Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I will bring upon this city all the evil I have spoken against it, because they have become stubborn and have not obeyed my words.
They refused to obey and no longer remembered the wonders you had worked for them. They were obdurate and appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich in mercy; you did not forsake them.
You bore witness against them, to bring them back to your law. But they were insolent and would not obey your commandments; They sinned against your ordinances, which give life to those who keep them. They turned stubborn backs, stiffened their necks, and would not obey.
The Lord of hosts who planted you has decreed disaster for you because of the evil done by the house of Israel and by the house of Judah, who provoked me by sacrificing to Baal. The Plot Against Jeremiah.
For, as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me—oracle of the Lord—to be my people, my fame, my praise, my glory. But they did not listen. The Broken Wineflask.
And now, tell this to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am fashioning evil against you and making a plan. Return, all of you, from your evil way; reform your ways and your deeds.
You shall say, Listen to the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such evil upon this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring.
Since the thirteenth year of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day—that is, twenty-three years—the word of the Lord has come to me and I spoke to you untiringly, but you would not listen.
I will punish him and his descendants and his officials for their wickedness; upon them, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the people of Judah I will bring all the evil threats to which they did not listen.
Lord, do your eyes not search for honesty? You struck them, but they did not flinch; you laid them low, but they refused correction; They set their faces harder than stone, and refused to return.
The Lord has devoured without pity all of Jacob’s dwellings; In his fury he has razed daughter Judah’s defenses, Has brought to the ground in dishonor a kingdom and its princes.