God

"So you, [Yirmeyahu,] don't pray for this people! Don't cry or pray on their behalf, because I won't listen to them when they cry to me because of their troubles.

What right does my beloved have to be in my house, when she has behaved so shamelessly with so many? Offerings of consecrated meat can no longer help, because it is when you are doing evil that you are happy."

ADONAI once called you an olive tree, beautiful, full of leaves and good fruit. Now with the roar of a violent storm, he has set it on fire; and its branches will be consumed.

For ADONAI-Tzva'ot, who planted you, has decreed evil for you. "It is because of the evil which the house of Isra'el and the house of Y'hudah did to themselves, provoking me with their offerings of incense to Ba'al."

ADONAI made this known to me, and then I knew - you showed me what they were doing.

ADONAI-Tzva'ot, righteous judge, tester of motives and thoughts, I have committed my cause to you; so let me see your vengeance on them.

Therefore, here is what ADONAI says concerning the men from 'Anatot who seek your life and who tell you, "Stop prophesying in the name of ADONAI, or we will kill you ourselves" -

this is what ADONAI-Tzva'ot says: "I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters will die by famine.

None of them will remain, for I will bring disaster on the men from 'Anatot when the year comes for them to be punished."

ADONAI, although you would be in the right if I were to dispute with you, nevertheless I want to discuss some points of justice with you: Why do the wicked prosper? Why do the treacherous all thrive?

You planted them, and they took root; they grow, and they bear fruit. You are near in their mouths, though far from their hearts.

But, ADONAI, you know me and see me; you test my devotion to you; drag them away like sheep to be slaughtered, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

"I have abandoned my house, I have rejected my heritage, I have given my heart's beloved over to the hands of her foes.

For me, my heritage has become like a lion in the forest - she roared out against me; so now I hate her.

For me, my heritage is like a speckled bird of prey - other birds of prey surround her and attack her. Go, gather all the wild animals, and bring them to devour her.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trampled my plot of land, they have turned my desirable property into a desert waste.

Yes, they have made it a waste; wasted, it mourns to me; the whole land is wasted, because nobody really cares."

On all the desert's bare hills plunderers have come; yes, the sword of ADONAI devours the land from one end to the other; nothing alive is safe.

They sowed wheat and reaped thorns, they wore themselves out and gained nothing. So be ashamed of your [tiny] harvest, the result of ADONAI's fierce anger.

Here is what ADONAI says: "As for all my evil neighbors who encroach on the heritage I gave to my people Isra'el as their possession, I will uproot them from their own land, and I will uproot Y'hudah from among them.

Then, after I have uprooted them, I will take pity on them again and bring them back, each one to his inheritance, each one to his own land.

Then, if they will carefully learn my people's ways, swearing by my name, 'As ADONAI lives,' just as they taught my people to swear by Ba'al, they will be built up among my people.

But if they refuse to listen, then I will uproot that nation, uproot and destroy it," says ADONAI.

ADONAI said to me, "Go, buy yourself a linen loincloth, and wrap it around your body; but don't soften it in water."

So I bought a loincloth, as ADONAI had said, and put it on.