17. Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! Behold, you have made heaven and earth, by your great strength and by your outstretched arm. No word is difficult for you.
18. You act with mercy a thousand-fold, but you repay the iniquity of the fathers into the sinews of their sons after them. The Lord of hosts is your name: most strong, great, and powerful!
19. You are great in counsel and incomprehensible in thought. Your eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of Adam, so that you may repay each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his intentions.
20. You caused signs and portents in the land of Egypt, and in Israel, and among men, even until this day. And you have made a name for yourself, just as in this day.
21. And you have led your people Israel away from the land of Egypt, with signs and portents, and with a robust hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.
22. And you have given them this land, which you swore, to their fathers, that you would give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
23. And they entered it and possessed it. But they did not obey your voice, and they did not walk in your law. And they did not do all of the things that you commanded them to do. And so, all of these evils have happened to them.
24. Behold, fortifications were built against the city, so as to capture it. And the city was given into the hands of the Chaldeans, who fight against it, before the face of the sword, and of famine, and of pestilence. And what you have spoken has occurred, just as you yourself discern.
25. So why, O Lord God, are you saying to me: 'Buy a field with money, and summon witnesses,' while the city is being given into the hands of the Chaldeans?"
26. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:
27. "Behold, I am the Lord God; I am above all flesh. Can any word be difficult for me?
28. Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, I will deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans, and into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they will capture it.
29. And the Chaldeans fighting against this city will advance, and set fire to it, and burn it, along with the houses on whose roofs they were offering sacrifice to Baal and were pouring out libations to strange gods, so that they provoked me to wrath.
30. For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah, from their youth, have continually done evil in my eyes. The sons of Israel, even until now, have been provoking me with the work of their hands, says the Lord.
31. For this city has been a cause of fury and indignation to me, from the day when they built it, until this day, in which it will be taken away from my sight,
32. because of all the wickedness of the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah, which they have done, provoking me to wrath, they and their kings, their leaders and their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
33. And they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. And though I taught them and instructed them, rising at first light, they were not willing to listen, so that they would receive discipline.