God

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A searing wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward the daughter of My people, but not to winnow or to sift;

a wind too strong for that comes from Me. Now I also pronounce judgments against them.”

They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD.

“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”

I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert. All its cities were torn down before the LORD, before His fierce anger.

For this is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child— the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

“Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares. If you can find a single person, anyone who acts justly, anyone who seeks the truth, then I will forgive the city.

Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ they are swearing falsely.”

O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.

I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.

“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.

Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

Go up through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not finish them off. Strip off her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to Me,” declares the LORD.

They have lied about the LORD and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.

Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts says: “Because you have spoken this word, I will make My words a fire in your mouth and this people the wood it consumes.

Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.

“Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.

And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”

Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.

They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’

For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.