“You who have forsaken Me,” declares יהוה, “you have gone backward. Therefore I shall stretch out My hand against you and destroy you. I have been weary of relenting!
Alas, sinning nation, a people loaded with crookedness, a seed of evil-doers, sons acting corruptly! They have forsaken יהוה, they have provoked the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕ
But the Word of יהוה was to them, “Command upon command, command upon command, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little,” so that they go and shall stumble backward, and be broken and snared and taken captive.
“And I shall pronounce My judgments against them concerning all their evil, because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other mighty ones, and bowed themselves to the works of their own hands.
“And I shall dash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together,” declares יהוה. “I do not spare nor pardon nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.” ’ ”
“For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, cracked cisterns, which do not hold water.
“Your own evil instructs you, and your backslidings reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter that you have forsaken יהוה your Elohim, and that My fear is not in you,” declares the Master יהוה of hosts.
Whenever I said, “Let me not mention Him, nor speak in His Name again,” it was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I became weary of holding it back, and was helpless.
“And יהוה could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your deeds and because of the abominations which you did. Therefore your land is a ruin, an object of astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, as it is this day.
Therefore I am filled with the wrath of יהוה. I have become weary of containing it. “Pour it out on the children outside, and on the company of young men together, for even husband and wife shall be taken, the aged and the very old.
“And their houses shall be turned over to others, fields and wives together. For I shall stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land,” declares יהוה.
“Hear, O earth! See, I am bringing evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My words, nor My Torah – and they rejected it.
“And if the prophet is deceived, and shall speak a word, I יהוה have deceived that prophet, and shall stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from the midst of My people Yisra’ĕ
therefore see, I Myself shall stretch out My hand against you, and give you as plunder to the nations. And I shall cut you off from the peoples, and make you perish from the lands. I shall destroy you, and you shall know that I am יהוה.”
“From the power of the grave I ransom them, from death I redeem them. Where is your plague, O Death? Where is your destruction, O Grave? Repentance is hidden from My eyes.