The Hebrew Prophets

For even your own brothers and your father's family are betraying you; they are in full cry after you. Despite all their nice speech, don't believe them.

"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.

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

"Take the loincloth you bought and are wearing, get up, go to Parah, and hide it there in a hole in the rock."

So I went and hid it in Parah, as ADONAI had ordered me.

A long time afterwards, ADONAI said to me, "Get up, go to Parah, and recover the loincloth I ordered you to hide there."

So I went to Parah and dug up the loincloth; but when I took it from the place where I had hidden it, I saw that it was ruined and useless for anything.

Then the word of ADONAI came to me:

"Here is what ADONAI says: 'This is how I will ruin what makes Y'hudah so proud and Yerushalayim so very proud:

I will ruin this evil people, who refuse to hear my words and live according to their own stubborn inclinations, who go after other gods to serve and worship them. They will be like this loincloth, which is useless for anything.

For just as a loincloth clings to a man's body, I made the whole house of Isra'el and the whole house of Y'hudah cling to me,' says ADONAI, 'so that they could be my people, building me a name and becoming for me a source of praise and honor. But they would not listen.

So you are to tell them, "This is what ADONAI the God of Isra'el says: 'Every bottle is filled with wine.'" Then when they ask you, "Don't we already know that every bottle is filled with wine?"

you are to answer them, "This is what ADONAI says: 'I am going to fill all the inhabitants of this land - including the kings sitting on the throne of David, the cohanim, the prophets and the inhabitants of Yerushalayim - with drunkenness.