁷ When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. ⁸ All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you, and I will bring darkness upon your land,’ declares the Lord GOD.

² a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like the dawn overspreading the mountains a great and strong army appears, such as never was of old, nor will ever be in ages to come.

²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

¹⁵ And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades!

¹⁸ So He told them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

⁷ Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. ⁸ But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. ⁹ And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

³ Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”

⁹ You will place them in a fiery furnace at the time of Your appearing. In His wrath the LORD will engulf them, and the fire will consume them.

³⁹ You have renounced the covenant with Your servant and sullied his crown in the dust. ⁴⁰ You have broken down all his walls; You have reduced his strongholds to rubble.

⁹ The LORD of Hosts planned it, to defile all its glorious beauty, to disgrace all the renowned of the earth.

¹² The high-walled fortress will be brought down, cast to the ground, into the dust.

⁵ For He has humbled those who dwell on high; He lays the lofty city low. He brings it down to the ground; He casts it into the dust.

¹¹ When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

²⁸ So I will disgrace the princes of your sanctuary, and I will devote Jacob to destruction and Israel to reproach.”

⁶ I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

¹⁰ Go 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.

¹⁴ I will smash them against one another, fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no mercy or pity or compassion to keep Me from destroying them.’”

⁷ ‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

⁵ The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

¹⁷ The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

²¹ Both 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.

⁴³ You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.

¹¹ Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations, I Myself will withdraw My favor; I will not look upon you with pity, nor will I spare you.

⁴ I 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 I am the LORD.’

⁹ I 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.

¹⁸ Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. Although they shout loudly in My ears, I will not listen to them.”

¹⁰ But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads.”

¹¹ I will remove the cities of your land and tear down all your strongholds. ¹² I will cut the sorceries from your hand, and you will have no fortune-tellers.

⁵ whose buyers slaughter them without remorse. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion on them. ⁶ For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land, declares the LORD, but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hands of his neighbor and his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.”

⁴ Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the LORD is indignant forever.

³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’

⁴ The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

²² For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

¹⁵ I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.

¹¹ Why do You withdraw Your strong right hand? Stretch it out to destroy them!

⁵ Do not lift up your horn against heaven or speak with an outstretched neck.’”

¹⁰ “All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous will be exalted.”

⁵ How long, O LORD? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?

²⁴ My faithfulness and loving devotion will be with him, and through My name his horn will be exalted.

⁴⁶ How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath keep burning like fire?

¹⁷ There I will make a horn grow for David; I have prepared a lamp for My anointed one.

³¹ The strong man will become tinder and his work will be a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the flames.

²⁵ So He poured out on them His furious anger and the fierceness of battle. It enveloped them in flames, but they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds.”

²⁰ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

⁴ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city. ⁵ And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath.

¹⁴ I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the LORD. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”

²⁵ The horn of Moab has been cut off, and his arm is broken,” declares the LORD.

¹ “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”

⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David,

¹⁷ His 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.”

²¹ “Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for those remaining in Israel and Judah concerning the words in the book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that has been poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD by doing all that is written in this book.”

²⁵ because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be poured out upon this place and will not be quenched.’

⁴ For the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks in their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.

¹² I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target; ¹³ His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground. ¹⁴ He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.

¹⁷ Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of His fury; you who have drained the goblet to the dregs—the cup that makes men stagger. ¹⁸ Among all the sons she bore, there is no one to guide her; among all the sons she brought up, there is no one to take her hand. ¹⁹ These pairs have befallen you: devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Who will grieve for you? Who can comfort you? ²⁰ Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

⁶ I trampled the nations in My anger; in My wrath I made them drunk and poured out their blood on the ground.”

¹⁰ But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

⁵ And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath.

¹² O 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.

¹⁴ All 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.

⁷ Perhaps they will bring their petition before the LORD, and each one will turn from his wicked way; for great are the anger and fury that the LORD has pronounced against this people.”

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

¹² He bent His bow and set me as the target for His arrow. ¹³ He pierced my kidneys with His arrows.

¹³ And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken.

¹² He 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.

²² As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted within the city. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have poured out My wrath upon you.’”

²⁵ And you, son of man, know that on the day I take away their stronghold, their pride and joy—the desire of their eyes which uplifted their souls—and their sons and daughters as well,

¹⁸ So I poured out My wrath upon them because of the blood they had shed on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols.

² The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

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

⁹ He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

¹⁶ But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy. ¹⁷ So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

¹⁷ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them. ¹⁸ Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water. ¹⁹ For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’” ²⁰ Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.

¹ Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go.

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

² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.

⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

¹⁰ which He unrolled before me. And written on the front and back of it were words of lamentation, mourning, and woe.

¹² Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit?

⁴⁰ You have broken down all his walls; You have reduced his strongholds to rubble.

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

¹³ Bring your worthless offerings no more; your incense is detestable to Me—your New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations. I cannot endure iniquity in a solemn assembly.

⁵ Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.

¹⁸ For a short while Your people possessed Your holy place, but our enemies have trampled Your sanctuary.

¹¹ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day. ¹² On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign over Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. ¹³ He burned down the house of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building. ¹⁴ And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the craftsmen. ¹⁶ But Nebuzaradan captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields. ¹⁷ Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and they carried all the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸ They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes, and all the articles of bronze used in the temple service. ¹⁹ The captain of the guard also took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—anything made of pure gold or fine silver. ²⁰ As for the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls under it, and the movable stands that King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the weight of the bronze from all these articles was beyond measure. ²¹ Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall and twelve cubits in circumference; each was hollow, four fingers thick. ²² The bronze capital atop one pillar was five cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its pomegranates, was similar. ²³ Each capital had ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, and a total of a hundred pomegranates were above the surrounding network. ²⁴ The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers. ²⁵ Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as seven trusted royal advisers. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city. ²⁶ Nebuzaradan captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. ²⁷ There at Riblah in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death. So Judah was taken into exile, away from its own land.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.

¹⁶ The presence of the LORD has scattered them; He regards them no more. The priests are shown no honor; the elders find no favor.

²⁰ The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”

¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

¹² And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land. ¹³ But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

¹⁸ He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Seeing that he gave his hand in pledge yet did all these things, he will not escape!’

¹⁸ “I will gather those among you who grieve over the appointed feasts, so that you will no longer suffer reproach.

⁹ “So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

³¹ I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.

⁴⁴ Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or despise them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.

¹⁹ Then 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.

⁴ May he vindicate the afflicted among the people; may he save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. ⁵ May they fear him as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains, through all generations. ⁶ May he be like rain that falls on freshly cut grass, like spring showers that water the earth. ⁷ May the righteous flourish in his days and prosperity abound, until the moon is no more. ⁸ May he rule from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth. ⁹ May the nomads bow before him, and his enemies lick the dust. ¹⁰ May the kings of Tarshish and distant shores bring tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. ¹¹ May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him. ¹² For he will deliver the needy who cry out and the afflicted who have no helper. ¹³ He will take pity on the poor and needy and save the lives of the oppressed. ¹⁴ He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their blood is precious in his sight. ¹⁵ Long may he live! May gold from Sheba be given him. May people ever pray for him; may they bless him all day long. ¹⁶ May there be an abundance of grain in the land; may it sway atop the hills. May its fruit trees flourish like the forests of Lebanon, and its people like the grass of the field. ¹⁷ May his name endure forever; may his name continue as long as the sun shines. In him may all nations be blessed; may they call him blessed. ¹⁸ Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. ¹⁹ And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. ²⁰ Thus conclude the prayers of David son of Jesse.

³ Turn Your steps to the everlasting ruins, to everything in the sanctuary the enemy has destroyed. ⁴ Your foes have roared within Your meeting place; they have unfurled their banners as signs, ⁵ like men wielding axes in a thicket of trees ⁶ and smashing all the carvings with hatchets and picks. ⁷ They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your Name. ⁸ They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely.” They burned down every place where God met us in the land.

⁵⁹ On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely. ⁶⁰ He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men. ⁶¹ He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.

¹² But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. ¹³ And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer, ¹⁴ therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers.

⁶ then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

¹⁸ “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’

²⁹ And the Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come in, set it on fire, and burn it, along with the houses of those who provoked Me to anger by burning incense to Baal on their rooftops and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods.

³ Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know. ⁴ For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah that have been torn down for defense against the siege ramps and the sword: ⁵ The Chaldeans are coming to fight and to fill those places with the corpses of the men I will strike down in My anger and in My wrath. I have hidden My face from this city because of all its wickedness.

⁸ The Chaldeans set fire to the palace of the king and to the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

¹ How 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.

²⁴ So I will bring the most wicked of nations to take possession of their houses. I will end the pride of the mighty, and their holy places will be profaned.

⁵ So I will send fire upon Judah to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.”

¹² Therefore, 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 “Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

¹³ where they presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. ¹⁴ For we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

² David also defeated the Moabites, made them lie down on the ground, and measured them off with a cord. He measured off with two lengths those to be put to death, and with one length those to be spared. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute.

¹³ I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.

²¹ Withdraw Your hand from me, and do not let Your terror frighten me.

²⁶ And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.

¹⁷ I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level. Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies, and water will flood your hiding place.

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

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

²² But I withheld My hand and acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

⁷ This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand. ⁸ “Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD. “A plumb line,” I replied. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

¹² Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive. ¹³ As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD. ¹⁴ He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained. ¹⁵ Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.

⁷ And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

³ For many years Israel has been without the true God, without a priest to instruct them, and without the law.

³ And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”

⁹ There are no signs for us to see. There is no longer any prophet. And none of us knows how long this will last.

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.

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

³⁰ The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken.

⁸ but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him. ⁹ The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah.

¹⁴ And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.

³ Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

¹⁵ “Go away! Unclean!” men shouted at them. “Away, away! Do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered. Among the nations it was said, “They can stay here no longer.”

²⁶ Disaster 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.

¹³ But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

²⁰ I will spread My net over him and catch him in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment upon him there for the treason he committed against Me.

⁴ For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol.

¹¹ Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. ¹² People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

⁶ Therefore night will come over you without visions, and darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them. ⁷ Then the seers will be ashamed and the diviners will be disgraced. They will all cover their mouths because there is no answer from God.”

⁶ Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the LORD until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.

¹⁹ And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore her robe. And putting her hand on her head, she went away crying bitterly.

¹² When they lifted up their eyes from afar, they could barely recognize Job. They began to weep aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust in the air over his head. ¹³ Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.

³ In its streets they wear sackcloth; on the rooftops and in the public squares they all wail, falling down weeping.

²² Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

¹ “Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate.

⁵ “Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms.

¹⁴ Why 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.

²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence, for God has disciplined him.

⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps.

¹⁴ The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.

¹⁸ They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.

³¹ They will shave their heads for you and wrap themselves in sackcloth. They will weep over you with anguish of soul and bitter mourning.

⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.

¹³ Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

³ “In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

¹³ In that day the lovely young women—the young men as well—will faint from thirst.

¹⁹ Then they will throw dust on their heads as they weep and mourn and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, where all who had ships on the sea were enriched by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been destroyed.”

⁴ So David and the troops with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no strength left to weep.

¹³ His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

⁷ My eyes fail from grief; they grow dim because of all my foes.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.

⁹ Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes fail from sorrow, my soul and body as well.

³ I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

⁴ Therefore 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.”

¹⁴ I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”

¹⁹ My 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.

¹⁹ Listen 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?”

¹⁷ You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound.

⁷ So now, this is what the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves by cutting off from Judah man and woman, child and infant, leaving yourselves without a remnant?

¹⁶ For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.

²⁰ See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street. ²⁰ Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

⁴⁸ Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹ My eyes overflow unceasingly, without relief, ⁵⁰ until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees. ⁵¹ My eyes bring grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness. ⁴ The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce. ¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

²⁹ Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’

¹² Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

²⁴ I will strengthen the arms of Babylon’s king and place My sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, who will groan before him like a mortally wounded man.

²⁰ So David went to Baal-perazim, where he defeated the Philistines and said, “Like a bursting flood, the LORD has burst out against my enemies before me.” So he called that place Baal-perazim.

² You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking.

²² this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

²² Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?

¹² For this is what the LORD says: “Your injury is incurable; your wound is grievous. ¹³ There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sores, no recovery for you. ¹⁴ All 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. ¹⁵ Why do you cry out over your wound? Your pain has no cure! Because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins I have done these things to you.

⁸ Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been shattered. Wail for her; get her balm for her pain; perhaps she can be healed. ⁹ “We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”

¹² Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

³ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, O Tyre, I am against you, and I will raise up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. ⁴ They will destroy the walls of Tyre and demolish her towers. I will scrape the soil from her and make her a bare rock.

¹² You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies. ¹⁶ For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up.

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.

⁸ The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.

³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

¹³ “For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit. ¹⁴ They dress the wound of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.

¹⁰ Therefore 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. ¹¹ They dress the wound of the daughter of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.

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. ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end!

¹¹ “For both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the LORD. ¹² “Therefore their path will become slick; they will be driven away into the darkness and fall into it. For I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment,” declares the LORD. ¹³ “Among the prophets of Samaria I saw an offensive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray. ¹⁴ And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.” ¹⁶ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are filling you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. ¹⁷ They 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.’

²² But if they had stood in My council, they would have proclaimed My words to My people and turned them back from their evil ways and deeds.”

²⁵ “I have heard the sayings of the prophets who prophesy lies in My name: ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ ²⁶ How long will this continue in the hearts of these prophets who prophesy falsehood, these prophets of the delusion of their own minds? ²⁷ They suppose the dreams that they tell one another will make My people forget My name, just as their fathers forgot My name through the worship of Baal. ²⁸ Let the prophet who has a dream retell it, but let him who has My word speak it truthfully. For what is straw compared to grain?” declares the LORD. ²⁹ “Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?”

³¹ “Yes,” declares the LORD, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and proclaim, ‘The LORD declares it.’” ³² “Indeed,” declares the LORD, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams and retell them to lead My people astray with their reckless lies. It was not I who sent them or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people,” declares the LORD. ³³ “Now when this people or a prophet or priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the LORD?’ you are to say to them, ‘What burden? I will forsake you, declares the LORD.’ ³⁴ As for the prophet or priest or anyone who claims, ‘This is the burden of the LORD,’ I will punish that man and his household.

³⁶ But refer no more to the burden of the LORD, for each man’s word becomes the burden, so that you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of Hosts, our God.

⁹ But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums, or your sorcerers who declare, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ ¹⁰ For they prophesy to you a lie that will serve to remove you from your land; I will banish you and you will perish.

¹⁴ Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say, ‘You must not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they are prophesying to you a lie. ¹⁵ For I have not sent them, declares the LORD, and yet they are prophesying falsely in My name; therefore I will banish you, and you will perish—you and the prophets who prophesy to you.” ¹⁶ Then I said to the priests and to all this people, “This is what the LORD says: Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, very soon now the articles from the house of the LORD will be brought back from Babylon.’ They are prophesying to you a lie.

¹⁵ Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The LORD did not send you, but you have persuaded this people to trust in a lie.

⁸ For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you, and do not listen to the dreams you elicit from them. ⁹ For they are falsely prophesying to you in My name; I have not sent them, declares the LORD.”

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

² “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are now prophesying. Tell those who prophesy out of their own imagination: Hear the word of the LORD! ³ This is what the Lord GOD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, yet have seen nothing. ⁴ Your prophets, O Israel, are like foxes among the ruins. ⁵ You did not go up to the gaps or restore the wall around the house of Israel so that it would stand in the battle on the Day of the LORD. ⁶ They see false visions and speak lying divinations. They claim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ when the LORD did not send them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their message. ⁷ Haven’t you seen a false vision and spoken a lying divination when you proclaim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ even though I have not spoken? ⁸ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Because you have uttered vain words and seen false visions, I am against you, declares the Lord GOD. ⁹ My 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. ¹⁰ Because they have led My people astray, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and whitewashing any flimsy wall that is built, ¹¹ tell those whitewashing the wall that it will fall. Rain will come in torrents, I will send hailstones plunging down, and a windstorm will burst forth. ¹² Surely when the wall has fallen, you will not be asked, ‘Where is the whitewash with which you covered it?’ ¹³ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: In My wrath I will release a windstorm, and in My anger torrents of rain and hail will fall with destructive fury. ¹⁴ I will tear down the wall you whitewashed and level it to the ground, so that its foundation is exposed. The city will fall, and you will be destroyed within it. Then you will know that I am the LORD. ¹⁵ And after I have vented My wrath against the wall and against those who whitewashed it, I will say to you: ‘The wall is gone, and so are those who whitewashed it— ¹⁶ those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw a vision of peace for her when there was no peace, declares the Lord GOD.’

²² Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,

²⁵ The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They devour the people, seize the treasures and precious things, and multiply the widows within her.

²⁸ Her prophets whitewash these deeds by false visions and lying divinations, saying, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken.

¹¹ If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

⁵ This is what the LORD says: “As for the prophets who lead My people astray, who proclaim peace while they chew with their teeth, but declare war against one who puts nothing in their mouths:

⁴ Her prophets are reckless, faithless men. Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to the law.

¹ Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ² Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed. ³ In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.

²² Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it. ²³ All 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. ²⁴ So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ ²⁵ And 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. ²⁶ They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book. ²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

²¹ This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

²¹ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

²² It hurls itself against him without mercy as he flees headlong from its power. ²³ It claps its hands at him and hisses him out of his place.

⁷ All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:

¹⁴ You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples. ¹⁵ All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face,

² Beautiful in loftiness, the joy of all the earth, like the peaks of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the great King.

² From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.

¹⁶ They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.

⁸ I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

⁹ behold, 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.

¹⁸ to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;

¹⁸ I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them.

³⁷ Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.

⁸ Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

⁶ He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.

¹⁶ All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

⁶ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt,

¹⁶ You have kept the statutes of Omri and all the practices of Ahab’s house; you have followed their counsel. Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of contempt; you will bear the scorn of the nations.”

¹⁹ There is no healing for your injury; your wound is severe. All who hear the news of you applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?

¹⁵ This carefree city that dwells securely, that thinks to herself: “I am it, and there is none besides me,” what a ruin she has become, a resting place for beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

³⁹ And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads

²⁹ And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,

⁹ His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes. ¹⁰ They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.

¹³ They open their jaws against me like lions that roar and maul.

¹⁶ Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed their teeth at me.

²¹ They gape at me and say, “Aha, aha! Our eyes have seen!”

¹² The wicked scheme against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them,

⁸ “A vile disease has been poured into him; he will never get up from where he lies!”

² My enemies pursue me all day long, for many proudly assail me.

³ He reaches down from heaven and saves me; He rebukes those who trample me. Selah God sends forth His loving devotion and His truth.

² For wicked and deceitful mouths open against me; they speak against me with lying tongues.

¹⁰ The wicked man will see and be grieved; he will gnash his teeth and waste away; the desires of the wicked will perish.

³ when their anger flared against us, then they would have swallowed us alive,

¹⁹ For your ruined and desolate places and your ravaged land will now indeed be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.

⁷ All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the LORD, their true pasture, the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’

¹⁷ Israel 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.”

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out.

⁴⁶ All our enemies open their mouths against us.

³ Tell the Ammonites to hear the word of the Lord GOD, for this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you exclaimed, “Aha!” when My sanctuary was profaned, when the land of Israel was laid waste, and when the house of Judah went into exile,

¹⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because the Philistines acted in vengeance, taking vengeance with malice of soul to destroy Judah with ancient hostility,

³ therefore prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Because they have made you desolate and have trampled you on every side, so that you became a possession of the rest of the nations and were taken up in slander by the lips of their talkers,

⁸ Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.

¹² But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their distress. ¹³ You should not enter the gate of My people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over their affliction in the day of their disaster, nor loot their wealth in the day of their disaster. ¹⁴ Nor should you stand at the crossroads to cut off their fugitives, nor deliver up their survivors in the day of their distress. ¹⁵ For the Day of the LORD is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head. ¹⁶ For as you drank on My holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and gulp it down; they will be as if they had never existed.

⁸ “I have heard the reproach of Moab and the insults of the Ammonites, who have taunted My people and threatened their borders. ⁹ Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.” ¹⁰ This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts.

⁵⁴ On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him.

¹⁴ If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments, ¹⁵ and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, ¹⁶ then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸ And if after all this you will not obey Me, I will proceed to punish you sevenfold for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit. ²¹ If you walk in hostility toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times, according to your sins. ²² I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate. ²³ And if in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁴ then I will act with hostility toward you, and I will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied. ²⁷ But if in spite of all this you do not obey Me, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, ²⁸ then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you. ³¹ I will reduce your cities to rubble and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will refuse to smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. ³² And I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who dwell in it will be appalled. ³³ But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste. ³⁴ Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not receive during the Sabbaths when you lived in it. ³⁶ As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another as before the sword, though no one is behind them. So you will not be able to stand against your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you. ³⁹ Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers. ⁴⁰ But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me— ⁴¹ and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. ⁴³ For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or despise them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵ But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.” ⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws that the LORD established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

¹⁵ If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. ¹⁷ Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. ²⁰ The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him. ²¹ The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess. ²² The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish. ²³ The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. ²⁴ The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away. ²⁷ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, ²⁹ and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you. ³⁰ You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. ³³ A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. ³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights you see. ³⁵ The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹ You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. ⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. ⁴² Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land. ⁴³ The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you. ⁴⁶ These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, ⁴⁸ you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. ⁵¹ They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates. ⁵⁸ If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God— ⁵⁹ He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. ⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. ⁶⁶ So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see. ⁶⁸ The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

¹⁸ Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹ because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. ²⁰ The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven ²¹ and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. ²² Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it. ²³ All 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.

¹⁶ And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them. ¹⁷ On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’

¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶ They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear. ¹⁸ You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth. ¹⁹ When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters. ²⁰ He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness. ²¹ They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding. ²² For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them. ²⁴ They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust. ²⁵ Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man. ²⁶ I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind, ²⁷ if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”

¹⁶ For I said, “Let them not gloat over me—those who taunt me when my foot slips.”

⁴² You have exalted the right hand of his foes; You have made all his enemies rejoice.

¹¹ Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.’

⁵ Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.

¹ How 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. ² Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.

⁸ The LORD determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.

⁸ Very 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. ⁹ I 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.

³ Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I am planning against this nation a disaster from which you cannot free your necks. Then you will not walk so proudly, for it will be a time of calamity.

¹³⁶ My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.

¹⁴⁵ I call with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will obey Your statutes.

¹⁶ O LORD, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer. ¹⁷ As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD.

³¹ For 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!”

¹ Oh, 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.

¹⁷ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them. ¹⁸ Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

¹⁷ But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

² She 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.

⁴⁸ Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people. ⁴⁹ My eyes overflow unceasingly, without relief,

¹⁴ They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me.

¹¹ For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork.

¹⁹ Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the changing of the guard. They blew their horns and broke the jars that were in their hands.

¹⁵ “No, my lord,” Hannah replied. “I am a woman oppressed in spirit. I have not had any wine or strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the LORD.

⁶ When they had gathered at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted, and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel judged the Israelites at Mizpah.

²⁴ I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.

² Hear my cry for mercy when I call to You for help, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.

⁸ The LORD decrees His loving devotion by day, and at night His song is with me as a prayer to the God of my life.

⁸ Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

⁴ So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift my hands.

⁵⁵ In the night, O LORD, I remember Your name, that I may keep Your law.

¹⁴⁷ I rise before dawn and cry for help; in Your word I have put my hope. ¹⁴⁸ My eyes anticipate the watches of night, that I may meditate on Your word.

² Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless the LORD!

² May my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.

² I pour out my complaint before Him; I reveal my trouble to Him.

⁹ My soul longs for You in the night; indeed, my spirit seeks You at dawn. For when Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.

²⁰ Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. ¹² They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.

¹ How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner. ² How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands! ³ Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness. ⁴ The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any. ⁵ Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; those brought up in crimson huddle in ash heaps. ⁶ The 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. ⁷ Her dignitaries were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. ⁸ But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. ⁹ Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

¹⁰ As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’

¹⁶ When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.

¹⁰ Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in chains.

²⁵ During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea.

³⁵ Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place to pray.

³⁵ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know when the master of the house will return—whether in the evening, at midnight, when the rooster crows, or in the morning.

¹² In those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God.

⁸ Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or dissension.

¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.

²⁶ And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

⁵³ Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵ refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

²⁸ Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”

⁶⁴ His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

¹⁴ So the LORD will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day. ¹⁵ The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies. ¹⁶ For those who guide this people mislead them, and those they mislead are swallowed up. ¹⁷ Therefore the Lord takes no pleasure in their young men; He has no compassion on their fatherless and widows. For every one of them is godless and wicked, and every mouth speaks folly. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

¹⁶ Yet You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name. ¹⁷ Why, O LORD, do You make us stray from Your ways and harden our hearts from fearing You? Return, for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage. ¹⁸ For a short while Your people possessed Your holy place, but our enemies have trampled Your sanctuary. ¹⁹ We have become like those You never ruled, like those not called by Your name.

⁸ But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand. ⁹ Do not be angry, O LORD, beyond measure; do not remember our iniquity forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray; we are all Your people! ¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins. ¹² After all this, O LORD, will You restrain Yourself? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end! ¹⁶ And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them. ¹⁷ You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound. ¹⁸ If 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.’”

²⁰ We acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD, the guilt of our fathers; indeed, we have sinned against You. ²¹ For the sake of Your name do not despise us; do not disgrace Your glorious throne. Remember Your covenant with us; do not break it.

⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’

¹¹ “For both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the LORD. ¹² “Therefore their path will become slick; they will be driven away into the darkness and fall into it. For I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment,” declares the LORD. ¹³ “Among the prophets of Samaria I saw an offensive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray. ¹⁴ And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”

¹⁹ I 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.

¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹³ But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

⁵ And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone! ⁶ Slaughter 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.

⁵⁰ a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.

²¹ At the edge of the sword they devoted to destruction everything in the city—man and woman, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.

³ Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

¹⁷ So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

¹³ And the letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—and to plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.

⁶² He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage. ⁶³ Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

¹¹ But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.

²¹ For 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.

²² So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.

²¹ Therefore, 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.

²² With you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter the old man and the youth; with you I shatter the young man and the maiden.

¹⁵ The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

¹⁸ The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.

¹⁰ “I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

⁶ For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land, declares the LORD, but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hands of his neighbor and his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.”

¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

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

¹⁷ Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of the earth. ¹⁸ Whoever flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.

²⁵ Do not go out to the fields; do not walk the road. For the enemy has a sword; terror is on every side.

² “You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.” ³ For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land: ⁴ “They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

³ The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.

⁵ Why am I seeing this? They are terrified, they are retreating; their warriors are defeated, they flee in haste without looking back; terror is on every side!” declares the LORD.

¹² Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them! ¹³ I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a meadow. But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter. ¹⁴ Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up! ¹⁵ All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them from My house for the wickedness of their deeds. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious. ¹⁶ Ephraim is struck down; their root is withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay the darlings of their wombs.

¹ I 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. ² Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down. ³ Though they hide themselves atop Carmel, there I will track them and seize them; and though they hide from Me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. ⁴ Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

²⁹ Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’