“I remember the devotion of your ^ayouth,

your love ^bas a bride,

how you followed me in the wilderness,

in a land not sown.

3  Israel was ^choly to the Lord,

the firstfruits of his harvest.

^dAll who ate of it incurred guilt;

disaster came upon them,

declares the Lord.”

^e“What wrong did your fathers find in me

that they went far from me,

and ^fwent after ^gworthlessness, and became worthless?

6  They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord

who brought us up from the land of Egypt,

who led us in the ^hwilderness,

in a land of deserts and pits,

in a land of drought and deep darkness,

in a land that none passes through,

where no man dwells?’

7  And I brought you into a plentiful land

to enjoy its fruits and its good things.

But when you came in, you ⁱdefiled my land

and made my heritage an abomination.

8  The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’

Those who handle the law did not ^jknow me;

the ^kshepherds¹ transgressed against me;

the prophets ^lprophesied by Baal

and went after ^mthings that do not profit.

9  “Therefore I still contend with you,

declares the Lord,

and with your children’s children I will contend.

10  For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see,

or send to Kedar and examine with care;

see if there has been such a thing.

11  Has a nation changed its gods,

even though they are ⁿno gods?

But my people have ^ochanged their glory

for that which does not profit.

12  Be appalled, ^pO heavens, at this;

be shocked, be utterly desolate,

declares the Lord,

13  for my people have committed two evils:

they have ^qforsaken me,

the ^rfountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.

14  “Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?

Why then has he become a prey?

15  ^sThe lions have roared against him;

they have roared loudly.

They have made his land a ^twaste;

his cities are in ruins, ^uwithout inhabitant.

16  Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes

have shaved² the crown of your head.

17  Have you not ^vbrought this upon yourself

by forsaking the Lord your God,

when he led you in the way?

18  ^wAnd now what do you gain by going to Egypt

to drink the waters of the Nile?³

Or what do you gain by going to Assyria

to drink the waters of the Euphrates?⁴

19  Your evil will chastise you,

and your apostasy will reprove you.

Know and see that it is evil and ^xbitter

for you to forsake the Lord your God;

the fear of me is not in you,

declares the Lord God of hosts.

20  “For long ago I ^ybroke your yoke

and burst your bonds;

but you said, ‘I will not serve.’

Yes, ^zon every high hill

and under every green tree

you bowed down ^alike a whore.

21  Yet I ^bplanted you a choice ^cvine,

wholly of pure seed.

How then have you turned degenerate

and become a ^dwild vine?

22  Though you wash yourself ^ewith lye

and use much soap,

the stain of your guilt is still before me,

declares the Lord God.

23  How can you say, ‘I am not unclean,

I have not gone after the Baals’?

Look at your way in the valley;

know what you have done—

a restless young camel running here and there,

24  a wild donkey used to the wilderness,

in her heat sniffing the wind!

Who can restrain her lust?

None who seek her need weary themselves;

in her month they will find her.

25  Keep your ^ffeet from going unshod

and your throat from ^gthirst.

But you said, ‘It is hopeless,

for I have loved ^hforeigners,

and after them I will go.’

26  “As a thief is shamed when caught,

so the house of Israel shall be shamed:

they, their ⁱkings, their officials,

their priests, and their prophets,

27  who say to a ^jtree, ‘You are my father,’

and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’

For they have ^kturned their back to me,

and not their face.

But in the time of their trouble they say,

‘Arise and save us!’

28  But ^lwhere are your gods

that you made for yourself?

^mLet them arise, if they can save you,

in your time of trouble;

for ⁿas many as your cities

are your gods, O Judah.

29  “Why do you contend with me?

You have all transgressed against me,

declares the Lord.

30  In vain have I struck your children;

they took no ^ocorrection;

your own sword devoured your ^pprophets

like a ravening lion.

31  And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord.

Have I been a wilderness to Israel,

or a land of thick darkness?

Why then do my people say, ‘We are free,

we will come no more to you’?

32  Can a virgin forget her ornaments,

or a bride her attire?

Yet my people have ^qforgotten me

days without number.

33  “How well you direct your course

to seek love!

So that even to wicked women

you have taught your ways.

34  Also on your skirts is found

the ^rlifeblood of the guiltless poor;

^syou did not find them breaking in.

Yet in spite of all these things

35  you say, ‘I am innocent;

surely his anger has turned from me.’

Behold, I will bring you to judgment

for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’

36  How much you go about,

changing your way!

You shall be put to shame ^tby Egypt

as you were put to shame ^uby Assyria.

37  From it too you will come away

^vwith your hands on your head,

for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,

and you will not prosper by them.

3  “If¹ a man divorces his wife

and she goes from him

and becomes another man’s wife,

will he return to her?

^wWould not that land be greatly polluted?

You have played the whore with many ^xlovers;

and would you return to me?

declares the Lord.

2  Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see!

Where have you not been ravished?

By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers

like an Arab in the wilderness.

You have polluted the land

with your vile whoredom.

3  Therefore the showers have been withheld,

and the ^yspring rain has not come;

yet you have the forehead of a whore;

^zyou refuse to be ashamed.

4  Have you not just now called to me,

‘My ^afather, you are the ^bfriend of my youth—

5  will he be angry forever,

will he be indignant to the end?’

Behold, you have spoken,

but you have done all the evil that you could.”

“‘Return, faithless Israel,

declares the Lord.

I will not look on you in anger,

for I am merciful,

declares the Lord;

^jI will not be angry forever.

13  Only acknowledge your guilt,

that you rebelled against the Lord your God

and scattered your favors among ^kforeigners under every green tree,

and that you have not obeyed my voice,

declares the Lord.

14  Return, O faithless children,

declares the Lord;

for I am your master;

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,

and I will bring you to Zion.

19  “‘I said,

How I would set you among my sons,

and give you a pleasant land,

a heritage most ^tbeautiful of all nations.

And I thought you would call me, My Father,

and would not turn from following me.

20  Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband,

so have you been ^utreacherous to me, O house of Israel,

declares the Lord.’”

21  A voice on the bare heights is heard,

the weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons

because they have perverted their way;

they have ^vforgotten the Lord their God.

22  “Return, O faithless sons;

I will ^wheal your faithlessness.”

“Behold, we come to you,

for you are the Lord our God.

23  Truly the hills are a delusion,

the orgies² on the mountains.

Truly in the Lord our God

is the salvation of Israel.

4  “If you ^yreturn, O Israel,

declares the Lord,

to me you should return.

If you remove your detestable things from my presence,

and do not waver,

2  and if you ^zswear, ‘As the Lord lives,’

in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,

then nations shall ^abless themselves in him,

and in him shall they ^bglory.”

^c“Break up your fallow ground,

and sow not among thorns.

4  Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;

^dremove the foreskin of your hearts,

O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;

^elest my wrath go forth like fire,

and burn with none to quench it,

because of the evil of your deeds.”

^f“Blow the trumpet through the land;

cry aloud and say,

‘Assemble, and ^glet us go

into the fortified cities!’

6  Raise a standard toward Zion,

flee for safety, stay not,

for I bring disaster from the ^hnorth,

and great destruction.

7  A ⁱlion has gone up from his thicket,

a destroyer of nations has set out;

he has gone out from his place

^jto make your land a waste;

your cities will be ruins

without inhabitant.

8  For this ^kput on sackcloth,

lament and wail,

for the fierce anger of the Lord

has not turned back from us.”

13  Behold, he comes up like clouds;

his chariots ^plike the whirlwind;

his ^qhorses are swifter than eagles—

woe to us, for we are ruined!

14  O Jerusalem, ^rwash your heart from evil,

that you may be saved.

How long shall your wicked thoughts

lodge within you?

15  For a voice declares from Dan

and proclaims trouble from Mount Ephraim.

16  Warn the nations that he is coming;

announce to Jerusalem,

“Besiegers come ^sfrom a distant land;

they shout against the cities of Judah.

17  Like keepers of a field are they against her all around,

because she has rebelled against me,

declares the Lord.

18  ^tYour ways and your deeds

have brought this upon you.

This is your doom, and it is ^ubitter;

it has reached your very heart.”

19  My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!

Oh the walls of my heart!

My heart is beating wildly;

I cannot keep silent,

for I hear the sound of the trumpet,

the alarm of war.

20  Crash follows hard on crash;

the whole land is laid waste.

Suddenly my tents are laid waste,

my curtains in a moment.

21  How long must I see the standard

and hear the sound of the trumpet?

22  “For my people are foolish;

they ^vknow me not;

they are stupid children;

they have no understanding.

They are ‘wise’—in doing evil!

But how to do good they know not.”

23  I looked on the earth, and behold, it was ^wwithout form and void;

and to the heavens, and they had no light.

24  I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,

and all the hills moved to and fro.

25  I looked, and behold, there was no man,

and all the ^xbirds of the air had fled.

26  I looked, and behold, the ^yfruitful land was a desert,

and all its cities were laid in ruins

before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

28  “For this the earth shall ^amourn,

and the heavens above be dark;

for I have spoken; I have purposed;

I have not relented, ^bnor will I turn back.”

29  At the noise of horseman and archer

every city takes to flight;

they enter thickets; they climb among rocks;

all the cities are forsaken,

and no man dwells in them.

30  And you, O desolate one,

what do you mean that you dress in scarlet,

that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold,

that you ^cenlarge your eyes with paint?

In vain you beautify yourself.

Your lovers despise you;

they seek your life.

31  For I heard a cry ^das of a woman in labor,

anguish as of one giving birth to her first child,

the cry of the ^edaughter of Zion gasping for breath,

stretching out her hands,

“Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.”

5  Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,

look and take note!

Search her squares to see

if you can find a man,

one who does justice

and seeks truth,

that I may pardon her.

2  Though they say, “As the Lord lives,”

yet they ^fswear falsely.

3  O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?

You have ^gstruck them down,

but they felt no anguish;

you have consumed them,

but they refused to ^htake correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock;

they have refused to repent.

4  Then I said, “These are only the poor;

they have no sense;

for they do not know the way of the Lord,

the ⁱjustice of their God.

5  I will go to the great

and will speak to them,

for they know the way of the Lord,

the justice of their God.”

But they all alike had broken the yoke;

they had ^jburst the bonds.

6  Therefore a ^klion from the forest shall strike them down;

a ^lwolf from the desert shall devastate them.

A ^mleopard is watching their cities;

everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,

because their transgressions are many,

their apostasies are great.

7  “How can I pardon you?

Your children have ⁿforsaken me

and have ^osworn by those who are ^pno gods.

When I fed them to the full,

they committed adultery

and trooped to the houses of whores.

8  They were well-fed, lusty stallions,

each ^qneighing for his neighbor’s wife.

9  ^rShall I not punish them for these things?

declares the Lord;

and shall I not ^savenge myself

on a nation such as this?

10  “Go up through her ^tvine rows and destroy,

but ^umake not a full end;

strip away her branches,

for they are not the Lord’s.

11  For the house of Israel and the house of Judah

have been utterly ^vtreacherous to me,

declares the Lord.

12  They have spoken falsely of the Lord

and have said, ‘He will do nothing;

^wno disaster will come upon us,

^xnor shall we see sword or famine.

13  The prophets will become wind;

the word is not in them.

Thus shall it be done to them!’”

14  Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts:

“Because you have spoken this word,

behold, ^yI am making my words in your mouth a fire,

and this people wood, and the fire shall consume them.

15  Behold, ^zI am bringing against you

a nation ^afrom afar, O house of Israel,

declares the Lord.

It is an enduring nation;

it is an ancient nation,

a nation whose language you do not know,

nor can you understand what they say.

16  Their quiver is like an open tomb;

they are all mighty warriors.

17  They shall ^beat up your harvest and your food;

they shall eat up your sons and your daughters;

they shall eat up your ^cflocks and your herds;

they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees;

your fortified cities in which you trust

they shall beat down with the sword.”

20  Declare this in the house of Jacob;

proclaim it in Judah:

21  “Hear this, O ^efoolish and senseless people,

^fwho have eyes, but see not,

who have ears, but hear not.

22  ^gDo you not fear me? declares the Lord.

Do you not tremble before me?

^hI placed the sand as the boundary for the sea,

a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;

though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;