No! You plan how to do what is unjust; you deal out violence in the earth.

Then observers will say, “Yes indeed, the godly are rewarded! Yes indeed, there is a God who judges in the earth!”

Let foreigners rejoice and celebrate! For you execute justice among the nations, and govern the people living on earth. (Selah)

They say to themselves, “We will oppress all of them.” They burn down all the places where people worship God in the land.

A slanderer will not endure on the earth; calamity will hunt down a violent man and strike him down.

I cry out to you, O Lord; I say, “You are my shelter, my security in the land of the living.”

Teach me to do what pleases you, for you are my God. May your kind presence lead me into a level land.

For there is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins.

The pomegranates have appeared in the land, the time for pruning and singing has come; the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

If the wicked are shown mercy, they do not learn about justice. Even in a land where right is rewarded, they act unjustly; they do not see the Lord’s majesty revealed.

He will not grow dim or be crushed before establishing justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait in anticipation for his decrees.”

Don’t allow him to rest until he reestablishes Jerusalem, until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.

The following is a record of what Jeremiah son of Hilkiah prophesied. He was one of the priests who lived at Anathoth in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin.

If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to continue to live in this land which I gave to your ancestors as a lasting possession.

They are dismayed because the ground is cracked because there has been no rain in the land. The farmers, too, are dismayed and bury their faces in their hands.

You have been the object of Israel’s hopes. You have saved them when they were in trouble. Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land? Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night?

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.”

I will take delight in doing good to them. I will faithfully and wholeheartedly plant them firmly in the land.’

In those days and at that time I will raise up for them a righteous descendant of David. “‘He will do what is just and right in the land.

“You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’