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faintethBefore the murderers.' 5Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,And see now, and know,And seek in the broad places thereof,If ye can find a man,If there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth;And I will pardon her.²And though they say: 'As the Lord liveth',Surely they swear falsely.³O Lord, are not Thine eyes upon truth?Thou hast stricken them, but they were not affected;Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction;They have made their faces harder than a rock;They have refused to return.⁴And I said: 'Surely these are poor,They are foolish, for they know not the way of the Lord,Nor the ordinance of their God; ⁵I will get me unto the great men,And will speak unto them;For they know the way of the Lord,And the ordinance of their God.'But these had altogether broken the yoke,And burst the bands.⁶Wherefore a lion out of the forest doth slay them,A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them,A leopard watcheth over their cities,Every one that goeth out thence is torn in pieces;Because their transgressions are many,Their backslidings are increased. ⁷Wherefore should I pardon thee?The children have forsaken Me,And sworn by no-gods;And when I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery,And assembled themselves in troops at the harlots' houses.⁸They are become as well-fed horses, lusty stallions;Every one neigheth after his neighbour's wife.⁹Shall I not punish for these things?Saith the Lord;And shall not My soul be avengedOn such a nation as this? ¹⁰Go ye up into her rows, and destroy,But make not a full end;Take away her shoots;For they are not the Lord's.¹¹For the house of Israel and the house of JudahHave dealt very treacherously against Me,Saith the Lord.¹²They have belied the Lord,And said: 'It is not He,Neither shall evil come upon us;Neither shall we see sword nor famine;¹³And the prophets shall become wind,And the word is not in them;Thus be it done unto them.'¹⁴Wherefore thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts:Because ye speak this word,Behold, I will make My words in thy mouth fire,And this people wood, and it shall devour them.¹⁵Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far,O house of Israel, saith the Lord;It is an enduring nation,It is an ancient nation,A nation whose language thou knowest not,Neither understandest what they say.¹⁶Their quiver is an open sepulchre,They are all mighty men.¹⁷And they shall eat up thy harvest, and thy bread,They shall eat up thy sons and thy daughters,They shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds,They shall eat up thy vines and thy fig-trees;They shall batter thy fortified cities,Wherein thou trusteth, with the sword.¹⁸But even in those days, saith the Lord,I will not make a full end with you.

      ¹⁹And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say: 'Wherefore hath the Lord our God done all these things unto us?' then shalt Thou say unto them: 'Like as ye have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.'

      ²⁰Declare ye this in the house of Jacob,And announce it in Judah, saying:²¹Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding,That have eyes, and see not,That have ears, and hear not:²²Fear ye not Me? saith the Lord;Will ye not tremble at My presence?Who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea,An everlasting ordinance, which it cannot pass;And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail;Though they roar, yet can they not pass over it.²³But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart;They are revolted, and gone.²⁴Neither say they in their heart:'Let us now fear the Lord our God,That giveth the former rain, and the latter in due season;That keepeth for usThe appointed weeks of the harvest.'²⁵Your iniquities have turned away these things,And your sins have withholden good from you.²⁶For among My people are found wicked men;They pry, as fowlers lie in wait;They set a trap, they catch men.²⁷As a cage is full of birds,So are their houses full of deceit;Therefore they are become great, and waxen rich;²⁸They are waxen fat, they are become sleek;Yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness;They plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless,That they might make it to prosper;And the right of the needy do they not judge.²⁹Shall I not punish for these things?Saith the Lord;Shall not My soul be avengedOn such a nation as this? ³⁰An appalling and horrible thingIs come to pass in the land:³¹The prophets prophesy in the service of falsehood,And the priests bear rule at their beck;And My people love to have it so;What then will ye do in the end thereof? 6Put yourselves under covert, ye children of Benjamin,Away from the midst of Jerusalem,And blow the horn in Tekoa,And set up a signal on Beth-cherem;For evil looketh forth from the north,And a great destruction.²The comely and delicate one,The daughter of Zion, will I cut off.³Shepherds with their flocks come unto her;They pitch their tents against her round about;They feed bare every one what is nigh at hand.⁴'Prepare ye war against her;Arise, and let us go up at noon! ''Woe unto us! for the day declineth,For the shadows of the evening are stretched out! '⁵'Arise, and let us go up by night,And let us destroy her palaces.' ⁶For thus hath the Lord of hosts said:Hew ye down her trees,And cast up a mound against Jerusalem;This is the city to be punished;Everywhere there is oppression in the midst of her.⁷As a cistern welleth with her waters,So she welleth with her wickedness;Violence and spoil is heard in her;Before Me continually is sickness and wounds.⁸Be thou corrected, O Jerusalem,Lest My soul be alienated from thee,Lest I make thee desolate,A land not inhabited. ⁹Thus saith the Lord of hosts:They shall thoroughly glean as a vineThe remnant of Israel;Turn again thy handAs a grape-gatherer upon the shoots.¹⁰To whom shall I speak and give warning,That they may hear?Behold, their ear is dull,And they cannot attend;Behold, the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach,They have no delight in it.¹¹Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord,I am weary with holding in:Pour it out upon the babes in the street,And upon the assembly of young men together;For even the husband with the wife shall be taken,The aged with him that is full of days.¹²And their houses shall be turned unto others,Their fields and their wives together;For I will stretch out My hand upon the inhabitants of the land,Saith the Lord.¹³For from the least of them even unto the greatest of themEvery one is greedy for gain;And from the prophet even unto the priestEvery one dealeth falsely.¹⁴They have healed also the hurt of My people lightly,Saying: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace.¹⁵They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination;Yea, they are not at all ashamed,Neither know they how to blush;Therefore they shall fall among them that fall,At the time that I punish them they shall stumble,Saith the Lord. ¹⁶Thus saith the Lord:Stand ye in the ways and see,And ask for the old paths,Where is the good way, and walk therein,And ye shall find rest for your souls.But they said: 'We will not walk therein.'¹⁷And I set watchmen over you:'Attend to the sound of the horn',But they said: 'We will not attend.'¹⁸Therefore hear, ye nations,And know, O congregation, what is against them.¹⁹Hear, O earth:Behold, I will bring evil upon this people,Even the fruit of their thoughts,Because they have not attended unto My words,And as for My teaching, they have rejected it.²⁰To what purpose is to Me the frankincense that cometh from Sheba,And the sweet cane, from a far country?Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable,Nor your sacrifices pleasing unto Me.²¹Therefore thus saith the Lord:Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people,And the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them,The neighbour and his friend, and they shall perish. ²²Thus saith the Lord:Behold, a people cometh from the north country,And a great nation shall be roused from the uttermost parts of the earth.²³They lay hold on bow and spear,They are cruel, and have no compassion;Their voice is like the roaring sea,And they ride upon horses;Set in array, as a man for war,Against thee, O daughter of Zion. ²⁴'We have heard the fame thereof, our hands wax feeble,Anguish hath taken hold of us,And pain, as of a woman in travail.'²⁵Go not forth into the field,Nor walk by the way;For there is the sword of the enemy,And terror on every side.²⁶O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth,And wallow thyself in ashes;Make thee mourning, as for an only son,Most bitter lamentation;For the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. ²⁷I have made thee a tower and a fortress among My people;That thou mayest know and try their way.²⁸They are all grievous revolters,Going about with slanders;They are brass and iron;They all of them deal corruptly.²⁹The bellows blow fiercely,The lead is consumed of the fire;In vain doth the founder refine,For the wicked are not separated.³⁰Refuse silver shall men call them,Because the Lord hath rejected them.

       7The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear the word

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