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Her foes have become the masters;
    her enemies prosper
because the Lord has made her suffer
    for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
    captives before the foe.(A)

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He said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity, for they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see.’(A)

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17 Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence and provoke my anger still further? See, they are putting the branch to their nose!(A) 18 Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”(B)

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Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard exiled to Babylon the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the people who remained.(A)

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14 All your lovers have forgotten you;
    they care nothing for you,
for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy,
    the punishment of a merciless foe,
because your guilt is great,
    because your sins are so numerous.(A)
15 Why do you cry out over your hurt?
    Your pain is incurable.
Because your guilt is great,
    because your sins are so numerous,
    I have done these things to you.

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For we are consumed by your anger;
    by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your countenance.(A)

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15 Jacob ate his fill;[a]
    Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.
    You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him
    and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.(A)
16 They made him jealous with strange gods;
    with abhorrent things they provoked him.(B)
17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
    to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
    whom your ancestors had not feared.(C)
18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;[b]
    you forgot the God who gave you birth.(D)

19 The Lord saw it and was jealous;[c]
    he spurned[d] his sons and daughters.(E)
20 He said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
    I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
    children in whom there is no faithfulness.(F)
21 They made me jealous with what is no god,
    provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
    provoke them with a foolish nation.(G)
22 For a fire is kindled by my anger
    and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase
    and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.(H)
23 I will heap disasters upon them,
    spend my arrows against them:(I)
24 wasting hunger,
    burning consumption,
    bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
    with venom of things crawling in the dust.(J)
25 In the street the sword shall bereave,
    and in the chambers terror
for young man and woman alike,
    nursing child and old gray head.(K)
26 I said, “I will make an end of them[e]
    and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”(L)
27 but I feared provocation by the enemy,
    for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
    it was not the Lord who did all this.” ’(M)

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Footnotes

  1. 32.15 Q mss Sam Gk: MT lacks Jacob ate his fill
  2. 32.18 Or that fathered you
  3. 32.19 Q mss Gk: MT lacks was jealous
  4. 32.19 Cn: Heb he spurned because of provocation
  5. 32.26 Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain

The Wickedness of Jerusalem

Woe, soiled, defiled,
    oppressing city!(A)
It has listened to no voice;
    it has accepted no correction.
It has not trusted in the Lord;
    it has not drawn near to its God.(B)

The officials within it
    are roaring lions;
its judges are evening wolves
    that leave nothing until the morning.(C)
Its prophets are reckless,
    faithless persons;
its priests have profaned what is sacred;
    they have done violence to the law.(D)
The Lord within it is righteous;
    he does no wrong.
Every morning he renders his judgment,
    each dawn without fail,
    but the unjust knows no shame.(E)

I have cut off nations;
    their battlements are in ruins;
I have laid waste their streets
    so that no one walks in them;
their cities have been made desolate,
    without people, without inhabitants.(F)
I said, “Surely the city[a] will fear me;
    it will accept correction;
it will not lose sight[b]
    of all that I have brought upon it.”
But they were the more eager
    to make all their deeds corrupt.(G)

Punishment and Conversion of the Nations

Therefore wait for me, says the Lord,
    for the day when I arise as a witness.
For my decision is to gather nations,
    to assemble kingdoms,
to pour out upon them my indignation,
    all the heat of my anger,
for in the fire of my passion
    all the earth shall be consumed.(H)

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Footnotes

  1. 3.7 Heb it
  2. 3.7 Gk Syr: Heb its dwelling will not be cut off

Penitence and Trust in God

Do not rejoice over me, my enemies;[a]
    when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
    the Lord will be a light to me.(A)
I must bear the indignation of the Lord
    because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
    and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
    I shall see his vindication.(B)
10 Then my enemies[b] will see,
    and shame will cover those[c] who said to me,
    “Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will see their[d] downfall;[e]
    now they[f] will be trodden down
    like the mire of the streets.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 7.8 Heb enemy
  2. 7.10 Heb enemy
  3. 7.10 Heb she
  4. 7.10 Heb her
  5. 7.10 Heb lacks downfall
  6. 7.10 Heb she

Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
    and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
    and pervert all equity,(A)
10 who build Zion with blood
    and Jerusalem with wrong!(B)
11 Its rulers give judgment for a bribe;
    its priests teach for a price;
    its prophets give oracles for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
    “Surely the Lord is with us!
    No harm shall come upon us.”(C)
12 Therefore because of you
    Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
    and the mountain of the temple a wooded height.(D)

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“Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame, as at this day, falls on us, the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you.(A) Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our princes, and our ancestors because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, but we have rebelled against him(B) 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by following his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

11 “All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. So the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against you.(C) 12 He has confirmed his words that he spoke against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a calamity so great that what has been done against Jerusalem has never before been done under the whole heaven.(D) 13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us. We did not entreat the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and reflecting on his[a] fidelity.(E) 14 So the Lord kept watch over this calamity until he brought it upon us. Indeed, the Lord our God is right in all that he has done, for we have disobeyed his voice.(F)

15 “And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made your name renowned even to this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly.(G) 16 O Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath, we pray, turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people have become a disgrace among all our neighbors.(H)

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Footnotes

  1. 9.13 Heb your

24 Mortal, say to it: You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation. 25 Its princes[a] within it are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows within it.(A) 26 Its priests have done violence to my teaching and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.(B) 27 Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.(C) 28 Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord has not spoken.(D) 29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy and have extorted from the alien without justice.(E) 30 And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one.(F) 31 Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; I have returned their conduct upon their heads, says the Lord God.(G)

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Footnotes

  1. 22.25 Gk: Heb A conspiracy of its prophets

46 All our enemies
    have opened their mouths against us;(A)

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39 Why should any who draw breath complain
    about the punishment of their sins?(A)

40 Let us test and examine our ways
    and return to the Lord.(B)
41 Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
    to God in heaven.(C)
42 We have transgressed and rebelled,
    and you have not forgiven.(D)

43 You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
    killing without pity;(E)

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17 The Lord has done what he purposed;
    he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
    he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you
    and exalted the might of your foes.(A)

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18 The Lord is in the right,
    for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
    and behold my suffering;
my young women and young men
    have gone into captivity.(A)

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27 And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.(A)

28 This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand twenty-three Judeans;(B) 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took into exile from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile of the Judeans seven hundred forty-five persons; all the persons were four thousand six hundred.(C)

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21 “As for the offerings that you made in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them? Did it not come into his mind?(A) 22 The Lord could no longer bear the sight of your evil doings, the abominations that you committed; therefore your land became a desolation and a waste and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is to this day.(B)

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14 But in the prophets of Jerusalem
    I have seen a more shocking thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
    they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
    so that no one turns from wickedness;
all of them have become like Sodom to me
    and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.(A)

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I have forsaken my house;
    I have abandoned my heritage;
I have given the beloved of my heart
    into the hands of her enemies.(A)

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29 Shall I not punish them for these things?
            says the Lord,
    and shall I not bring retribution
    on a nation such as this?(A)

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O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth?
You have struck them,
    but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
    but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
    they have refused to turn back.(A)

Then I said, “These are only the poor;
    they have no sense,
for they do not know the way of the Lord,
    the law of their God.(B)
Let me go to the rich[a]
    and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
    the law of their God.”
But they all alike had broken the yoke;
    they had burst the bonds.(C)

Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them;
    a wolf from the desert shall destroy them.
A leopard is watching against their cities;
    everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,
because their transgressions are many;
    their faithlessness is great.(D)

How can I pardon you?
    Your children have forsaken me
    and have sworn by those who are no gods.
When I fed them to the full,
    they committed adultery
    and trooped to the houses of prostitutes.(E)
They were well-fed lusty stallions,
    each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.(F)
Shall I not punish them for these things?
            says the Lord,
    and shall I not bring retribution
    on a nation such as this?(G)

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Footnotes

  1. 5.5 Or the great

18 Your holy people took possession for a little while,
    but now our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.(A)

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42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
    you have made all his enemies rejoice.(A)

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You make us the scorn[a] of our neighbors;
    our enemies laugh among themselves.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 80.6 Syr: Heb strife