because your heart was softened and you humbled yourself before Adonai when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants—that they should become a desolation and a curse—and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,’ declares Adonai.
“After everything that has happened to us because of our evil deeds and our great guilt—for You, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and given us a remnant such as this—
They came in and possessed it. But they did not obey your voice nor walk in your Torah. They have done nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you caused all this evil to fall on them.
“Therefore My fury and Mine anger was poured out and blazed in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. So they are waste and a ruin, as it is today.
Therefore I have poured out My fury on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; I have brought their own way upon their heads.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
Therefore I will indeed act in fury. My eye will not spare you nor will I have pity. Though they cry into My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
Indeed, they made their hearts as hard as flint preventing them from hearing the Torah or the words that Adonai-Tzva’ot sent by His Ruach through the former prophets. Consequently, great wrath came from Adonai-Tzva’ot.
Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed the ones who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. Now you have become His betrayers and murderers—