Jeremiah 2 Cross References - MSB

¹ Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. ³ Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her found themselves guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD. ⁴ Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all you families of the house of Israel. ⁵ This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me, and followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves? ⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’ ⁷ I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land, and made My inheritance detestable. 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. ⁹ Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children. ¹⁰ Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and take a look; send to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this: ¹¹ Has a nation ever changed its gods, though they are no gods at all? Yet My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols. ¹² Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the LORD. ¹³ “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water. ¹⁴ Is Israel a slave? Was he born into slavery? Why then has he become prey? ¹⁵ The young lions have roared at him; they have growled with a loud voice. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant. ¹⁶ The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head. ¹⁷ Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way? ¹⁸ Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates? ¹⁹ Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts. ²⁰ “For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute. ²¹ I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine? ²² Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD. ²³ “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there, ²⁴ a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her. ²⁵ You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’ ²⁶ As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets ²⁷ say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble they beg, ‘Rise up and save us!’ ²⁸ But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah. ²⁹ Why do you bring a case against Me? You have all rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD. ³⁰ “I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.” ³¹ You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’? ³² Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number. ³³ How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways. ³⁴ Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things ³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’ ³⁶ How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria. ³⁷ Moreover, you will leave that place with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those you trust; you will not prosper by their help.”

¹¹ And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

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.

¹ And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

¹ On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets.

²¹ For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but holy men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

³¹ When Israel saw the great power that the LORD had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.

⁸ And Moses added, “The LORD will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD.”

³ When Moses came and told the people all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all responded with one voice: “All the words that the LORD has spoken, we will do.” ⁴ And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Early the next morning he got up and built an altar at the base of the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ Then he sent out some young men of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD. ⁶ Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷ Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people, who replied, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” ⁸ So Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

⁷ Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.

² Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

¹⁵ He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint. ¹⁶ He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.

¹² You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel. ¹³ You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them just ordinances, true laws, and good statutes and commandments. ¹⁴ You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments and statutes and laws through Your servant Moses. ¹⁵ In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land which You had sworn to give them. ¹⁶ But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments. ¹⁷ They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them. ¹⁸ Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies, ¹⁹ You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go. ²⁰ You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst. ²¹ For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

²⁰ Wisdom calls out in the street, she lifts her voice in the square;

¹ Does not wisdom call out, and understanding raise her voice? ² On the heights overlooking the road, at the crossroads she takes her stand. ³ Beside the gates to the city, at the entrances she cries out: ⁴ “To you, O men, I call out, and my cry is to the sons of men.

¹¹ Come out, O daughters of Zion, and gaze at King Solomon, wearing the crown his mother bestowed on the day of his wedding—the day of his heart’s rejoicing.

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.

⁷ I will make known the LORD’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the LORD has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion. ⁸ For He said, “They are surely My people, sons who will not be disloyal.” So He became their Savior. ⁹ In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. ¹⁰ But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them. ¹¹ Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them, ¹² who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown, ¹³ who led them through the depths like a horse in the wilderness, so that they did not stumble? ¹⁴ Like cattle going down to the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. You led Your people this way to make for Yourself a glorious name.

⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’

² “Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD.

⁶ Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

² and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you,

⁸ Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.

²² And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.

⁶⁰ But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

³ and they played in Egypt, prostituting themselves from their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin bosoms caressed.

⁸ She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when men slept with her in her youth, caressed her virgin bosom, and poured out their lust upon her.

¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt

¹⁵ There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹ Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the LORD, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.

² “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.”

¹⁵ He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

²² Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son, ²³ and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’”

⁵ Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. ⁶ And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

²⁹ You must not hold back offerings from your granaries or vats. You are to give Me the firstborn of your sons.

¹⁶ You are also to keep the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the produce from what you sow in the field. And keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your produce from the field.

¹² I give you all the freshest olive oil and all the finest new wine and grain that the Israelites give to the LORD as their firstfruits.

⁶ For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

² for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

¹⁹ that He will set you high in praise and name and honor above all the nations He has made, and that you will be a holy people to the LORD your God, as He has promised.

¹⁴ how soon I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes! ¹⁵ Those who hate the LORD would feign obedience, and their doom would last forever.

¹⁴ He let no man oppress them; He rebuked kings on their behalf: ¹⁵ “Do not touch My anointed ones! Do no harm to My prophets!”

²⁵ whose hearts He turned to hate His people, to conspire against His servants. ²⁶ He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen. ²⁷ They performed His miraculous signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. ²⁸ He sent darkness, and it became dark—yet they defied His words. ²⁹ He turned their waters to blood and caused their fish to die. ³⁰ Their land teemed with frogs, even in their royal chambers. ³¹ He spoke, and insects swarmed—gnats throughout their country. ³² He gave them hail for rain, with lightning throughout their land. ³³ He struck their vines and fig trees and shattered the trees of their country. ³⁴ He spoke, and the locusts came—young locusts without number. ³⁵ They devoured every plant in their land and consumed the produce of their soil. ³⁶ Then He struck all the firstborn in their land, the firstfruits of all their vigor.

¹¹ Behold, all who rage against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will be reduced to nothing and will perish.

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.

¹⁴ This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them.

¹⁶ Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries—every one of them—will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.

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.’

³ Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

⁷ It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white. ⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.

¹ Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes.

¹⁵ but I am fiercely angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was a little angry, but they have added to the calamity.’

⁸ For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “After His Glory has sent Me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye—

² “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. Judah will be besieged, as well as Jerusalem. ³ On that day, when all the nations of the earth gather against her, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will be severely injured. ⁴ On that day, declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic, and every rider with madness. I will keep a watchful eye on the house of Judah, but I will strike with blindness all the horses of the nations.

²⁰ On that day, HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling bowls before the altar. ²¹ Indeed, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD of Hosts, and all who sacrifice will come and take some pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of Hosts.

⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” ⁵ “Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” replied the Lord.

¹⁶ If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

⁵ Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my beloved Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Achaia.

⁴ For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

¹⁸ He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

⁴ These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed by Jesus from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

¹ “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn. ² Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one; then I blessed him and multiplied him. ³ For the LORD will comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and melodious song. ⁴ Pay attention to Me, My people, and listen to Me, My nation; for a law will go out from Me, and My justice will become a light to the nations; I will bring it about quickly.

²¹ “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.

¹⁵ Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken.

³ saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring,

¹ “At that time,” declares the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.”

²⁴ “Have you not noticed what these people are saying: ‘The LORD has rejected the two families He had chosen’? So they despise My people and no longer regard them as a nation.

⁴ Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the LORD says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;

²⁴ Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the word of the LORD, all those of Judah who are in the land of Egypt. ²⁵ This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hands your words: ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have made to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.’ Go ahead, then, do what you have promised! Keep your vows! ²⁶ Nevertheless, hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah living in Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by My great name, says the LORD, that never again will any man of Judah living in the land of Egypt invoke My name or say, ‘As surely as the Lord GOD lives.’

¹ Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a case against the people of the land: “There is no truth, no loving devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land!

¹ Hear now what the LORD says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

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.

²¹ Do not turn aside after worthless things that cannot profit you or deliver you, for they are empty.

¹⁵ They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and themselves became worthless, going after the surrounding nations that the LORD had commanded them not to imitate.

⁸ Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.

³ “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. ⁴ What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?

¹³ Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.

²² But you have not called on Me, O Jacob, because you have grown weary of Me, O Israel. ²³ You have not brought Me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense.

⁹ All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame.

³¹ You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’?

⁸ But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

¹⁴ Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them. ¹⁵ They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

² You planted them, and they have taken root. They have grown and produced fruit. You are ever on their lips, but far from their hearts.

²² Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.

¹⁷ Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them. ¹⁸ They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

¹⁵ “Son of man, your brothers—your relatives, your fellow exiles, and the whole house of Israel—are those of whom the people of Jerusalem have said, ‘They are far away from the LORD; this land has been given to us as a possession.’

⁸ Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.

² Hear, O mountains, the LORD’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel: ³ ‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!

⁸ ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouths, and they honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.

¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, ² “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. You are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal-zephon. ³ For Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, ‘They are wandering the land in confusion; the wilderness has boxed them in.’ ⁴ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelites did. ⁵ When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have released Israel from serving us.” ⁶ So Pharaoh prepared his chariot and took his army with him. ⁷ He took 600 of the best chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. ⁸ And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out defiantly. ⁹ The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi-hahiroth, opposite Baal-zephon. ¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians marching after them, and they were terrified and cried out to the LORD. ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Did we not say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” ¹³ But Moses told the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the LORD’s salvation, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. ¹⁴ The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” ¹⁵ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.

¹⁴ then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹⁰ He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.

¹³ “Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonders of which our fathers told us, saying, ‘Has not the LORD brought us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

¹⁴ Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the waters. “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” he asked. And when he had struck the waters, they parted to the right and to the left, and Elisha crossed over.

⁵ May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.

²¹ before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom, ²² to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

¹⁰ But no one asks, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives us songs in the night,

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ I considered the days of old, the years long in the past.

⁹ In all their distress, He too was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. In His love and compassion He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

¹¹ Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them, ¹² who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown, ¹³ who led them through the depths like a horse in the wilderness, so that they did not stumble?

⁷ No one calls on Your name or strives to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

² “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

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.

² Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ they are swearing falsely.”

¹³ But by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved.

⁴ Yet I am the LORD your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but Me, for there is no Savior besides Me.

¹⁶ the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

²⁴ Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves. ²⁵ Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants. ²⁶ But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances, and you must not commit any of these abominations—neither your native-born nor the foreigner who lives among you. ²⁷ For the men who were in the land before you committed all these abominations, and the land has become defiled. ²⁸ So if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it spewed out the nations before you.

²⁷ And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!

⁷ and said to the whole congregation of Israel, “The land we passed through and explored is an exceedingly good land. ⁸ If the LORD delights in us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and He will give it to us.

³³ Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. ³⁴ Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell. For I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.”

¹⁰ And when the LORD your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you—a land with great and splendid cities that you did not build, ¹¹ with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,

¹⁸ Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may be well with you and that you may enter and possess the good land that the LORD your God swore to give your fathers,

⁷ For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.

¹⁰ For the land that you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated on foot, like a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

²³ you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

²⁵ They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.

⁵⁸ They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols. ⁵⁹ On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

³⁸ They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. ³⁹ They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

¹ “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.

⁹ Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

¹⁸ And I will first repay them double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and they have filled My inheritance with their abominations.”

⁶ On that day I swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands.

¹⁷ “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds. Their behavior before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman’s impurity.

¹⁰ Arise and depart, for this is not your place of rest, because its defilement brings destruction—a grievous destruction!

¹⁰ He will teach Your ordinances to Jacob and Your law to Israel; he will set incense before You and whole burnt offerings on Your altar.

¹² Now the sons of Eli were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD

²² Then Elijah said to the people, “I am the only remaining prophet of the LORD, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets.

²⁹ Midday passed, and they kept on raving until the time of the evening sacrifice. But there was no response; no one answered, no one paid attention.

⁴⁰ Then Elijah ordered them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let a single one escape.” So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered them there.

⁷ These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

¹⁰ For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep. He has shut your eyes, O prophets; He has covered your heads, O seers.

⁵ everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.”

⁹ Come, all you beasts of the field; eat greedily, all you beasts of the forest. ¹⁰ Israel’s watchmen are blind, they are all oblivious; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they are dreamers lying around, loving to slumber. ¹¹ Like ravenous dogs, they are never satisfied. They are shepherds with no discernment; they all turn to their own way, each one seeking his own gain: ¹² “Come, let me get the wine, let us imbibe the strong drink, and tomorrow will be like today, only far better!”

¹¹ Has a nation ever changed its gods, though they are no gods at all? Yet My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

²² “For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”

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?

⁸ But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

⁸ How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us,’ when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has produced a deception? ⁹ The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what wisdom do they really have? 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.

²¹ For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

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

¹⁹ O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD. ² Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the LORD.

⁹ As for the prophets: My heart is broken within me, and all my bones tremble. I have become like a drunkard, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD, because of His holy words. ¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers—because of the curse, the land mourns and the pastures of the wilderness have dried up—their course is evil and their power is misused. 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.”

⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

¹⁸ What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

⁶ True instruction was in his mouth, and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. ⁷ For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the LORD of Hosts. ⁸ But you have departed from the way, and your instruction has caused many to stumble. You have violated the covenant of Levi,” says the LORD of Hosts. 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.”

²⁶ What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

⁵² Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”

⁵⁵ You do not know Him, but I know Him. If I said I did not know Him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know Him, and I keep His word.

³ They will do these things because they have not known the Father or Me.

¹⁷ Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; ¹⁸ if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; ¹⁹ if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— ²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

² Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not practice deceit, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by open proclamation of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

⁵ then I will set My face against that man and his family and cut off from among their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech.

¹³ The LORD arises to contend; He stands to judge the people.

²⁶ Remind Me, let us argue the matter together. State your case, so that you may be vindicated.

²⁹ Why do you bring a case against Me? You have all rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD.

³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

³⁵ And I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, where I will enter into judgment with you face to face. ³⁶ Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord GOD.

² Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

² Hear, O mountains, the LORD’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel:

⁴ And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Rodanites. ⁵ From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.

¹³ These are the names of the sons of Ishmael in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,

²⁴ Ships will come from the coasts of Cyprus; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will perish forever.”

³⁰ And everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has been seen or done from the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt until this day. Think it over, take counsel, and speak up!”

⁷ And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Rodanites.

¹ When David was old and full of years, he installed his son Solomon as king over Israel.

¹² The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel—four in all.

⁵ Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!

¹⁶ For this is what the Lord says to me: “Within one year, as a hired worker would count it, all the glory of Kedar will be gone.

¹³ Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing. ¹⁴ Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky slopes? Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance ever run dry?

⁶ Of oaks from Bashan they made your oars; of wood from the coasts of Cyprus they made your deck, inlaid with ivory.

³⁰ Ships of Kittim will come against him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and rage against the holy covenant and do damage. So he will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant.

¹ It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even named among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.

²⁹ Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is the shield that protects you, the sword in which you boast. Your enemies will cower before you, and you shall trample their high places.”

³ But You, O LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, and the One who lifts my head.

²⁰ They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.

⁴ Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.

¹⁹ They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

⁵ This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me, and followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves?

²⁰ Can man make gods for himself? Such are not gods!”

⁵ Though each of the peoples may walk in the name of his god, yet we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

⁴ So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,

¹ Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

² Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.

¹⁹ Hear, O earth! I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their own schemes, because they have paid no attention to My word and have rejected My instruction.

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

⁴⁵ From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

⁵⁰ When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He yielded up His spirit. ⁵¹ At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. ⁵² The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. ⁵³ After Jesus’ resurrection, when they had come out of the tombs, they entered the holy city and appeared to many people.

¹³ But you have forsaken Me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you.

¹⁰ Then they cried out to the LORD and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the LORD and served the Baals and Ashtoreths. Now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, that we may serve You.’

⁹ For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.

¹¹ But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me. ¹² So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. ¹³ If only My people would listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways,

⁴ Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. ⁵ They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; ⁶ they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell; ⁷ they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats. ⁸ Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.

³ Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save. ⁴ When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground; on that very day his plans perish.

² “Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”

¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

¹¹ Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

²¹ When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and he must give his portion to a man who has not worked for it, this too is futile and a great evil.

²⁶ To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

⁴ I saw that all labor and success spring from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

⁸ “Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”

³ The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”

¹³ Therefore My people will go into exile for their lack of understanding; their dignitaries are starving and their masses are parched with thirst.

⁹ All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame. ¹⁰ Who fashions a god or casts an idol which profits him nothing? ¹¹ Behold, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are only human. Let them all assemble and take their stand; they will all be brought to terror and shame. ¹² The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms. Yet he grows hungry and loses his strength; he fails to drink water and grows faint. ¹³ The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He fashions it in the likeness of man, like man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. ¹⁴ He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow. ¹⁵ It serves as fuel for man. He takes some of it to warm himself, and he kindles a fire and bakes his bread; he even fashions it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. ¹⁶ He burns half of it in the fire, and he roasts meat on that half. He eats the roast and is satisfied. Indeed, he warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” ¹⁷ From the rest he makes a god, his graven image. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.” ¹⁸ They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand. ¹⁹ And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?” ²⁰ He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

⁶ They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship. ⁷ They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.

² Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods.

⁸ For He said, “They are surely My people, sons who will not be disloyal.” So He became their Savior.

¹⁶ I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands.

¹⁷ Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way?

²⁶ As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets

³¹ You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’? ³² Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.

²⁶ For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.

⁶ You have forsaken Me, declares the LORD. You have turned your back. So I will stretch out My hand against you and I will destroy you; I am weary of showing compassion.

¹³ O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.

¹⁴ Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky slopes? Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance ever run dry?

⁸ But of late My people have risen up like an enemy: You strip off the splendid robe from unsuspecting passersby like men returning from battle.

³ ‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!

¹⁴ But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

¹⁷ These men are springs without water and clouds driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is forever reserved for them.

⁶ And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.

¹ Then the angel showed me a pure river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let the one who hears say, “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, and the one who desires the water of life drink freely.

³ Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

²² Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,

⁷ I acquired menservants and maidservants, and servants were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me,

¹ This is what the LORD says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Look, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

⁵ Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,

¹⁰ The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.

⁴ My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts—with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

⁷ Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

⁹ I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied.

²⁹ Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away from deliverance.

¹¹ Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

¹ Behold, the LORD lays waste the earth and leaves it in ruins. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants—

⁷ A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.

⁶ Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.

¹¹ “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

³⁰ So you are to prophesy all these words against them and say to them: ‘The LORD will roar from on high; He will raise His voice from His holy habitation. He will roar loudly over His pasture; like those who tread the grapes, He will call out with a shout against all the inhabitants of the earth.

⁹ How dare you prophesy in the name of the LORD that this house will become like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted!” And all the people assembled against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again

²² Behold, I am going to give the command, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

²² So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed, and your land became a desolation, a horror, and an object of cursing, without inhabitant, as it is this day.

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.”

¹⁴ I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

¹⁴ For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them to pieces and then go away. I will carry them off where no one can rescue them.

¹⁰ They will walk after the LORD; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, His children will come trembling from the west.

⁷ So like a lion I will pounce on them; like a leopard I will lurk by the path. ⁸ Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast would tear them apart.

⁴ Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion growl in his den if he has caught nothing?

⁸ The lion has roared—who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken—who will not prophesy?

¹² This is what the LORD says: “As the shepherd snatches from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so the Israelites dwelling in Samaria will be rescued having just the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch.

¹¹ Where is the lions’ lair or the feeding ground of the young lions, where the lion and lioness prowled with their cubs, with nothing to frighten them away?

¹⁸ Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day of the LORD’s wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy.” For indeed, He will make a sudden end of all who dwell on the earth.

⁵ Woe to the dwellers of the seacoast, O nation of the Cherethites! The word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines: “I will destroy you, and no one will be left.”

⁶ “I have cut off the nations; their corner towers are destroyed. I have made their streets deserted with no one to pass through. Their cities are laid waste, with no man, no inhabitant.

²⁰ Concerning Gad he said: “Blessed is he who enlarges the domain of Gad! He lies down like a lion and tears off an arm or a head.

²¹ Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

³³ And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned Jehoahaz at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he could not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

⁶ From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil. ⁷ Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

⁸ It will pour into Judah, swirling and sweeping over it, reaching up to the neck; its spreading streams will cover your entire land, O Immanuel!

¹³ The princes of Zoan have become fools; the princes of Memphis are deceived. The cornerstones of her tribes have led Egypt astray.

¹ “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. ² They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade. ³ But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace. ⁴ For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, ⁵ everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.” ⁶ This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD. ² Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers. ³ But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the LORD stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.

⁷ So they entered the land of Egypt because they did not obey the voice of the LORD, and they went as far as Tahpanhes. ⁸ Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes: ⁹ “In the sight of the Jews, pick up some large stones and bury them in the clay of the brick pavement at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace at Tahpanhes.

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews living in the land of Egypt—in Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis—and in the land of Pathros:

¹⁴ “Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.’

¹⁹ Pack your bags for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt! For Memphis will be laid waste, destroyed and uninhabited.

¹³ This is what the Lord GOD says: I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Memphis. There will no longer be a prince in Egypt, and I will instill fear in that land.

¹⁶ I will set fire to Egypt, Pelusium will writhe in anguish, Thebes will be split open, and Memphis will face daily distress.

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.

²³ But if you do not do this, you will certainly sin against the LORD—and be assured that your sin will find you out.

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.”

¹⁹ When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.

⁹ As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

¹⁹ But if you turn away and forsake the statutes and commandments I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, ²⁰ then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

⁸ As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.

²⁰ You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

⁵³ He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies. ⁵⁴ He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

⁷ He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live.

¹⁶ He led His people through the wilderness. His loving devotion endures forever.

⁴ Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.

¹³ “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

¹⁹ Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.

¹⁸ “Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”

⁹ You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me—against your helper.

³ from the Shihor east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north (considered to be Canaanite territory)—that of the five Philistine rulers of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, as well as that of the Avvites;

⁷ So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hands of the kings of Aram and Israel, who are rising up against me.” ⁸ Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. ⁹ So the king of Assyria responded to him, marched up to Damascus, and captured it. He took its people to Kir as captives and put Rezin to death.

²⁰ Then Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz but afflicted him rather than strengthening him. ²¹ Although Ahaz had taken a portion from the house of the LORD, from the royal palace, and from the princes and had presented it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

¹ “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. ² They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade. ³ But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace. ⁴ For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, ⁵ everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.” ⁶ This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them. ⁷ Egypt’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.

³⁶ How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.

⁵ Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem. ⁶ Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet: ⁷ “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt. ⁸ Then the Chaldeans will return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down. ⁹ This is what the LORD says: Do not deceive yourselves by saying, ‘The Chaldeans will go away for good,’ for they will not! ¹⁰ Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire army of the Chaldeans that is fighting against you, and only wounded men remained in their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”

¹⁷ All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.

¹⁵ But this king rebelled against Babylon by sending his envoys to Egypt to ask for horses and a large army. Will he flourish? Will the one who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and yet escape?’

¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

¹¹ So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.

¹¹ The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie down with him in the dust. ¹² Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue, ¹³ though he cannot bear to let it go and keeps it in his mouth, ¹⁴ yet in his stomach his food sours into the venom of cobras within him. ¹⁵ He swallows wealth but vomits it out; God will force it from his stomach. ¹⁶ He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.

¹ For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD. An oracle is in my heart regarding the transgression of the wicked man: There is no fear of God before his eyes.

³¹ So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

²² The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.

⁹ The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.

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.

⁶ Now in the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there. ⁷ I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. ⁸ She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well.

¹¹ And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than unfaithful Judah. ¹² Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be angry forever. ¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD. ¹⁴ “Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion.

²² “Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God.

²² Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.

⁵ Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.

²³ And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire. ²⁴ Yet in hearing all these words, the king and his servants did not become frightened or tear their garments.

¹⁶ For Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer. Can the LORD now shepherd them like lambs in an open meadow?

⁵ Israel’s arrogance testifies against them; Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; even Judah stumbles with them.

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

¹ Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.

¹⁰ I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

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

¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

⁸ I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

⁸ And all the people answered together, “We will do everything that the LORD has spoken.” So Moses brought their words back to the LORD.

³ When Moses came and told the people all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all responded with one voice: “All the words that the LORD has spoken, we will do.”

¹⁴ For you must not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. ¹⁵ Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices. ¹⁶ And when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same.

¹³ I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness.

²⁰ Yet the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of His inheritance, as you are today.

³⁴ Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes?

²⁷ Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then you can tell us everything the LORD our God tells you; we will listen and obey.”

² Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.

¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this command today.

¹⁷ Today you have proclaimed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in His ways, keep His statutes and commandments and ordinances, and listen to His voice.

¹⁶ So they answered Joshua, “Everything you have commanded us we will do, and everywhere you send us we will go.

²⁴ So the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey His voice.”

²⁶ Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was near the sanctuary of the LORD.

³² And Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up, and he installed priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up.

⁵⁸ They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

²¹ See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!

⁴ For as in the day of Midian You have shattered the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor.

²⁷ On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders, and the yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.

²⁵ I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

⁵ who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? ⁶ Your portion is among the smooth stones of the valley; indeed, they are your lot. Even to them you have poured out a drink offering and offered a grain offering. Should I relent because of these? ⁷ On a high and lofty hill you have made your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifices.

¹ “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD. ² “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

² Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.

⁸ On that day, declares the LORD of Hosts, I will break the yoke off their necks and tear off their bonds, and no longer will strangers enslave them.

¹⁵ But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and on them you prostituted yourself. Such things should not have happened; never should they have occurred!

²⁴ you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square. ²⁵ At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.

²⁸ Then you prostituted yourself with the Assyrians, because you were not yet satisfied. Even after that, you were still not satisfied.

³¹ But when you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were not even like a prostitute, because you scorned payment.

⁴¹ Then they will burn down your houses and execute judgment against you in the sight of many women. I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will never again pay your lovers.

²⁸ When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

⁵ Oholah prostituted herself while she was still Mine. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—warriors

⁵ For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

³ Then I said to her, “You must live with me for many days; you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you.”

¹³ For I will now break their yoke from your neck and tear away your shackles.”

¹⁹ For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has promised.”

³ Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴ I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, ⁵ because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

²⁸ Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.”

¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O LORD, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.

³⁷ Because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by His presence and great power,

³² But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.

³¹ Israel had served the LORD throughout the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced all the works that the LORD had done for Israel.

² With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

⁸ You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it.

⁶ O offspring of His servant Abraham, O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.

¹ I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ² He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!

⁴ What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?

⁸ “But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend—

²¹ Then all your people will be righteous; they will possess the land forever; they are the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, so that I may be glorified.

³ to console the mourners in Zion—to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

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

³³ Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.

¹ Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.

⁹ Then He proceeded to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to some tenants, and went away for a long time.

¹ “I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard.

³⁴ “Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?

³⁰ If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, ³¹ then You would plunge me into the pit, and even my own clothes would despise me.

¹⁷ My transgression would be sealed in a bag, and You would cover over my iniquity.

⁸ You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

³ If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?

¹⁷ For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.

¹ “The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.

¹² The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up.

⁷ The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

¹² And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” ¹³ Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”

¹³ When Samuel reached him, Saul said to him, “May the LORD bless you. I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.” ¹⁴ But Samuel replied, “Then what is this bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle that I hear?”

¹⁶ For the Jews it was a time of light and gladness, of joy and honor.

² For his eyes are too full of conceit to detect or hate his own sin.

²¹ You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.

¹³ He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

¹² There is a generation of those who are pure in their own eyes and yet unwashed of their filth.

²⁰ This is the way of an adulteress: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done nothing wrong.’

⁵ who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? ⁶ Your portion is among the smooth stones of the valley; indeed, they are your lot. Even to them you have poured out a drink offering and offered a grain offering. Should I relent because of these?

³³ How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways. ³⁴ Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things ³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

² “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

³¹ They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

¹⁴ Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

²² How long will you wander, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the land—a woman will shelter a man.”

¹ Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her abominations ³ and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ On the day of your birth your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. ⁵ No one cared enough for you to do even one of these things out of compassion for you. Instead, you were thrown out into the open field, because you were despised on the day of your birth. ⁶ Then I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’ There I said to you, ‘Live!’ ⁷ I made you thrive like a plant of the field. You grew up and matured and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. ⁸ Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD. ⁹ Then I bathed you with water, rinsed off your blood, and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry, and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain around your neck. ¹² I put a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be queen. ¹⁴ Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect in the splendor I bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD. ¹⁵ But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and on them you prostituted yourself. Such things should not have happened; never should they have occurred! ¹⁷ You also took the fine jewelry of gold and silver I had given you, and you made male idols with which to prostitute yourself. ¹⁸ You took your embroidered garments to cover them, and you set My oil and incense before them. ¹⁹ And you set before them as a pleasing aroma the food I had given you—the fine flour, oil, and honey that I had fed you. That is what happened, declares the Lord GOD. ²⁰ You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough? ²¹ You slaughtered My children and delivered them up through the fire to idols. ²² And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood. ²³ Woe! Woe to you, declares the Lord GOD. And in addition to all your other wickedness, ²⁴ you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square. ²⁵ At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by. ²⁶ You prostituted yourself with your lustful neighbors, the Egyptians, and increased your promiscuity to provoke Me to anger. ²⁷ Therefore I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your portion. I gave you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd conduct. ²⁸ Then you prostituted yourself with the Assyrians, because you were not yet satisfied. Even after that, you were still not satisfied. ²⁹ So you extended your promiscuity to Chaldea, the land of merchants—but even with this you were not satisfied! ³⁰ How weak-willed is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, while you do all these things, the acts of a shameless prostitute! ³¹ But when you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were not even like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. ³² You adulterous wife! You receive strangers instead of your own husband! ³³ Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. ³⁴ So your prostitution is the opposite of that of other women: No one solicited your favors, and you paid a fee instead of receiving one; so you are the very opposite! ³⁵ Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the LORD! ³⁶ This is what the Lord GOD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them, ³⁷ therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked. ³⁸ And I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and those who shed blood; so I will bring upon you the wrath of your bloodshed and jealousy. ³⁹ Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will level your mounds and tear down your lofty shrines. They will strip off your clothes, take your fine jewelry, and leave you naked and bare. ⁴⁰ They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. ⁴¹ Then they will burn down your houses and execute judgment against you in the sight of many women. I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will never again pay your lovers. ⁴² So I will lay to rest My wrath against you, and My jealousy will turn away from you. Then I will be calm and no longer angry. ⁴³ Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD. Have you not committed this lewdness on top of all your other abominations? ⁴⁴ Behold, all who speak in proverbs will quote this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ ⁴⁵ You are the daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and children. You are the sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. ⁴⁶ Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters to your north; and your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters to your south. ⁴⁷ And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were. ⁴⁸ As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹ Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them, as you have seen. ⁵¹ Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous. ⁵² So now you must bear your disgrace, since you have brought justification for your sisters. For they appear more righteous than you, because your sins were more vile than theirs. So you too must bear your shame and disgrace, since you have made your sisters appear righteous. ⁵³ But I will restore Sodom and her daughters from captivity, as well as Samaria and her daughters. And I will restore you along with them. ⁵⁴ So you will bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you did to comfort them. ⁵⁵ And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to their former state. You and your daughters will also return to your former state. ⁵⁶ Did you not treat your sister Sodom as an object of scorn in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered? Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all those around her, and by the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you. ⁵⁸ You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the LORD. ⁵⁹ For this is what the Lord GOD says: I will deal with you according to your deeds, since you have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. ⁶⁰ But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of My covenant with you. ⁶² So I will establish My covenant with you, and you will know that I am the LORD, ⁶³ so that when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, declares the Lord GOD.”

¹ Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother, ³ and they played in Egypt, prostituting themselves from their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin bosoms caressed. ⁴ The older was named Oholah, and her sister was named Oholibah. They became Mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their identities, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem. ⁵ Oholah prostituted herself while she was still Mine. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—warriors ⁶ clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all desirable young men, horsemen mounted on steeds. ⁷ She offered sexual favors to all the elite of Assyria. She defiled herself with all the idols of those for whom she lusted. ⁸ She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when men slept with her in her youth, caressed her virgin bosom, and poured out their lust upon her. ⁹ Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians for whom she lusted. ¹⁰ They exposed her nakedness, seized her sons and daughters, and put her to the sword. Thus she became a byword among women, and they executed judgment against her. ¹¹ Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister. ¹² She too lusted after the Assyrians—governors and commanders, warriors dressed in splendor, horsemen riding on steeds, all desirable young men. ¹³ And I saw that she too had defiled herself; both of them had taken the same path. ¹⁴ But Oholibah carried her prostitution even further. She saw the men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans, engraved in vermilion, ¹⁵ wearing belts on their waists and flowing turbans on their heads; all of them looked like officers of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. ¹⁶ At the sight of them, she lusted for them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. ¹⁷ Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. But after she had been defiled by them, she turned away in disgust. ¹⁸ When Oholibah openly prostituted herself and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister. ¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt ²⁰ and lusted after their lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. ²¹ So you revisited the indecency of your youth, when the Egyptians caressed your bosom and pressed your young breasts. ²² Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side— ²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them—all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses. ²⁴ They will come against you with a host of peoples, with weapons, chariots, and wagons. They will array themselves against you on every side with buckler and shield and helmet. I will delegate judgment to them, and they will punish you according to their own standards. ²⁵ And I will set My jealous rage against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and ears, and your survivors will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your remnant will be consumed by fire. ²⁶ They will strip off your clothes and take your fine jewelry. ²⁷ So I will put an end to your indecency and prostitution, which began in the land of Egypt, and you will not lift your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.’ ²⁸ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Surely I will deliver you into the hands of those you hate, from whom you turned away in disgust. ²⁹ They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity ³⁰ have brought these things upon you, because you have prostituted yourself with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. ³¹ Because you have followed the path of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.’ ³² This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. ³³ You will be filled with drunkenness and grief, with a cup of devastation and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria. ³⁴ You will drink it and drain it; you will dash it to pieces, and tear your breasts. For I have spoken,’ declares the Lord GOD. ³⁵ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’” ³⁶ Then the LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you pass judgment against Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations. ³⁷ For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to Me, in the fire as food for their idols. ³⁸ They have also done this to Me: On that very same day, they defiled My sanctuary and profaned My Sabbaths. ³⁹ On the very day they slaughtered their children for their idols, they entered My sanctuary to profane it. Yes, they did this inside My house. ⁴⁰ Furthermore, you sisters sent messengers for men who came from afar; and behold, when they arrived, you bathed for them, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with jewelry. ⁴¹ You sat on a couch of luxury with a table spread before it, on which you had set My incense and My oil, ⁴² accompanied by the sound of a carefree crowd. Drunkards were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, who put bracelets on your wrists and beautiful crowns on your head. ⁴³ Then I said of her who had grown old in adulteries: ‘Now let them use her as a prostitute, for that is all she is!’ ⁴⁴ And they slept with her as with a prostitute; they slept with Oholah and Oholibah, those lewd women. ⁴⁵ But righteous men will sentence them to the punishment of those who commit adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses with blood on their hands. ⁴⁶ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Bring a mob against them and consign them to terror and plunder. ⁴⁷ The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters and burn down their houses. ⁴⁸ So I will put an end to indecency in the land, and all the women will be admonished not to imitate your behavior. ⁴⁹ They will repay you for your indecency, and you will bear the consequences of your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.’”

²⁹ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.

¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

¹² But a witless man can no more become wise than the colt of a wild donkey can be born a man!

⁵ Who set the wild donkey free? Who released the swift donkey from the harness? ⁶ I made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling. ⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city and never hears the shouts of a driver. ⁸ He roams the mountains for pasture, searching for any green thing.

²⁷ say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble they beg, ‘Rise up and save us!’

⁶ Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”

¹⁵ Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

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.

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

¹⁶ They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

²² In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD.

⁶ For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east; they are soothsayers like the Philistines; they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

² the LORD had already spoken through Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and the sandals from your feet.” And Isaiah did so, walking around naked and barefoot. ³ Then the LORD said, “Just as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and omen against Egypt and Cush, ⁴ so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.

¹⁰ You are wearied by your many journeys, but you did not say, “There is no hope!” You found renewal of your strength; therefore you did not grow weak.

¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD.

²² And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says about this people: “Truly they love to wander; they have not restrained their feet. So the LORD does not accept them; He will now remember their guilt and call their sins to account.”

¹² But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

¹⁷ Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster.

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.

³ Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.

²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

²⁴ So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’

⁴ Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? ⁵ But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

²⁴ For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Why would one hope for what he can already see?

⁷ From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and put to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

³² So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. ³³ You are just in all that has befallen us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly. ³⁴ Our kings and leaders and priests and fathers did not obey Your law or listen to Your commandments and warnings that You gave them.

³⁰ Men do not despise the thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger. ³¹ Yet if caught, he must pay sevenfold; he must give up all the wealth of his house.

²⁹ Surely you will be ashamed of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be embarrassed by the gardens that you have chosen.

²⁴ From our youth, that shameful god has consumed what our fathers have worked for—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. ²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”

³² because of all the evil the children of Israel and of Judah have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem.

²⁷ Was not Israel your object of ridicule? Was he ever found among thieves? For whenever you speak of him you shake your head.

⁶ We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, and fathers, and to all the people of the land. ⁷ To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You. ⁸ O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.

²¹ What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.

⁸ who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. ⁹ The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim, and Israel was in deep distress. ¹⁰ Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against You, for we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals.” ¹¹ The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, Amorites, Ammonites, Philistines, ¹² Sidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you and you cried out to Me, did I not save you from their hands? ¹³ But you have forsaken Me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. ¹⁴ Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you in your time of trouble.” ¹⁵ “We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the LORD. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!” ¹⁶ So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

³⁴ When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God. ³⁵ And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. ³⁶ But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues. ³⁷ Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

¹⁶ O LORD, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer.

⁶ They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship. ⁷ They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles. ⁸ Remember this and be brave; take it to heart, you transgressors!

²⁴ a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her.

¹⁷ I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity.”

²³ O inhabitant of Lebanon, nestled in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you, agony like a woman in labor.”

³³ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.

¹⁶ So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

³⁵ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’”

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.

¹⁸ What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. ¹⁹ Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”

³⁷ He will say: “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

¹⁴ Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you in your time of trouble.”

¹³ Elisha, however, said to the king of Israel, “What have we to do with each other? Go to the prophets of your father and of your mother!” “No,” replied the king of Israel, “for it is the LORD who has summoned these three kings to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”

³⁰ The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, ³¹ the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim.

²⁰ Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.

² The gods cower; they crouch together, unable to relieve the burden; but they themselves go into captivity.

⁷ They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.

¹³ Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

¹ Israel was a luxuriant vine, yielding fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better he made the sacred pillars.

²³ “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

¹ “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares. If you can find a single person, anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, then I will forgive the city.

¹³ “For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

² If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people. ³ “They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD. ⁴ “Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander. ⁵ Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity. ⁶ You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

¹¹ All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.

¹⁰ “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”

¹⁴ “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”

²¹ But they conspired against Zechariah, and by order of the king, they stoned him in the courtyard of the house of the LORD.

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.

²⁶ But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

⁵ Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

¹³ But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the LORD of Hosts.

³ O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

²⁹ The bellows blow fiercely, blasting away the lead with fire. The refining proceeds in vain, for the wicked are not purged. ³⁰ They are called rejected silver, because the LORD has rejected them.”

²⁸ Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips.

²⁰ Now there was another man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land the same things that Jeremiah did. ²¹ King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials heard his words, and the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah found out about it, he fled in fear and went to Egypt. ²² Then King Jehoiakim sent men to Egypt: Elnathan son of Achbor along with some other men. ²³ They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him put to the sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people. ²⁴ Nevertheless, Ahikam son of Shaphan supported Jeremiah, so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.

¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God.

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

² She heeded no voice; she accepted no correction. She does not trust in the LORD; she has not drawn near to her God.

³⁵ But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶ Again, he sent other servants, more than the first group. But the tenants did the same to them.

²⁹ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous.

³⁴ Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town after town. ³⁵ And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶ Truly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation. ³⁷ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

² At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. ³ But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Then he sent them another servant, and casting stones they struck him over the head and sent him away, treating him shamefully. ⁵ He sent still another, and this one they killed. He sent many others; some they beat and others they killed. ⁶ Finally, having his one beloved son, he sent him to them last. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. ⁷ But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸ So they seized the son, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

⁴⁷ Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them. ⁴⁸ So you bear witness and consent to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹ Because of this, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and others they will persecute.’ ⁵⁰ As a result, this generation will be charged with the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world, ⁵¹ from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, all of it will be charged to this generation.

³³ Nevertheless, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day, for it is not admissible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. ³⁴ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—

¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,

²⁰ Now the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. ²¹ Furthermore, they did not repent of their murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft.

⁹ And the people were scorched by intense heat, and men cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues; yet they did not repent and give Him glory.

¹² Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses in which to dwell, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

²⁰ When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to other gods and worship them, and they will reject Me and break My covenant.

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.

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more. ⁹ Why then have you despised the command of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own, for you have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.

¹⁰ and Azariah, the chief priest of the household of Zadok, answered him, “Since the people began to bring their contributions into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat and there is plenty left over, because the LORD has blessed His people; this great abundance is what is left over.”

²¹ For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. ²² You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan. ²³ You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess. ²⁴ So their descendants went in and possessed the land; You subdued before them the Canaanites dwelling in the land. You delivered into their hands the kings and peoples of the land, to do with them as they wished. ²⁵ They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.

⁴ In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God.

⁴ They say, “With our tongues we will prevail. We own our lips—who can be our master?”

⁹ Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God.

¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret, from a place in a land of darkness. I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a wasteland.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I say what is right.

⁵ This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me, and followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves? ⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’ ⁷ She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’ ⁸ For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, who lavished on her silver and gold—which they crafted for Baal.

⁶ When they had pasture, they became satisfied; when they were satisfied, their hearts became proud, and as a result they forgot Me.

¹ These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

⁹ The voice of the LORD calls out to the city (and it is sound wisdom to fear Your name): “Heed the rod and the One who ordained it.

⁹ You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me. ¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure. ¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your land, and the vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the LORD of Hosts.

⁸ Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich. Without us, you have become kings. How I wish you really were kings, so that we might be kings with you!

¹⁵ I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! ¹⁶ So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth! ¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

²² And after the camels had finished drinking, he took out a gold ring weighing a beka, and two gold bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels.

³⁰ As soon as he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard Rebekah’s words, “The man said this to me,” he went and found the man standing by the camels near the spring.

⁵³ Then he brought out jewels of silver and gold, and articles of clothing, and he gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious gifts to her brother and her mother.

²⁴ O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and luxury, who decked your garments with ornaments of gold.

¹⁷ The wicked will return to Sheol—all the nations who forget God.

¹³ All glorious is the princess in her chamber; her gown is embroidered with gold. ¹⁴ In colorful garments she is led to the king; her virgin companions are brought before you.

²¹ They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—

¹⁰ I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

²¹ A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.

¹⁰ These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

²⁵ This is your lot, the portion I have measured to you,” declares the LORD, “because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.

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

¹⁰ I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry, and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain around your neck. ¹² I put a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be queen.

¹² In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD.

¹⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has multiplied its fortified cities. But I will send fire upon their cities, and it will consume their citadels.

³ Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothes, ⁴ but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. ⁵ For this is how the holy women of the past adorned themselves. They put their hope in God and were submissive to their husbands,

² I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

⁹ So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

⁷ On a high and lofty hill you have made your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifices. ⁸ Behind the door and doorpost you have set up your memorial. Forsaking Me, you uncovered your bed; you climbed up and opened it wide. And you have made a pact with those whose bed you have loved; you have gazed upon their nakedness. ⁹ You went to Molech with oil and multiplied your perfumes. You have sent your envoys a great distance; you have descended even to Sheol itself. ¹⁰ You are wearied by your many journeys, but you did not say, “There is no hope!” You found renewal of your strength; therefore you did not grow weak.

²⁷ Therefore I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your portion. I gave you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd conduct.

⁴⁷ And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.

⁵¹ Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous. ⁵² So now you must bear your disgrace, since you have brought justification for your sisters. For they appear more righteous than you, because your sins were more vile than theirs. So you too must bear your shame and disgrace, since you have made your sisters appear righteous.

⁵ For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’ ⁶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way. ⁷ She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’

¹³ I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, when she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

² If a thief is caught breaking in and is beaten to death, no one shall be guilty of bloodshed.

¹⁶ Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the LORD.

⁴ and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was unwilling to forgive.

³⁷ They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. ³⁸ They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

⁵ who burn with lust among the oaks, under every luxuriant tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

⁷ Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake.

¹⁵ Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.

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

⁴ because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.

²⁰ You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough? ²¹ You slaughtered My children and delivered them up through the fire to idols.

³¹ When you offer your gifts, sacrificing your sons in the fire, you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be consulted by you!

⁷ For the blood she shed is still within her; she poured it out on the bare rock; she did not pour it on the ground to cover it with dust.

⁹ ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, with no iniquity in me.

³ “Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

⁹ Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children.

³¹ The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth because the LORD brings a charge against the nations. He brings judgment on all mankind and puts the wicked to the sword,’” declares the LORD.

⁹ Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

¹⁶ At that time King Ahaz sent for help from the king of Assyria.

⁵ Those who made Cush their hope and Egypt their boast will be dismayed and ashamed.

¹⁸ Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

³³ How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.

⁷ “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt.

⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

⁷ When Israel took hold of you with their hands, you splintered, tearing all their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke, and their backs were wrenched.

⁶ Yes, it will be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim will be seized with shame; Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.

¹ Ephraim chases the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

³ Assyria will not save us, nor will we ride on horses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods!’ to the work of our own hands. For in You the fatherless find compassion.”

⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD? This will not succeed!

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 Now behold, God Himself is with us as our head, and His priests with their trumpets sound the battle call against you. O children of Israel, do not fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers, for you will not succeed.”

⁴ Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

⁵ This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.

⁵ He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will stay until I attend to him, declares the LORD. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.’”

¹⁵ But this king rebelled against Babylon by sending his envoys to Egypt to ask for horses and a large army. Will he flourish? Will the one who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and yet escape?’ ¹⁶ ‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke. ¹⁷ Pharaoh with his mighty army and vast horde will not help him in battle, when ramps are built and siege walls constructed to destroy many lives. 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!’ ¹⁹ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘As surely as I live, I will bring down upon his head My oath that he despised and My covenant that he broke. 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.