From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal, has taken away all that our ancestors worked for. It has taken away our flocks and our herds, and even our sons and daughters.

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.’”

And I cried out, “We are doomed! Our wound is severe! We once thought, ‘This is only an illness. And we will be able to bear it!’

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

People of Jerusalem, go up to Lebanon and cry out in mourning. Go to the land of Bashan and cry out loudly. Cry out in mourning from the mountains of Moab. For your allies have all been defeated.

Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you will certainly kill me. If I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

“The Lord has told you people who remain in Judah, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’ Be very sure of this: I warn you here and now.

The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning. The people of Ashkelon will be struck dumb. How long will you gash yourselves to show your sorrow, you who remain of Philistia’s power?

Indeed they will climb the slopes of Luhith, weeping continually as they go. For on the road down to Horonaim they will hear the cries of distress over the destruction.

The destroyer will come against every town. Not one town will escape. The towns in the valley will be destroyed. The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. I, the Lord, have spoken!

Listen! Fugitives and refugees are coming from the land of Babylon. They are coming to Zion to declare there how the Lord our God is getting revenge, getting revenge for what they have done to his temple.

so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.

“Take note, son of man, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for distant days; he is prophesying about the far future.’

“‘Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you have spoken false words and forecast delusion, look, I am against you, declares the sovereign Lord.

You took some of your clothing and made for yourself decorated high places; you engaged in prostitution on them. You went to him to become his.

You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution with them.

At the head of every street you erected your pavilion and you disgraced your beauty when you spread your legs to every passerby and multiplied your promiscuity.

Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people.

“As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

They have treated father and mother with contempt within you; they have oppressed the foreigner among you; they have wronged the orphan and the widow within you.