The Hebrew Prophets

Even your brothers— your own father’s household— even they have betrayed you; even they have cried aloud against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.

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.

Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time:

“Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to Perath and hide it there in a crevice of the rocks.”

So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD had commanded me.

Many days later the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to Perath, and get the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.”

So I went to Perath and dug up the loincloth, and I took it from the place where I had hidden it. But now it was ruined—of no use at all.

Then the word of the LORD came to me:

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

These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

For just as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I have made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, declares the LORD, so that they might be My people for My renown and praise and glory. But they did not listen.

Therefore you are to tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every wineskin shall be filled with wine.’ And when they reply, ‘Don’t we surely know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’

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.