Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children.

In vain I have struck down your children; they accepted no correction. Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.

Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I am your husband; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

I thought how I would set you among my children and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful heritage of all the nations. And I thought you would call to me, “My Father,” and would not turn from following me.

A voice on the bare heights is heard, the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children, because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God:

Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness. “Here we come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

“For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good.”

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.

The Imminence and Horror of the Invasion

Flee for safety, O children of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for evil looms out of the north and great destruction.

But I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out on the children in the street and on the gatherings of young men as well; both husband and wife shall be taken, the elderly and those full of days.

Therefore thus says the Lord: See, I am laying before this people stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble; parents and children together, neighbor and friend shall perish.

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

“Death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces to cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.”

My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are no more; there is no one to spread my tent again and to set up my curtains.

And I will dash them one against another, parents and children together, says the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion when I destroy them.

while their children remember their altars and their sacred poles beside every green tree and on the high hills,

Therefore give their children over to famine; hurl them out to the power of the sword; let their wives become childless and widowed. May their men meet death by pestilence, their youths be slain by the sword in battle.

and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind,

Their children shall be as of old; their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all who oppress them.

Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.

there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.

In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

You show steadfast love to the thousandth generation but repay the guilt of parents into the laps of their children after them, O great and mighty God whose name is the Lord of hosts,

I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them.

But they answered, “We will drink no wine, for our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us, ‘You shall never drink wine, neither you nor your children,