Now, you must not intercede for this people; do not raise on their behalf a cry or prayer! I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their disaster.
If they fast, I will not listen to their supplication. If they sacrifice burnt offerings or grain offerings, I will take no pleasure in them. Rather, I will destroy them with the sword, famine, and plague.
Thus the Lord answered me: If you come back and I take you back, in my presence you shall stand; If you utter what is precious and not what is worthless, you shall be my mouth. Then they will be the ones who turn to you, not you who turn to them.
I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known; there you can serve other gods day and night because I will not show you mercy. Return from Exile.
Thus says the Lord: Do not go into a house of mourning; do not go there to lament or grieve for them. For I have withdrawn my peace from this people—oracle of the Lord—my love and my compassion.
Must good be repaid with evil that they should dig a pit to take my life? Remember that I stood before you to speak on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.
Is this man Coniah a thing despised, to be broken, a vessel that no one wants? Why are he and his offspring cast out? why thrown into a land they do not know?
therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Never shall there fail to be a descendant of Jonadab, Rechab’s son, standing in my presence.
Indeed, the things done in Jerusalem and in Judah so angered the Lord that he cast them out from his presence. Thus Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Thus I have searched among them for someone who would build a wall or stand in the breach before me to keep me from destroying the land; but I found no one.
All their misfortune began in Gilgal; yes, there I rejected them. Because of their wicked deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no longer; all their princes are rebels.
And I prayed to the Lord and said: O Lord God, do not destroy your people, the heritage you redeemed in your greatness and have brought out of Egypt with your strong hand.
They said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for us, your servants, that we may not die for having added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.”
Samuel therefore took an unweaned lamb and offered it whole as a burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.