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JeremiahChapter 5

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Roam the streets of Jerusalem, look and see; search her squares. If you can find one person, if there is even one who does justice and seeks faithfulness, then I will forgive her.
Even when they say, "As the LORD lives," they are swearing falsely.
O LORD, do your eyes not look for faithfulness? You struck them, but they felt no pain; you consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They set their faces harder than rock; they refused to turn back.
So I thought, "These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
Let me go to the great ones and speak with them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God." But they, one and all, had broken the yoke and torn off the bonds.
Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf of the desert will ravage them. A leopard lies in wait by their cities; whoever ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellions are many, their turnings away are countless.
Why should I forgive you? Your children have abandoned me and sworn by gods that are no gods. I fed them full, and they committed adultery; they crowded into the house of the prostitute.
They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each one neighing after his neighbor's wife.
Shall I not punish them for this? declares the LORD. Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
Go up through her rows of vines and destroy, but do not finish them off. Strip away her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, declares the LORD.
They have denied the LORD and said, "It is not he! No disaster will come upon us; we will never see sword or famine.
The prophets are only wind, and the word is not in them. So let it be done to them!"
Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of hosts, says: Because you have spoken these words, I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people the wood it consumes.
Listen, house of Israel: I am bringing a nation against you from far away, declares the LORD—an enduring nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you cannot understand.
Their quiver is an open grave; all of them are warriors.
They will devour your harvest and your bread; they will devour your sons and your daughters; they will devour your flocks and herds; they will devour your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will batter down your fortified cities in which you trust.
Yet even in those days, declares the LORD, I will not make an end of you.
And when they ask, "Why has the LORD our God done all this to us?" you are to tell them, "Just as you abandoned me and served foreign gods in your own land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours."
Announce this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah:
Hear this, you foolish people, without understanding—you have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear.
Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me? I set the sand as a boundary for the sea, an everlasting limit it cannot cross. The waves rage, but they cannot prevail; they roar, but they cannot pass it.
But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone their own way.
They do not say in their hearts, "Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains in their season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest."
Your wrongdoings have turned these away; your sins have withheld the good from you.
For among my people are wicked men. They lie in wait like fowlers crouching; they set a deadly snare, and it is people they catch.
Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. That is why they have grown great and rich;
they are fat and sleek. They even overflow with deeds of evil; they do not defend the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper, and they do not uphold the rights of the needy.
Shall I not punish them for this? declares the LORD. Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
An appalling and horrifying thing has happened in the land:
the prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it so. But what will you do in the end of it all?
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