Listen to me, you stubborn people, you who distance yourself from doing what is right.

Kings will be your children’s guardians; their princesses will nurse your children. With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you and they will lick the dirt on your feet. Then you will recognize that I am the Lord; those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

Can you people who are like iron and bronze break that iron fist from the north?

So Ebed Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasure room in the palace. He got some worn-out clothes and old rags from there and let them down by ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern.

You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.”

“Judgment will come on the cities on the high plain: on Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath,

The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey. They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat.

ז (Zayin) Remember my impoverished and homeless condition, which is a bitter poison.

I continually think about this, and I am depressed.

It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.

Our forefathers sinned and are dead, but we suffer their punishment.

Slaves rule over us; there is no one to rescue us from their power.

Your prophets have become like jackals among the ruins, O Israel.

You have despised my holy things and desecrated my Sabbaths!

They will sing this lament over you: “‘How you have perished – you have vanished from the seas, O renowned city, once mighty in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror!

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep,

The outer sanctuary and the inner sanctuary each had a double door.

When the priests enter, then they will not go out from the sanctuary to the outer court without taking off their garments in which they minister, for these are holy; they will put on other garments, then they will go near the places where the people are.”

Now at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought malicious accusations against the Jews.

Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning!