They are like lusty, well-fed stallions. Each of them lusts after his neighbor’s wife.

Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to the gods called Baal, as their fathers taught them to do.

“Hear the terms of the covenant I made with Israel and pass them on to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.

The Lord said to me, “The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against me!

So I bought the shorts as the Lord had told me to do and put them on.

So I will pull your skirt up over your face and expose you to shame like a disgraced adulteress!

Their children are always thinking about their altars and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, set up beside the green trees on the high hills

Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They stubbornly refused to pay attention or to respond to any discipline.’

Do you people think that I am some local deity and not the transcendent God?” the Lord asks.

‘So pay attention to what I, the Lord, have said, all you exiles whom I have sent to Babylon from Jerusalem.’

At that time I will be the God of all the clans of Israel and they will be my people. I, the Lord, affirm it!”

The boundary line will extend beyond that, straight west from there to the Hill of Gareb and then turn southward to Goah.

Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I am no longer allowed to go into the Lord’s temple.

Then they asked Baruch, “How did you come to write all these words? Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?”

Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. You must not let anyone know where you are.”

“Who is this that rises like the Nile, like its streams turbulent at flood stage?

There at home they will say, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is just a big noise! He has let the most opportune moment pass by.’

For the Lord says, “Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings a nation will swoop down on Moab.

Moab, you are doomed! You people who worship Chemosh will be destroyed. Your sons will be taken away captive. Your daughters will be carried away into exile.

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives.