And a man will deride his brother, and they will not speak the truth. For they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they have labored to commit iniquity.
You have been wearied by the multitude of your own ways. Yet you did not say, "I will cease." You have found life by your own hand; because of this, you have not prayed.
They sowed wheat, but they reaped thorns. They received an inheritance, but it will not benefit them. You will be confounded by your own fruits, because of the wrath of the fury of the Lord.
For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even these have fought against you. And they have cried out after you with loud voice: 'You should not believe them, when they speak good things to you.' "
If the Ethiopian is able to change his skin, or the leopard is able to change his spots, then you also may be able to do well, though you have learned evil.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: "That very wide wall of Babylon will be utterly overturned, and her exalted gates will be burned with fire, and the labors of the people will be as nothing, and the labors of the nations will be sent into the fire and will perish."
And you will say: 'So shall Babylon be submerged! And she will not rise up before the face of the affliction that I will lead over her. And she will be broken.' " The words of Jeremiah thus far.
And you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor accepted discipline. Faith has perished and been taken away from their mouth.
And they have bent their tongue, like a bow, to send forth lies and not the truth. They have been strengthened upon the earth. And they have gone from one evil to another. But they have not known me, says the Lord.
Are not these things before the Lord of hosts? For the people will labor amid a great fire, and the nations will labor in emptiness, and they will fail.
Is there not one Father of us all? Did not one God create us? Why, then, does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers?
And that entire generation was gathered to their fathers. And there rose up others, who had not known the Lord and the works that he had done for Israel.