Dual Panel1Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, see, take note; search through her wide squares: can you find anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, that I may forgive that city?
2People may swear by the life of the LORD, but in fact they perjure themselves.
3LORD, are your eyes not set upon the truth? You punished them, but they took no heed; you pierced them to the heart, but they refused to learn. They made their faces harder than flint; they refused to repent.
4I said, “After all, these are the poor, these are folk without understanding, who do not know the way of the LORD, the ordinances of their God.
5I shall go to the great ones and speak with them; for they will know the way of the LORD, the ordinances of their God.” But they too have broken the yoke and snapped their traces.
6So a lion out of the scrub will strike them down, a wolf from the plains will savage them; a leopard will prowl about their towns and maul any who venture out, for their rebellious deeds are many, their apostasies past counting.
7How can I forgive you for all this? Your children have forsaken me, swearing by gods that are no gods. I gave them all they needed, yet they committed adultery and frequented brothels;
8each neighs after another man's wife, like a well-fed and lusty stallion.
9Shall I fail to punish them for this, says the LORD, shall I not exact vengeance on such a people?
10Go along her rows of vines; destroy them, make an end of them. Lop off her green branches, for they are not the LORD's.
11Faithless are Israel and Judah, both faithless to me. This is the word of the LORD.
12They have denied the LORD, saying, “He does not matter. No harm will come to us; we shall see neither sword nor famine.
13The prophets will prove mere wind; the word is not in them.”
14Therefore, because they talk in this way, these are the words of the LORD the God of Hosts to me: I shall make my words a fire in your mouth, and it will burn up this people like brushwood.
15Israel, I am bringing against you a distant nation, an ancient people established long ago, says the LORD, a people whose language you do not know, whose speech you will not understand;
16they are all mighty warriors, their jaws are a grave, wide open,
17to devour your harvest and your food, to devour your sons and your daughters, to devour your flocks and your herds, to devour your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down with the sword the walled cities in which you trust.
18But in those days, the LORD declares, I shall not make an end of you.
19When it is asked, “Why has the LORD our God done all this to us?” you are to answer, “As you have forsaken the LORD and served alien gods in your own land, so you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.”
20Announce this to the people of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah:
21Listen, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes and see nothing, ears and hear nothing.
22Have you no fear of me, says the LORD, will you not tremble before me, who set the sand as bounds for the sea, a limit it never can pass? Its waves may heave and toss, but they are powerless; roar as they may, they cannot pass.
23But this people has a rebellious and defiant heart; they have rebelled and gone their own way.
24They did not say to themselves, “Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains of autumn and spring showers in their turn, who brings us unfailingly fixed harvest seasons.”
25But your wrongdoing has upset nature's order, and your sins have kept away her bounty.
26For among my people there are scoundrels who, like fowlers, lay snares and set deadly traps; they prey on their fellows.
27Their houses are full of fraud, as a cage is full of birds. They grow great and rich,
28sleek and bloated; they turn a blind eye to wickedness and refuse to do justice; the claims of the fatherless they do not uphold, nor do they defend the poor at law.
29Shall I fail to punish them for this, says the LORD; shall I not exact vengeance on such a people?
30An appalling thing, an outrage, has appeared in this land:
31prophets prophesy lies and priests are in league with them, and my people love to have it so! How will you fare at the end of it all?