Then the Lord said to me, “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not respond to you.

(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.

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 whenever I prophesy, I must cry out, “Violence and destruction are coming!” This message from the Lord has made me an object of continual insults and derision.

Do not listen to them, because their prophecies are lies. Listening to them will only cause you to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile.

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.

The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the royal secretary, for safekeeping. Then they went to the court and reported everything to the king.

But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies in a cistern.

This day I have told you what he said. But you do not want to obey the Lord by doing what he sent me to tell you.

The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. For the Lord will carry out his plan. He plans to make the land of Babylonia a wasteland where no one lives.

“Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them a warning from me.

You have not gone up in the breaks in the wall, nor repaired a wall for the house of Israel that it would stand strong in the battle on the day of the Lord.

“Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals.

Then you will remember, be ashamed, and remain silent when I make atonement for all you have done, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, I will certainly repay him for despising my oath and breaking my covenant!

Treat my Sabbaths as holy and they will be a reminder of our relationship, and then you will know that I am the Lord your God.”

“‘He gave it to be polished, to be grasped in the hand – the sword is sharpened, it is polished – giving it into the hand of the executioner.

The Babylonians crawled into bed with her. They defiled her with their lust; after she was defiled by them, she became disgusted with them.

when they grasped you with their hand, you broke and tore their shoulders, and when they leaned on you, you splintered and caused their legs to be unsteady.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because it was tall in stature, and its top reached into the clouds, and it was proud of its height,