Jeremiah 2:1-13

Complete Jewish Bible

‘I remember your devotion when you were young;
how, as a bride, you loved me;
how you followed me through the desert,
through a land not sown.

³ “‘Isra’el is set aside for Adonai,
the firstfruits of his harvest;
all who devour him will incur guilt;
evil will befall them,” says Adonai.

⁴ Hear the word of Adonai, house of Ya‘akov
and all families in the house of Isra’el;
⁵ here is what Adonai says:

“What did your ancestors find wrong with me
to make them go so far away from me,
to make them go after nothings
and become themselves nothings?
⁶ They didn’t ask, ‘Where is Adonai,
who brought us out of the land of Egypt,
who led us through the desert,
through a land of wastes and ravines,
through a land of drought and death-dark shadows,
through a land where no one travels
and where no one ever lived?’
⁷ I brought you into a fertile land
to enjoy its fruit and all its good things;
but when you entered, you defiled my land
and made my heritage loathsome.
⁸ The cohanim didn’t ask, ‘Where is Adonai?’
Those who deal with the Torah did not know me,
the people’s shepherds rebelled against me;
the prophets prophesied by Ba‘al
and went after things of no value.

⁹ “So again I state my case against you,” says Adonai,
“and state it against your grandchildren too.
¹⁰ Cross to the coasts of the Kitti’im and look;
send to Kedar and observe closely;
see if anything like this has happened before:
¹¹ has a nation ever exchanged its gods
(and theirs are not gods at all!)?
Yet my people have exchanged their Glory
for something without value.
¹² Be aghast at this, you heavens!
Shudder in absolute horror!” says Adonai.
¹³ “For my people have committed two evils:
they have abandoned me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water!