God

I listened attentively but they spoke nothing right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, "What have I done!" Each runs off in his own direction, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.

Storks in the sky know their seasons; doves, swallows and cranes their migration times; but my people do not know the rulings of ADONAI!

"'How can you say, "We are wise; ADONAI's Torah is with us," when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has turned it into falsehood?

The wise are put to shame, alarmed, entrapped. They have rejected the word of ADONAI, so what wisdom do they have?

"'Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who take them over; for from the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gains; prophets and cohanim alike all practice fraud

they dress the wound of the daughter of my people, but only superficially, saying, "There is perfect shalom," when there is no shalom.

They should be ashamed of their detestable deeds, but they are not ashamed at all, they don't know how to blush. So when others fall, they too will fall; when I punish them, they will stumble,' says ADONAI.

"'I will put an end to them,' says ADONAI. 'There are no grapes on the vine, and no figs on the fig tree; the leaf has withered; and what I have given them will pass from their possession.'"

"Why are we sitting still? Assemble! Let's enter the fortified cities and meet our doom there! For ADONAI our God has doomed us; he has given us bitter water to drink, because we have sinned against ADONAI.

"Yes, now I am sending snakes among you, vipers that no one can charm, and they will bite you," says ADONAI.

Listen to my people's cry of distress out of a distant land: "Is ADONAI no longer in Tziyon? Is her king no longer there?" "Why do they provoke me with their idols and their futile foreign gods?"

They bend their tongues, their 'bow' of falsehood, and hold sway in the land, but not for truth. For they go from evil to evil, and me they do not know," says ADONAI.

"You inhabit a world of deceit; deceitfully they refuse to know me," says ADONAI.

"Therefore," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot, "I will refine them and test them. What else can I do with the daughter of my people?

Should I not punish them for these things?" asks ADONAI. "Should I not take vengeance on such a nation?"

I weep and wail for the mountains and lament over the desert pastures, because they have been burned up; no one passes through; they no longer hear the sound of cattle; the birds and wild animals have fled, are gone.

"I will make Yerushalayim a heap of ruins, turn it into a lair for jackals, and make the cities of Y'hudah desolate, with no one living there."

Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of ADONAI spoken, so that he can proclaim it? Why has the land perished and been laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through?

ADONAI answers: "Because they abandoned my Torah, which I set before them, and neither listened to what I said nor lived accordingly,

therefore," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot, the God of Isra'el: "I will feed this people bitter wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known. I will send the sword after them until I have wiped them out."

Thus says ADONAI-Tzva'ot: "Mark this, then summon the mourning women, so that they will come; send for those who are best [at mourning], so that they will come:

You women, hear the word of ADONAI! Let your ears receive the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail, have each teach her friend how to lament:

Say: "Here is what ADONAI says: 'The corpses of people are scattered like dung in an open field, like sheaves left behind by the reaper with no one to gather them.'"

Here is what ADONAI says: "The wise man should not boast of his wisdom, the powerful should not boast of his power, the wealthy should not boast of his wealth;