1. The Lord said,“Go up and down through the streets of Jerusalem.Look around and see for yourselves.Search through its public squares.See if any of you can find a single personwho deals honestly and tries to be truthful.If you can, then I will not punish this city.
2. These people make promises in the name of the Lord.But the fact is, what they swear to is really a lie.”
3. Lord, I know you look for faithfulness.But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse.Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.They have become as hardheaded as a rock.They refuse to change their ways.
4. I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way.They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands.They do not know what their God requires of them.
5. I will go to the leaders and speak with them.Surely they know what the Lord demands.Surely they know what their God requires of them.”Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authorityand refuse to submit to him.
6. So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them.Like a wolf from the desert they will destroy them.Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their citiesand totally destroy anyone who ventures out.For they have rebelled so muchand done so many unfaithful things.