13. Therefore, this is what the Lord says:Ask among the nations,Who has heard things like these?Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
14. Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave the highland crags?Or does cold water flowing from a distance ever fail?
15. Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to false idolsthat make them stumble in their ways on the ancient roads and walk on new paths, not the highway.
16. They have made their land a horror, a perpetual object of scorn; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and shake his head.
17. I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face on the day of their calamity.
18. Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or an oracle from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.”
19. Pay attention to me, Lord.Hear what my opponents are saying!
20. Should good be repaid with evil?Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before Youto speak good on their behalf,to turn Your anger from them.
21. Therefore, hand their children over to famine, and pour the sword’s power on them.Let their wives become childless and widowed,their husbands slain by deadly disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
22. Let a cry be heard from their houseswhen You suddenly bring raiders against them,for they have dug a pit to capture meand have hidden snares for my feet.
23. But You, Lord, knowall their deadly plots against me.Do not wipe out their guilt; do not blot out their sin before You.Let them be forced to stumble before You;deal with them in the time of Your anger.