“You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says:

Do people fall and not get up again?(A)
If they turn away, do they not return?
Why have these people turned away?
Why is Jerusalem always turning away?
They take hold of deceit;(B)
they refuse to return.(C)
I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.(D)
Even the stork in the sky
knows her seasons.
The turtledove, swallow, and crane[a]
are aware of their migration,
but My people do not know
the requirements of the Lord.(E)

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 8:7 Hb obscure

A Stubborn People

“You are to say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

“Will a person fall down and then not get up?
    Will someone turn away[a] and then not turn back again?[b]
Why has this people turned away?[c]
    Why does Jerusalem continue in apostasy?
        They hold on to deceit and refuse to repent.
I’ve listened and I’ve heard,
    and what they say is not right.
No one repents of his evil and says,
    ‘What have I done?’
“They all turn to their own course
    like a horse racing into battle.
Even the stork in the sky knows its seasons,
    and the dove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time for migration.
But my people don’t know
    the requirements[d] of the Lord.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 8:4 Or repent
  2. Jeremiah 8:4 Or not repent
  3. Jeremiah 8:5 Lit. people committed apostasy
  4. Jeremiah 8:7 I.e. the behavior God expects of his people