Jeremiah 9:12-16

Living Bible

¹² Who is wise enough to understand all this? Where is the Lord’s messenger to explain it? Why is the land a wilderness so that no one dares even to travel through?

¹³ “Because,” the Lord replies, “my people have forsaken my commandments and not obeyed my laws. ¹⁴ Instead, they have done whatever they pleased and worshiped the idols of Baal, as their fathers told them to.” ¹⁵ Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Look! I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. ¹⁶ I will scatter them around the world, to be strangers in distant lands; and even there the sword of destruction shall chase them until I have utterly destroyed them.