Jeremiah

¹ Get out of Jerusalem, and now! Give a blast on the ram's horn in Blastville. Send up smoke signals from Smoketown. Doom pours out of the north— massive terror!

² to a lovely meadow.

³ and brought in their flocks of soldiers. They've pitched camp all around her, and plan where they'll 'graze.'

⁴ To arms! We'll strike at noon! Oh, it's too late? Day is dying? Evening shadows are upon us?

⁵ and tear apart her defenses stone by stone.' "

⁶ "Chop down her trees. Build a siege ramp against Jerusalem, A city full of brutality, bursting with violence.

⁷ she supplies wickedness nonstop. The streets echo the cries: 'Violence! Rape!' Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place.

⁸ You've pushed me to the limit. You're on the brink of being wiped out, being turned into a ghost town."

⁹ "Time's up! Harvest the grapes for judgment. Salvage what's left of Israel. Go back over the vines. Pick them clean, every last grape.

¹⁰ I've a warning to post. Will anyone notice? It's hopeless! Their ears are stuffed with wax— deaf as a post, blind as a bat. It's hopeless! They've tuned out God. They don't want to hear from me.

¹¹ I can't hold it in much longer. "So dump it on the children in the streets. Let it loose on the gangs of youth. For no one's exempt: Husbands and wives will be taken, the old and those ready to die;

¹² all they own, even their loved ones— When I give the signal against all who live in this country." God's Decree.

¹³ little people and big people alike. Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth.

¹⁴ and they put on band-aids, Saying, 'It's not so bad. You'll be just fine.' But things are not 'just fine'!

¹⁵ over this outrage? No, they have no shame. They don't even know how to blush. There's no hope for them. They've hit bottom and there's no getting up. As far as I'm concerned, they're finished." God has spoken.

¹⁶ "Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, The tried and true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls. But they said, 'Nothing doing. We aren't going that way.'

¹⁷ to warn them, to set off the alarm. But the people said, 'It's a false alarm. It doesn't concern us.'

¹⁸ 'Watch, witnesses, what happens to them!'

¹⁹ Don't miss these bulletins.' I'm visiting catastrophe on this people, the end result of the games they've been playing with me. They've ignored everything I've said, had nothing but contempt for my teaching.

²⁰ rare spices from exotic places? Your burnt sacrifices in worship give me no pleasure. Your religious rituals mean nothing to me."

²¹ "Watch out! I'm putting roadblocks and barriers on the road you're taking. They'll send you sprawling, parents and children, neighbors and friends— and that will be the end of the lot of you."

²² "Look out! An invasion from the north, a mighty power on the move from a faraway place:

²³ vicious and pitiless, Booming like sea storm and thunder—tramp, tramp, tramp— riding hard on war horses, In battle formation against you, dear Daughter Zion!"

²⁴ and we're as limp as wet dishrags. We're paralyzed with fear. Terror has a death grip on our throats.

²⁵ Don't leave the house! Death is on the prowl. Danger everywhere!

²⁶ Blacken your face with ashes. Weep most bitterly, as for an only child. The countdown has begun... six, five, four, three... The Terror is on us!"

²⁷ "I have made you the examiner of my people, to examine and weigh their lives.

²⁸ rotten to the core, the lot of them.

²⁹ but the ore stays a lump, unchanged. It's useless to keep trying any longer. Nothing can refine evil out of them.

³⁰ thrown on the slag heap by me, their God."