4. Because the ground is cracked, since there has been no rain in the land, the farmers are ashamed— they cover their heads.
5. For even the doe in the field abandons her newborn fawn, because there is no grass.
6. Wild donkeys stand on the barren hills, as they pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, since there is no foliage.
7. Though our iniquities testify against us, Adonai, act for Your Name’s sake. For our backslidings are many. We have sinned against You.
8. O hope of Israel, Savior in time of trouble, why are You like a stranger in the land, or like a traveler who stays for a night?
9. Why are You like a man overcome, like a champion who cannot save? Yet you, Adonai, are in our midst, and we are called by Your Name. Do not forsake us!
10. Thus says Adonai to this people: How they loved to wander, They did not restrain their feet. So Adonai does not accept them. Now will He remember their iniquity, and punish their sins.
11. So Adonai said to me: “Do not pray for the good of this people.
12. If they fast, I will not hear their cry. If they offer burnt offering or grain offering, I will not accept them. Instead I will consume them with sword, with famine and with plague.”
13. Then I said: “Oh my Lord, Adonai! The prophets keep telling them: ‘You will not see the sword nor famine, but I will give you true peace in this place.’”
14. Then Adonai said to me: “The prophets prophesy lies in My Name! I did not send them, nor commanded them, nor did I speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, divination, futility, a delusion of their heart.”
15. Therefore thus says Adonai: “About the prophets who prophesy in My Name, though I did not send them, yet keep saying, ‘Sword and famine will never be in this land’—by sword and famine will those prophets be consumed.
16. Also the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them, their wives, their sons or their daughters. For I will pour their disaster on them.”
17. You will say this word to them: “Let my eyes overflow with tears. Night and day, may they never stop. For the virgin daughter of my people is crushed with a great blow, with a sorely infected wound.”