“You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ¹  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ²  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ³ 

Foreigners living there will say, ¹  ‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed. Let’s leave Babylonia ²  and each go back to his own country. For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions. It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’ ³ 

Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, ¹  to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. ² 

If a place will not welcome you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off ¹  your feet as a testimony against them.”

Look, your house is forsaken! ¹  And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’” ² 

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, ¹  God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. ² 

Therefore we must progress beyond ¹  the elementary ²  instructions about Christ ³  and move on ⁴  to maturity, not laying this foundation again: repentance from dead works and faith in God,

Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ¹  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ²  are going. They ³  will reject ⁴  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ⁵ 

I was embarrassed to request soldiers and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy ¹  along the way, because we had said to the king, “The good hand of our God is on everyone who is seeking him, but his great anger ²  is against everyone who forsakes him.”

For the fields of Heshbon are dried up, as well as the vines of Sibmah. The rulers of the nations trample all over its vines, which reach Jazer and spread to the desert; their shoots spread out and cross the sea.

They seek me day after day; they want to know my requirements, ¹  like a nation that does what is right and does not reject the law of their God. They ask me for just decrees; they want to be near God.

I hear my dear people ¹  crying out ²  throughout the length and breadth of the land. ³  They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King ⁴  no longer there?’” The Lord answers, ⁵  “Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” ⁶ 

“I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem ¹  or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ² 

‘The defenders of the city will go out and fight with the Babylonians. ¹  But they will only fill those houses and buildings with the dead bodies of the people that I will kill in my anger and my wrath. ²  That will happen because I have decided to turn my back on ³  this city on account of the wicked things they have done. ⁴ 

Just as surely as I have done this, so surely will I never reject the descendants of Jacob. Nor will I ever refuse to choose one of my servant David’s descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, ¹  I will restore them ²  and show mercy to them.”

I will leave you in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your waterways; you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ¹  I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep,

“‘But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok ¹  who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, will approach me to minister to me; they will stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the sovereign Lord.

The ships of Kittim ¹  will come against him, leaving him disheartened. ²  He will turn back and direct his indignation against the holy covenant. He will return and honor ³  those who forsake the holy covenant.