¹Righteous are you, Yahweh, when I bring a case with you; yet I will speak justices with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all who act treacherously at ease, wrapped in a garment?

²You planted them; they have even taken root; they go, they even yield fruit. You are near in their mouth, but far from their kidneys.

³But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and you test my heart with you. Drag them away like sheep for the slaughtering, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

⁴How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? Because of the evil of those who dwell in it, animals and birds have been swept away, for they have said: He will not see our latter end.

⁵If you have run with footmen, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with the horses? And in a land of wholeness you trust, but how will you do in the majesty of the Jordan?

⁶For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have acted treacherously against you; even they have called out after you, fully. Do not trust them, even though they speak good things to you.

⁷I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance; I have given the beloved of my being into the palm of her enemies.

⁸My inheritance became to me like a lion in the forest; she gave voice against me; therefore I hated her.

⁹Is my inheritance to me a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey all around against her? Go, gather every beast of the field; bring them to devour.

¹⁰Many shepherds have ruined my vineyard; they have trampled my allotment; they have made my delightful allotment into a wilderness of waste.

¹¹He has made it a devastation; it mourns over me, wasted. All the land is laid desolate, for there is no one who lays it on his heart.

¹²Upon all the bare heights in the wilderness devastators have come, for a sword of Yahweh is devouring from the end of the land to the end of the land; there is no wholeness for any flesh.

¹³They sowed wheat and reaped thorns; they have strained themselves, they will not profit. Be ashamed of your produce, because of the burning of Yahweh's anger.

¹⁴Thus Yahweh said concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the inheritance that I gave as a possession to my people Israel: Look, I am plucking them up from off their ground, and the house of Judah I will pluck up from their midst.

¹⁵And it will be, after I have plucked them up, I will return and I will have compassion on them and I will bring them back, each to his inheritance and each to his land.

¹⁶And it will be, if they truly learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, "As Yahweh lives," just as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.

¹⁷But if they will not listen, I will uproot that nation, uprooting and blotting out — the utterance of Yahweh.