Jeremiah’s complaint and God’s answer
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📚✭You are righteous,O LORD, when I plead with you.
Yet let me talk with you of your
judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are all those who act
very treacherously at ease?
2 📚You have planted them;
yes, they have taken root, they grow;
yes, they produce fruit.
You are near on their lips,
and far from their inner being✭.
3 📚✭But you, O LORD, know me.
You have seen me, and tested my heart
toward you.
Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,
and prepare them for the day of slaughter✭.
4 📚How long✭ will the land mourn,
and the plants of every field wither✭
because the wickedness of those
who dwell in it?
The beasts and the birds are consumed,
because they said,
“He does not see the end we reach”.
5 📚✭The LORD said, “If you have run
with men on foot,
and they have worn you out,
then how can you compete with horses?
And if they wore you out
in the land of peace,
in which you trusted,
then what will you do in the flooding of Jordan?
6 📚✭For even your brothers and the household
of your father have dealt treacherously
with you;
yes, they have called on many to go
after you.
Do not believe them, though they speak
smooth words to you.
7 📚✭“I have forsaken my house,
I have left my inheritance,
I have given my dearly beloved
into the hand of her enemies.
8 📚My inheritance is to me like
a lion in the forest;
it roars against me;
therefore I have hated it.
9 📚✭My inheritance is to me like
a speckled bird;
the birds all around are against it.
Come, assemble all the beasts of the field,
come to devour.
10 📚✭Many shepherds have destroyed
my vineyard,
they have trampled my portion underfoot,
they have made my pleasant portion
a desolate wilderness.
11 📚They have made it desolate,
and being desolate it mourns to me.
The whole land has been made desolate,
because no one takes it to heart✭.
12 📚The despoilers have come over all
the desolate heights in the wilderness;
for the sword of the LORD✭ will devour
from one end of the land
to the other end of the land.
No one will have peace.
13 📚They have sown wheat,
but will reap thorns.
They have taken pains,
but will not profit.
And they will be disappointed
about the harvest,
because of the fierce anger✭ of the LORD.
14 📚✭“Thus says the LORD against all my evil neighbours who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: See, I will uproot them from their land, and uproot the house of Judah from among them. 15 📚And it will happen after I have uprooted them that I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them back, each man to his inheritance, and each man to his land. 16 📚And it will come about, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, ‘The LORD lives’, as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be established among my people. 17 📚But if they will not obey, I will fully uproot and destroy that nation, says the LORD”.