<p class="poetry">I have listened to them very carefully,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">but they do not speak honestly.p> <p class="poetry">None of them regrets the evil he has done.p> <p class="poetry">None of them says, &#8220;I have done wrong!&#8221;<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">All of them persist in their own wayward course<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">like a horse charging recklessly into battle.p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">I said,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;I will weep and mourn<n id="2" /> for the grasslands on the mountains,<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wildernessp> <p class="poetry">because they are so scorched no one travels through them.p> <p class="poetry">The sound of livestock is no longer heard there.p> <p class="poetry">Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fieldsp> <p class="poetry">have fled and are gone.&#8221;p>

<p class="bodytext">I said,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened?<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">Who has a word from the <sc>Lordsc> that can explain it?<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">Why does the land lie in ruins?p> <p class="poetry">Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?&#8221;p>

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.&#8217;&#8221;<n id="1" />p>

For,&#8217; I say,<n id="1" /> &#8216;just as shorts cling tightly to a person&#8217;s body, so I bound the whole nation of Israel and the whole nation of Judah<n id="2" /> tightly<n id="3" /> to me.&#8217; I intended for them to be my special people and to bring me fame, honor, and praise.<n id="4" /> But they would not obey me.p>

If you do this,<n id="1" /> then the kings and princes who follow in David&#8217;s succession<n id="2" /> and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to enter through these gates, as well as their officials and the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.<n id="3" /> This city will always be filled with people.<n id="4" />

<p class="poetry">So let their children die of starvation.p> <p class="poetry">Let them be cut down by the sword.<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">Let their wives lose their husbands and children.p> <p class="poetry">Let the older men die of disease<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">and the younger men die by the sword in battle.p>

I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.&#8221;&#8217;&#8221;<n id="1" />p>

<p class="poetry">This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away.p> <p class="poetry">He will be like a clay vessel<n id="1" /> that no one wants.<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">Why will he and his children be forced into exile?p> <p class="poetry">Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about?<n id="3" />p>

<p class="poetry">But I see the prophets of Jerusalem<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">doing something just as shocking.p> <p class="poetry">They are unfaithful to mep> <p class="poetry">and continually prophesy lies.<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil,p> <p class="poetry">with the result that they do not stop their evildoing.<n id="3" />p> <p class="poetry">I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom,p> <p class="poetry">and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah.<n id="4" />p>

He said through them,<n id="1" /> &#8216;Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and stop doing the evil things you are doing.<n id="2" /> If you do, I will allow you to continue to live here in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors as a lasting possession.<n id="3" />

all the kings of the north, whether near or far from one another; and all the other kingdoms which are on the face of the earth. After all of them have drunk the wine of the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s wrath,<n id="1" /> the king of Babylon<n id="2" /> must drink it.p>

Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said,<n id="1" /> &#8220;This man should be condemned to die<n id="2" /> because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so<n id="3" /> with your own ears.&#8221;p>

<p class="bodytext">Then the officials and all the people rendered their verdict to the priests and the prophets. They said,<n id="1" /> &#8220;This man should not be condemned to die.<n id="2" /> For he has spoken to us under the authority of the <sc>Lordsc> our God.&#8221;<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">Now there was another man<n id="1" /> who prophesied as the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s representative<n id="2" /> against this city and this land just as Jeremiah did. His name was Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim.<n id="3" />

&#8220;The <sc>Lordsc> has made you priest in place of Jehoiada.<n id="1" /> He has put you in charge in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple of controlling<n id="2" /> any lunatic<n id="3" /> who pretends to be a prophet.<n id="4" /> And it is your duty to put any such person in the stocks<n id="5" /> with an iron collar around his neck.<n id="6" />

I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness &#8211; they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem<n id="1" /> have done this wickedness.<n id="2" />

&#8220;Every seven years each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you for six years, you shall set them free.&#8221;<n id="1" /> But your ancestors did not obey me or pay any attention to me.

Recently, however, you yourselves<n id="1" /> showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own.<n id="2" />

I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces.<n id="1" /> I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence.<n id="2" />