God

As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me in their time of disaster.

What right has My beloved in My house, having carried out so many evil schemes? Can consecrated meat avert your doom, so that you can rejoice?

The LORD once called you a flourishing olive tree, beautiful with well-formed fruit. But with a mighty roar He will set it on fire, and its branches will be consumed.

The LORD of Hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you on account of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have brought upon themselves, provoking Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.”

And the LORD informed me, so I knew. Then You showed me their deeds.

O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the people of Anathoth who are seeking your life and saying, “You must not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand.”

So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.

There will be no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

You planted them, and they have taken root. They have grown and produced fruit. You are ever on their lips, but far from their hearts.

But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage.

I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance. I have given the love of My life into the hands of her enemies.

My inheritance has become to Me like a lion in the forest. She has roared against Me; therefore I hate her.

Is not My inheritance to Me like a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go, gather all the beasts of the field; bring them to devour her.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.

They have made it a desolation; desolate before Me, it mourns. All the land is laid waste, but no man takes it to heart.

Over all the barren heights in the wilderness the destroyers have come, for the sword of the LORD devours from one end of the earth to the other. No flesh has peace.

They have sown wheat but harvested thorns. They have exhausted themselves to no avail. Bear the shame of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”

This is what the LORD says: “As for all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from among them.

But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

And if they will diligently learn the ways of My people and swear by My name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among My people.

But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation; I will uproot it and destroy it, declares the LORD.”

This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”

So I bought a loincloth as the LORD had instructed me, and I put it around my waist.