⁴ Eternal One (to Jeremiah): Tell My people that these are My words:
        “When people stumble and fall, don’t they get up again?
    When people are lost, don’t they try to find their way back?

⁵     So why have these people turned away from Me
        and refused to come back?
    They hang onto lies that lead them further away
        instead of embracing the truth and coming home to Me.
⁶     I listen intently for someone, anyone, to speak the truth.
        But it never happens. No one corrects his lies.
    No one regrets his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’
        Instead, everyone keeps running farther down that path, away from Me,
    Like a horse charging into a battle.
⁷     Even the stork in the sky knows her time to migrate.
        The dove, the swallow, and the crane
    All take flight when the time is right.
        But not so with My people.
    They do not know or care about the Eternal’s commands.”

⁸     How can any of you say, “We are wise, because we have the Eternal’s law”?
        How little you care about the truth!
    A pen in the hand of your teachers drips nothing but lies.
⁹     The day is coming when these so-called wise teachers will be put to shame;
        their lives will be shattered when they are captured and taken away.
    Why will this happen? Because they have rejected and perverted My word.
        Are these the works of wise men?
¹⁰     This is why I will give their wives away to intruders
        and their property to invaders.
    Greed has corrupted this culture, from the least to the greatest:
        everyone is tainted with this lust for what they don’t deserve.
    The prophets and priests are no better.
        Their lives reek with deceit.
¹¹     To heal the brokenness of My people, they offer superficial words.
        They say, “Peace, peace” as if all is well, but there is no peace.
¹²     Do they feel any shame for their disgraceful deeds?
        Absolutely not. My very own have forgotten how to blush.
    And so it is that they will fall among the fallen and be defeated:
        when the time comes, they will stumble beneath the weight of My punishment;

¹³     The harvest will soon be gone, a thing of the past.
        There will be no grapes on the vine, no figs in the tree;
    Even the leaves will wither and fall.
        For what I have given so generously, I will now take away.