Jerusalem

Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

Warn the nations now! Proclaim to Jerusalem: “A besieging army comes from a distant land; they raise their voices against the cities of Judah.

“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.

“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Cut down the trees and raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her midst.

Be forewarned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitant.”

Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

“Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.

And the LORD told me, “There is a conspiracy among the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

Then the cities of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to which they have been burning incense, but these gods certainly will not save them in their time of disaster.

Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

“This is what the LORD says: In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.

then you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land—the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the people of Jerusalem.

Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields— I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

“Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.

And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them.

I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.

Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?

This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at all the other gates of Jerusalem.

Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates.

This is what the LORD says: Take heed for yourselves; do not carry a load or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.