1. People of Jerusalem, run through your streets!Look around! See for yourselves!Search the market places!Can you find one personwho does what is rightand tries to be faithful to God?If you can, the Lord will forgive Jerusalem.
2. Even though you claim to worship the Lord,you do not mean what you say.
3. Surely the Lord looks for faithfulness.He struck you, but you paid no attention;he crushed you, but you refused to learn.You were stubborn and would not turn from your sins.
4. Then I thought, “These are only the poor and ignorant.They behave foolishly;they don't know what their God requires,what the Lord wants them to do.
5. I will go to the people in power,and talk with them.Surely they know what their God requires,what the Lord wants them to do.”But all of them have rejected the Lord's authorityand refuse to obey him.
6. That is why lions from the forest will kill them;wolves from the desert will tear them to pieces,and leopards will prowl through their towns.If those people go out, they will be torn apartbecause their sins are numerousand time after time they have turned from God.
7. The Lord asked, “Why should I forgive the sins of my people?They have abandoned meand have worshipped gods that are not real.I fed my people until they were full,but they committed adulteryand spent their time with prostitutes.
8. They were like well-fed stallions wild with desire,each lusting for his neighbour's wife.
9. Shouldn't I punish them for these thingsand take revenge on a nation such as this?
10. I will send enemies to cut down my people's vineyards,but not to destroy them completely.I will tell them to strip away the branches,because those branches are not mine.
11. The people of Israel and Judahhave betrayed me completely.I, the Lord, have spoken.”
12. The Lord's people have denied him and have said, “He won't really do anything. We won't have hard times; we won't have war or famine.”
13-14. They have said that the prophets are nothing but windbags and that they have no message from the Lord. The Lord God Almighty said to me, “Jeremiah, because these people have said such things, I will make my words like a fire in your mouth. The people will be like wood, and the fire will burn them up.”
15. People of Israel, the Lord is bringing a nation from afar to attack you. It is a strong and ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know.
16. Their bowmen are mighty soldiers who kill without mercy.
17. They will devour your crops and your food; they will kill your sons and your daughters. They will slaughter your flocks and your herds and destroy your vines and fig trees. The fortified cities in which you trust will be destroyed by their army.
18. The Lord says, “Yet even in those days I will not completely destroy my people.