Judah’s dishonesty and corruption
5
📚✭“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
and look now and understand,
and seek in its wide squares;
if you can find a man,
if there is anyone who acts
with justice and seeks the truth,
I will pardon it.
2 📚For though they say,
‘As the LORD lives’,
they certainly swear falsely”.
3 📚✭✭O LORD, are not your eyes
on the truth?
You have struck them,
but they have not grieved;
you have consumed them,
but they have refused
to receive correction.
They have made their faces harder
than a rock;
they have refused to return.
4 📚Therefore I said,
“These are only the poor.
They are foolish, for they do not know
the way of the LORD,
or the justice of their God.
5 📚I will go to the great men,
and will speak to them;
for they have known the way
of the LORD,
and the justice of their God”.
But they had completely broken
the yoke and torn off the bonds.
6 📚✭Therefore a lion out of the forest
will slay them, and a wolf
from the desert will ruin them,
a leopard will watch over their cities.
Everyone who goes out will be torn
in pieces,
because their transgressions are many,
and their backslidings have
increased.
7 📚✭“How will I pardon you✭ for this?
Your children have forsaken me,
and sworn by gods who are
not gods✭.
When I fed them to the full,
then they committed adultery✭,
and trooped to the houses
of the prostitutes.
8 📚They were like well-fed
lusty stallions;
each one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.
9 📚✭Will I not give punishment
for these things?
says the LORD.
And will I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
10 📚✭“Go up on her walls, and destroy.
But do not make a full end.
Take away her branches,
for they are not the LORD’s.
11 📚For the house of Israel and
the house of Judah have dealt
very treacherously against me”,
says the LORD.
12 📚✭“They have lied about the LORD and said:
‘He is saying nothing.
No disaster will come on us,
and we will not see sword or famine.
13 📚And the prophets are but wind,
and the word is not in them.
Thus it will be done to them.’ ”
14 📚Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts:
“Because you have spoken this word,
see, I will make my words in your mouth
a fire, and this people wood,
and it will consume them.
15 📚See, I will bring a nation against you
from afar, O house of Israel”,
says the LORD. “It is a mighty nation,
it is an ancient nation✭,
a nation whose language
you do not know,
and whose speech you do not
understand.
16 📚Their quiver is like
an open grave;
they are all mighty men.
17 📚And they will eat up your harvest,
and your bread, which your sons
and your daughters should eat.
They will eat up your flocks and your herds.
They will eat up your vines and
your fig trees.
With the sword they will destroy
your fortified cities in which
you trust.
18 📚✭“Nevertheless, in those days”, says the LORD, “I will not make a complete end of you. 19 📚✭And it will come about that when you say, ‘Why does the LORD our God do all these things to us?’ then you will answer them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.’
20 ✭“Declare this to the house of Jacob,
and publish it in Judah, saying,
21 📚✭Now hear this, O foolish and
senseless people,
who have eyes, but do not see,
who have ears, but do not hear:
22 📚✭Do you not fear me? says the LORD.
Will you not tremble at my presence,
who have placed the sand as
a boundary of the sea by a permanent decree,
so that it cannot cross it?
And though its waves toss themselves,
yet they cannot prevail; though they roar,
yet they cannot cross over it.
23 📚✭“But this people have a stubborn
and rebellious heart.
They have revolted and gone.
24 📚Nor do they say in their heart,
‘Let us now fear the LORD our God
who gives rain,
both the former and the latter,
in its season, who reserves for us
the appointed weeks of the harvest.’
25 📚✭Your evil deeds have turned away
these things,
and your sins have withheld good things
from you.
26 📚For among my people are found
wicked men.
They lie in wait like one who sets snares;
they set a trap, they catch men.
27 📚As a cage is full of birds,
so their houses are full of deceit✭.
Therefore they have become great
and grown rich.
28 📚They have grown fat; they are sleek.
Yes, they surpass the deeds
of the wicked.
They do not plead the cause,
the cause of the fatherless;
yet they prosper;
and they do not cause the needy✭
to get justice.
29 📚✭Will I not punish them
for these things?”
says the LORD.
“Will I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
30 📚✭“A shocking and horrible thing is happening
in the land:
31 📚The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests rule on their own
authority,
and my people love to have it so.
But what will you do in the end?