But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better.

(8:23) I wish that my head were a well full of water and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people who have been killed.

Everyone must be on his guard around his friends. He must not even trust any of his relatives. For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. And all of his friends will tell lies about him.

The Lord who rules over all told me to say to this people, “Take note of what I say. Call for the women who mourn for the dead! Summon those who are the most skilled at it!”

For the Lord says, “I will now throw out those who live in this land. I will bring so much trouble on them that they will actually feel it.”

Listen! News is coming even now. The rumble of a great army is heard approaching from a land in the north. It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.

So the Lord who rules over all said, “I will surely punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. Their sons and daughters will die of starvation.

“I will abandon my nation. I will forsake the people I call my own. I will turn my beloved people over to the power of their enemies.

I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For my anger is like a fire that will burn against you.”

But if that nation does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised to do to it.

Does the snow ever completely vanish from the rocky slopes of Lebanon? Do the cool waters from those distant mountains ever cease to flow?

“‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?”

Those prophets are just prophesying lies. They are prophesying the delusions of their own minds.

Tell them that the Lord says, ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws.

Charge them to give their masters a message from me. Tell them, ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says to give your masters this message.

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.

Zedekiah will be carried off to Babylon and will remain there until I have fully dealt with him. I, the Lord, affirm it! Even if you continue to fight against the Babylonians, you cannot win.’”

Therefore I, the Lord, say: ‘I will indeed hand this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. They will capture it.

I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

“For I, the Lord, say: ‘I will surely bring on these people all the good fortune that I am hereby promising them. I will be just as sure to do that as I have been in bringing all this great disaster on them.