Jeremiah 5 Cross References - MSB

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. ² Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ they are swearing falsely.” 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. ⁴ Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. ⁵ I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains. 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. ⁷ “Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes. ⁸ They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife. ⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this? ¹⁰ Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD. ¹¹ For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹² They have lied about the LORD and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine. ¹³ The prophets are but wind, for the word is not in them. So let their own predictions befall them.” ¹⁴ Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes. ¹⁵ Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand. ¹⁶ Their quivers are like open graves; they are all mighty men. ¹⁷ They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.” ¹⁸ “Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you. ¹⁹ And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’” ²⁰ Declare this in the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah: ²¹ “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear. 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. ²³ But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone away. ²⁴ They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’ ²⁵ Your iniquities have diverted these from you; your sins have deprived you of My bounty. ²⁶ For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men. ²⁷ Like cages full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become powerful and rich. ²⁸ They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy. ²⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this? ³⁰ A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land. 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?

²³ Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ What if there are fifty righteous ones in the city? Will You really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous ones who are there? ²⁵ Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” ²⁶ So the LORD replied, “If I find fifty righteous ones within the city of Sodom, on their account I will spare the whole place.” ²⁷ Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes— ²⁸ suppose the fifty righteous ones lack five. Will You destroy the whole city for the lack of five?” He replied, “If I find forty-five there, I will not destroy it.” ²⁹ Once again Abraham spoke to the LORD, “Suppose forty are found there?” He answered, “On account of the forty, I will not do it.” ³⁰ Then Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak further. Suppose thirty are found there?” He replied, “If I find thirty there, I will not do it.” ³¹ And Abraham said, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose twenty are found there?” He answered, “On account of the twenty, I will not destroy it.” ³² Finally, Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak once more. Suppose ten are found there?” And He answered, “On account of the ten, I will not destroy it.”

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.”

⁹ For the eyes of the LORD roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him. You have acted foolishly in this matter. From now on, therefore, you will be at war.”

¹ For the choirmaster. According to Sheminith. A Psalm of David. Help, O LORD, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men.

³ All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

² God looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God. ³ All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. ⁴ Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon God.

⁴ if you seek it like silver and search it out like hidden treasure, ⁵ then you will discern the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God. ⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

³ Beside the gates to the city, at the entrances she cries out:

⁶ Many a man proclaims his loving devotion, but who can find a trustworthy man?

²³ Invest in truth and never sell it—in wisdom and instruction and understanding.

² I will arise now and go about the city, through the streets and squares. I will seek the one I love. So I sought him but did not find him.

⁴ No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

¹⁴ So justice is turned away, and righteousness stands at a distance. For truth has stumbled in the public square, and honesty cannot enter. ¹⁵ Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.

³⁰ I searched for a man among them to repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, so that I should not destroy it. But I found no one.

⁴ But you, Daniel, shut up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will roam to and fro, and knowledge will increase.”

⁹ They storm the city; they run along the wall; they climb into houses, entering through windows like thieves.

¹² People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

¹ Woe is me! For I am like one gathering summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster to eat, no early fig that I crave. ² The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.

⁴ and said to him, “Run and tell that young man: ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the multitude of men and livestock within it.

²¹ That servant returned and reported all this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.’

¹⁰ and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

¹² You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

¹ “Listen to this, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, who have descended from the line of Judah, who swear by the name of the LORD, who invoke the God of Israel—but not in truth or righteousness—

² and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.”

⁹ Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,

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! ² Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

¹⁵ Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’

⁴ They speak mere words; with false oaths they make covenants. So judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.

³ Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed. ⁴ I will send it out, declares the LORD of Hosts, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by My name. It will remain inside his house and destroy it, down to its timbers and stones.”

⁵ “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁰ for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching

⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

¹⁶ They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

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

⁴ The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD is on His heavenly throne. His eyes are watching closely; they examine the sons of men. ⁵ The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked; His soul hates the lover of violence. ⁶ On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion. ⁷ For the LORD is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.

⁶ Surely You desire truth in the inmost being; You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

²⁹ A wicked man hardens his face, but the upright man makes his way sure.

¹² The LORD’s eyes keep watch over knowledge, but He frustrates the words of the faithless.

³⁵ “They struck me, but I feel no pain! They beat me, but I did not know it! When can I wake up to search for another drink?”

²² Though you grind a fool like grain with mortar and a pestle, yet his folly will not depart from him.

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

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

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

⁴ For I knew that you are stubborn; your neck is iron and your forehead is bronze.

³⁰ “I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”

²⁶ Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

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.

¹⁵ “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

¹⁹ the One great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are on all the ways of the sons of men, to reward each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.

⁷ But the house of Israel will be unwilling to listen to you, since they are unwilling to listen to Me. For the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted. ⁸ Behold, I will make your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. ⁹ I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.”

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.

¹ Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled! ² She heeded no voice; she accepted no correction. She does not trust in the LORD; she has not drawn near to her God.

⁷ I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her. But they rose early to corrupt all their deeds.

¹¹ But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing. ¹² They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of Hosts.

² And we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.

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.

⁹ Furthermore, we have all had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Should we not much more submit to the Father of our spirits and live?

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

⁹ Whom is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To infants just weaned from milk? To babies removed from the breast? ¹⁰ For they hear: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there.” ¹¹ Indeed, with mocking lips and foreign tongues, He will speak to this people ¹² to whom He has said: “This is the place of rest, let the weary rest; this is the place of repose.” But they would not listen. ¹³ Then the word of the LORD to them will become: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there,” so that they will go stumbling backward and will be injured, ensnared, and captured.

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.”

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

⁷ Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.

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.

⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

⁴⁸ “Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in Him? ⁴⁹ But this crowd that does not know the law, they are under a curse.”

² The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the LORD and against His Anointed One: ³ “Let us break Their chains and cast away Their cords.”

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.

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

⁶ See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood. ⁷ Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed. ⁸ You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths.

²⁵ The conspiracy of the princes in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They devour the people, seize the treasures and precious things, and multiply the widows within her. ²⁶ Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. ²⁷ Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain. ²⁸ Her prophets whitewash these deeds by false visions and lying divinations, saying, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and have exploited the foreign resident without justice.

¹ Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink.”

¹ Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice? ² You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones. ³ You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.” ⁴ Then they will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done.

¹¹ Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster can come upon us.”

³ Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together. ⁴ The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time of their confusion.

³ Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning. ⁴ Her prophets are reckless, faithless men. Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to the law. ⁵ The LORD within her is righteous; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the unjust know no shame.

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.

²³ Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁵ When His disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

²⁴ Seeing the man’s sadness, Jesus said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!

¹⁴ But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us.’

²⁶ The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One.’ ²⁷ In fact, Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? ⁷ Are they not the ones who blaspheme the noble name by which you have been called?

¹⁴ Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.

⁶ and said: “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens.

¹⁰ Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to the guilt of Israel.

²⁰ You bring darkness, and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest prowl.

¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities:

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.

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

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.

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.

¹² Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it? ¹³ And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice. ¹⁴ Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

⁷ Although our iniquities testify against us, O LORD, act for the sake of Your name. Indeed, our rebellions are many; we have sinned against You.

¹⁰ When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ ¹¹ Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction. ¹² And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you follows the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.

³⁸ He has left His den like a lion, for their land has been made a desolation by the sword of the oppressor, and because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.

²⁴ The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has fully accomplished the purposes of His heart. In the days to come you will understand this.

¹⁹ Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

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

¹⁶ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate. ¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast, ¹⁸ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered. ¹⁹ Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast, ²⁰ then as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves. ²¹ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

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.

²⁷ Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain.

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

⁴ The first beast was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and given the mind of a man.

⁶ Next, as I watched, another beast appeared. It was like a leopard, and on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.

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.

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.

¹⁸ Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light. ¹⁹ It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.

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? ¹² The lion mauled enough for its cubs and strangled prey for the lioness. It filled its dens with the kill, and its lairs with mauled prey.

⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.

³ Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning.

² The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

¹⁰ If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must surely be put to death.

¹ While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab, ² who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods. ³ So Israel joined in worshiping Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD burned against them.

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.

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.

⁷ So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them.

¹⁸ When you see a thief, you befriend him, and throw in your lot with adulterers.

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.

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’?

¹⁹ Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

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.

¹⁶ And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people.

²⁷ Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

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.

²² Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire!’ ²³ For they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with the wives of their neighbors and speaking lies in My name, which I did not command them to do. I am He who knows, and I am a witness, declares the LORD.”

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.

¹¹ One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.

² Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

¹³ They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is pleasant. And so your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery. ¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with shrine prostitutes. So a people without understanding will come to ruin. ¹⁵ Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’

⁴ They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.

⁸ How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

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

¹⁴ Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.”

⁵ those who bow on the rooftops to worship the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear by the LORD but also swear by Milcom,

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! ³⁸ Look, your house is left to you desolate.

⁹ Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,

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.

⁸ Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

⁴ Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

⁴ You adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.

¹ Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you. ² Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days. ⁴ Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. ⁵ You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter.

⁹ No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”

¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

¹⁸ You shall not commit adultery.

²¹ You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house or field, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

² One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman. ³ So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. (Now she had just purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned home.

⁹ If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,

²³ For they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with the wives of their neighbors and speaking lies in My name, which I did not command them to do. I am He who knows, and I am a witness, declares the LORD.”

²⁷ You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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.

³⁵ Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”

⁴³ Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, and let all God’s angels worship Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His children. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and repay those who hate Him; He will cleanse His land and His people.

²⁴ Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah, I will be relieved of My foes and avenge Myself on My enemies.

²⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

⁹ Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”

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.

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.

²² O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

¹³ And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken. ¹⁴ I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵ So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the LORD, have spoken.

⁹ I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes the blow.

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.

¹³ Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the LORD does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

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

² And the LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servants the prophets. ³ Surely this happened to Judah at the LORD’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done, 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.

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

⁶¹ He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary. ⁶² He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath. ⁶ I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets. ⁷ But this is not his intention; this is not his plan. For it is in his heart to destroy and cut off many nations.

¹ This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received: ² Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles. ³ I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph. ⁴ Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The LORD of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war. ⁵ They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.

²⁷ For this is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

¹⁸ “Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.

⁴ ‘Prepare for battle against her; rise up, let us attack at noon. Woe to us, for the daylight is fading; the evening shadows grow long. ⁵ Rise up, let us attack by night and destroy her fortresses!’” ⁶ For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Cut down the trees and raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her midst.

⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words, chanting: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ ⁵ For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another, ⁶ if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. ⁸ But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹ Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’? ¹¹ Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD. ¹² But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

⁹ behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

¹¹ For I am with you to save you, declares the LORD. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

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

²⁸ And you, My servant Jacob, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, for I am with you. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have banished you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

²⁰ “You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin. ²¹ With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver. ²² With you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter the old man and the youth; with you I shatter the young man and the maiden. ²³ With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock; with you I shatter the farmer and his oxen; with you I shatter the governors and officials.

⁵ And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone! ⁶ Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple. ⁷ Then He told them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city.

¹⁶ But I will spare a few of them from sword and famine and plague, so that in the nations to which they go, they can recount all their abominations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast,

⁹ And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.

⁸ Surely the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the LORD.

⁷ When he heard this, the king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.

⁸ You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

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. ⁹ Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. ¹⁰ Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD. ¹¹ And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than unfaithful Judah.

²⁰ But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD.

⁷ They have been unfaithful to the LORD; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the New Moon will devour them along with their land.

⁷ But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.

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.

⁹ but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”

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.

⁶ He says to himself, “I will not be moved; from age to age I am free of distress.”

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

¹⁰ Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, how completely You have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

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

¹³ “Ah, Lord GOD!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” ¹⁴ “The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the LORD. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

¹⁴ And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.” ¹⁶ This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are filling you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. ¹⁷ They keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The LORD says that you will have peace,’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, ‘No harm will come to you.’

⁴ And I will restore to this place Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’”

¹⁵ Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The LORD did not send you, but you have persuaded this people to trust in a lie. ¹⁶ Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have preached rebellion against the LORD.’” ¹⁷ And in the seventh month of that very year, the prophet Hananiah died.

² Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to reside there.’ ³ Rather, Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to deliver us into the hands of the Chaldeans, so that they may put us to death or exile us to Babylon!”

²² “Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel: ‘The days go by, and every vision fails’? ²³ Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will put an end to this proverb, and in Israel they will no longer recite it.’ But say to them: ‘The days are at hand when every vision will be fulfilled. ²⁴ For there will be no more false visions or flattering divinations within the house of Israel, ²⁵ because I, the LORD, will speak whatever word I speak, and it will be fulfilled without delay. For in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak a message and bring it to pass, declares the Lord GOD.’” ²⁶ Furthermore, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ²⁷ “Son of man, take note that the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for many years from now; he prophesies about the distant future.’ ²⁸ Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘None of My words will be delayed any longer. The message I speak will be fulfilled, declares the Lord GOD.’”

⁶ They see false visions and speak lying divinations. They claim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ when the LORD did not send them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their message.

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

⁵ “Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you. ⁶ For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

² For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³ For while people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

¹⁰ Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him; whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about His Son.

²⁶ Do you intend to correct my words, and treat as wind my cry of despair?

² “How long will you go on saying such things? The words of your mouth are a blustering wind.

¹³ “Ah, Lord GOD!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

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

¹⁸ Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”

⁸ For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long. ⁹ If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. ¹⁰ For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.” ¹¹ But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten.

³ Within two years I will restore to this place all the articles of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and carried to Babylon.

⁷ The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have arrived—let Israel know it. The prophet is called a fool, and the inspired man insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and hostility.

¹⁰ Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men. ¹¹ So the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. And the captain said to Elijah, “Man of God, the king declares, ‘Come down at once!’” ¹² Again Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men. ¹³ So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. And the third captain went up, fell on his knees before Elijah, and begged him, “Man of God, may my life and the lives of these fifty servants please be precious in your sight. ¹⁴ Behold, fire has come down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of fifty, with all their men. But now may my life be precious in your sight.”

⁹ Then the LORD reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

²⁹ “Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?”

⁵ Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgments go forth like lightning.

⁶ But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the LORD of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”

⁵ If anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone who wants to harm them must be killed. ⁶ These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.

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,

⁷ For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.

²⁶ He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

¹¹ Indeed, with mocking lips and foreign tongues, He will speak to this people

³ I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.

⁶ you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with windstorm and tempest and consuming flame of fire.

¹⁹ You will no longer see the insolent, a people whose speech is unintelligible, who stammer in a language you cannot understand.

¹⁵ For I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north,” declares the LORD. “Their kings will come and set up their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will attack all her surrounding walls and all the other cities of Judah.

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

¹⁶ Warn the nations now! Proclaim to Jerusalem: “A besieging army comes from a distant land; they raise their voices against the cities of Judah.

¹¹ For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the LORD.

²² This is what the LORD says: “Behold, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is stirred up from the ends of the earth.

²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

³¹ Cast away from yourselves all the transgressions you have committed, and fashion for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?

³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory. ³⁸ Wherever the sons of men or beasts of the field or birds of the air dwell, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

⁷ After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying—dreadful and extremely strong—with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns.

⁵ “Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you. ⁶ For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. ⁷ They are dreaded and feared; from themselves they derive justice and sovereignty. ⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour. ⁹ All of them come bent on violence; their hordes advance like the east wind; they gather prisoners like sand. ¹⁰ They scoff at kings and make rulers an object of scorn. They laugh at every fortress and build up siege ramps to seize it.

⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

²¹ It is written in the Law: “By strange tongues and foreign lips I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to Me, says the Lord.”

⁹ For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.

²⁸ Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.

¹³ “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”

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.

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.

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.

³ Whenever the Israelites would plant their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them, ⁴ encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys.

⁹ For those who harvest grain will eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather grapes will drink the wine in My holy courts.”

²² No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the LORD, before His fierce anger.

¹⁶ The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.

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

¹⁷ Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

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

⁴ therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD. This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and abandoned cities, which have become a spoil and a mockery to the rest of the nations around you.

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.

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls, ¹⁸ yet I will exult in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!

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.

¹⁰ Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.

⁸ While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord GOD, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”

¹³ Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord GOD, will You bring the remnant of Israel to a complete end?”

¹ I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ² God did not reject His people, whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he appealed to God against Israel, saying, ³ “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well”? ⁴ And what was the divine reply to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” ⁵ In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

²⁵ After you have children and grandchildren and you have been in the land a long time, if you then act corruptly and make an idol of any form—doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking Him to anger— ²⁶ I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. ²⁸ And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

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.

²⁴ So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ ²⁵ And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book. ²⁸ The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

⁸ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

²¹ And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ ²² And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, He has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

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.

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.’

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 When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ ¹¹ Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.

¹³ So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

⁸ And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’ ⁹ Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

⁸ Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands.

⁴ Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

⁶ Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and senseless people? Is He not your Father and Creator? Has He not made you and established you?

⁸ Take notice, O senseless among the people! O fools, when will you be wise?

¹⁶ Why should the fool have money in his hand with no intention of buying wisdom?

⁹ And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ ¹⁰ Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

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.

⁴ Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.

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

² “Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

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

¹³ This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ ¹⁴ In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. ¹⁵ For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’

¹⁸ ‘Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?’ And do you not remember?

⁴⁰ “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”

²⁶ ‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”

⁸ as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”

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—

¹⁰ He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

¹⁰ when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors, ¹¹ and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

⁷ He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into storehouses.

³ The floodwaters have risen, O LORD; the rivers have raised their voice; the seas lift up their pounding waves. ⁴ Above the roar of many waters—the mighty breakers of the sea—the LORD on high is majestic.

¹ The LORD reigns; let the nations tremble! He is enthroned above the cherubim; let the earth quake!

⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross, that they may never again cover the earth.

¹²⁰ My flesh trembles in awe of You; I stand in fear of Your judgments.

²⁹ when He set a boundary for the sea, so that the waters would not surpass His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.

² Why was no one there when I arrived? Why did no one answer when I called? Is My hand too short to redeem you? Or do I lack the strength to deliver you? Behold, My rebuke dries up the sea; I turn the rivers into a desert; the fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.

⁵ You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD: “Your brothers who hate you and exclude you because of My name have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified that we may see your joy!’ But they will be put to shame.”

⁷ Who would not fear You, O King of nations? This is Your due. For among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.

²⁶ I hereby decree that in every part of my kingdom, men are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel: For He is the living God, and He endures forever; His kingdom will never be destroyed, and His dominion will never end.

⁶ He builds His upper rooms in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth. The LORD is His name.

⁴ He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.

²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

³⁹ Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!” And the wind died down, and it was perfectly calm.

⁵ But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear the One who, after you have been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!

⁴ Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

¹⁸ If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined,

¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”

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

⁶ Return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled, O children of Israel.

⁵ I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.

²⁸ All are hardened rebels, walking around as slanderers. They are bronze and iron; all of them are corrupt.

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

⁸ They feed on the sins of My people and set their hearts on iniquity.

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

¹² See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.

²² As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

¹³ So if you carefully obey the commandments I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ then I will provide rain for your land in season, the autumn and spring rains, that you may gather your grain, new wine, and oil.

¹² The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

¹ Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”

¹⁰ He gives rain to the earth and sends water upon the fields.

²⁷ For He draws up drops of water which distill the rain from the mist, ²⁸ which the clouds pour out and shower abundantly on mankind.

³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

⁸ who covers the sky with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the hills.

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.

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.

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.

⁵ They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁵ Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days.

¹ Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.

²³ Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

⁷ “I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.

¹ Ask the LORD for rain in springtime; the LORD makes the storm clouds, and He will give everyone showers of rain and crops in the field.

⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

¹⁷ Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

⁷ Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains.

¹⁷ Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. ¹⁸ Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth yielded its crops.

⁶ These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.

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.

¹⁷ Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.

³⁴ and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.

² But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.

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.

³ Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed.

³⁹ Why should any mortal man complain, in view of his sins?

¹⁰ Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear. But the spear struck the wall and David eluded him, ran away, and escaped that night. ¹¹ Then Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and kill him in the morning. But David’s wife Michal warned him, “If you do not run for your life tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!”

⁹ He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net. ¹⁰ They are crushed and beaten down; the hapless fall prey to his strength.

⁵ They hold fast to their evil purpose; they speak of hiding their snares. “Who will see them?” they say.

¹¹ If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,

¹⁷ How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it! ¹⁸ But they lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives.

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.

²² Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet.

² “As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations ³ and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘O city who brings her own doom by shedding blood within her walls and making idols to defile herself, ⁴ you are guilty of the blood you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols you have made. You have brought your days to a close and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands. ⁵ Those near and far will mock you, O infamous city, full of turmoil. ⁶ See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood. ⁷ Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed. ⁸ You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths. ⁹ Among you are slanderous men bent on bloodshed; within you are those who eat on the mountain shrines and commit acts of indecency. ¹⁰ In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity. ¹¹ One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter. 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 You have made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler. ¹⁵ The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

¹⁰ and so were his partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to Simon. “From now on you will catch men.”

¹¹ If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause, ¹² let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit. ¹³ We will find all manner of precious goods; we will fill our houses with plunder.

⁶ You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

⁷ A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands. ⁸ And Ephraim boasts: “How rich I have become! I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.”

⁴ Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land, ⁵ asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales. ⁶ Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

¹² For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Can I forget any longer, O house of the wicked, the treasures of wickedness and the short ephah, which is accursed? ¹¹ Can I excuse dishonest scales or bags of false weights?

⁹ Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster! ¹⁰ You have plotted shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and forfeiting your life. ¹¹ For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork.

² And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit and every unclean and detestable bird.

⁶ The tents of robbers are safe, and those who provoke God are secure—those who carry their god in their hands.

²⁷ Though his face is covered with fat and his waistline bulges with flesh, ²⁸ he will dwell in ruined cities, in abandoned houses destined to become rubble.

²³ One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease. ²⁴ His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.

¹² because I rescued the poor who cried out and the fatherless who had no helper. ¹³ The dying man blessed me, and I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. ¹⁴ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; justice was my robe and my turban.

⁴ May he vindicate the afflicted among the people; may he save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor.

⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; a garment of violence covers them. ⁷ From their prosperity proceeds iniquity; the imaginations of their hearts run wild.

¹² Behold, these are the wicked—always carefree as they increase their wealth.

² “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah ³ Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; uphold the rights of the afflicted and oppressed. ⁴ Rescue the weak and needy; save them from the hand of the wicked.

⁷⁰ Their hearts are hard and callous, but I delight in Your law.

²³ Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.

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

⁶ if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,

¹ Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

¹⁵ Does it make you a king to excel in cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He administered justice and righteousness, and so it went well with him. ¹⁶ He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well with him. Is this not what it means to know Me?” declares the LORD. ¹⁷ “But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.” ¹⁸ Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’ They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’ ¹⁹ He will be buried like a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.

⁶ But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes worse than the countries around her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.’ ⁷ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You have been more insubordinate than the nations around you; you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances, nor have you even conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you.’

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.

¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

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.

⁹ Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

⁴ Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

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.

¹² Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the LORD.

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.”

¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing: Ephraim practices prostitution there, and Israel is defiled.

²⁹ If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.

³ What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

⁶ And on that day the dwellers of this coastland will say, ‘See what has happened to our source of hope, those to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”

¹⁰ They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions. ¹¹ Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: “Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?”

³⁰ And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life. ³¹ For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

¹⁴ “The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the LORD. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

²² The wind will drive away all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Then you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness. 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.”

²⁵ “I have heard the sayings of the prophets who prophesy lies in My name: ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ ²⁶ How long will this continue in the hearts of these prophets who prophesy falsehood, these prophets of the delusion of their own minds?

⁹ Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!

¹⁴ The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

¹⁴ Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will act.

⁶ “Do not preach,” they preach. “Do not preach these things; disgrace will not overtake us.”

² before the decree takes effect and the day passes like chaff, before the burning anger of the LORD comes upon you, before the Day of the LORD’s anger comes upon you. ³ Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth who carry out His justice. Seek righteousness; seek humility. Perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.

¹⁵ Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

¹⁹ And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.”

¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵ It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their actions.

⁹ The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, ¹⁰ and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. ¹¹ For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,

³ For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. ⁴ So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

¹ Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ² Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed.