(9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. Then I would desert my people and walk away from them because they are all unfaithful to God, a congregation of people that has been disloyal to him.

Their tongues are like deadly arrows. They are always telling lies. Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths. But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them.

The Lord said, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. I will destroy the towns of Judah so that no one will be able to live in them.”

The Lord answered, “This has happened because these people have rejected my laws which I gave them. They have not obeyed me or followed those laws.

So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say. ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment.

I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords until I have destroyed them.’”

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.

Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse.

So I said to the Lord, “O Lord who rules over all, you are a just judge! You examine people’s hearts and minds. I want to see you pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.”

Then the Lord told me about some men from Anathoth who were threatening to kill me. They had threatened, “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!”

“Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing and go at once to Perath. Bury the shorts there in a crack in the rocks.”

Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to Perath and get the shorts I ordered you to bury there.”

So I went to Perath and dug up the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

The Lord said, “Jerusalem, I will surely send you away for your own good. I will surely bring the enemy upon you in a time of trouble and distress.

Yet I, the Lord, say: “A new time will certainly come. People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’

The Lord said, “So I will now let this wicked people know – I will let them know my mighty power in judgment. Then they will know that my name is the Lord.”

You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. All who leave you will suffer shame. Those who turn away from you will be consigned to the nether world. For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life.

Should good be paid back with evil? Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. Just remember how I stood before you pleading on their behalf to keep you from venting your anger on them.

Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Announce there what I tell you.