Then again the king sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. The third captain of fifty went up, came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and pleaded with him, “Man of God, may my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight.
For our kings, princes, priests, and fathers have failed to keep Your law and did not obey Your commandments and Your warnings even when You confronted them.
Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves; everyone loves a bribe and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them.
Manasseh consumes Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh, and they together shall be against Judah. For all this His anger is not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still.
Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying:
O Lord, are not Your eyes upon the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they have known the way of the Lord and the judgment of their God.” But these have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds.
They bend their tongues like their bow; lies and not truth prevail upon the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me, says the Lord.
In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I would have purged you, yet you are not purged, you shall not be purged from your filthiness anymore until I have caused My fury to rest on you.
I will seek that which was lost and bring back that which was driven away and bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick. But I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment.
The diseased you have not strengthened, nor have you healed that which was sick, nor have you bound up that which was broken, nor have you brought back that which was driven away, nor have you sought that which was lost. But with force and with cruelty you have subjugated them.