¹Yahweh said to me: Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before my face, my being would not be toward this people. Send them away from my face, and let them go out.

²And when they say to you, Where shall we go out? you shall say to them: This is what Yahweh says: Those for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for famine, to famine; those for captivity, to captivity.

³I will appoint over them four kinds, the utterance of Yahweh: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the skies and the animals of the land to devour and to destroy.

⁴I will make them an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the land, because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.

⁵For who will show pity for you, Jerusalem? And who will shake their head in grief for you? And who will turn aside to ask about your wholeness?

⁶You abandoned me, the utterance of Yahweh; you keep going backward. So I stretched out my hand over you and ruined you; I grew weary of taking pity.

⁷I winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land; I made them childless, I destroyed my people; they did not turn back from their ways.

⁸His widows became more numerous to me than the sand of the seas. I brought on them, on the mother of a young man, a destroyer at noon; I made fall upon her suddenly the city's terrors.

⁹The one who bore the seven has languished; she has breathed out her being; her sun went in while it was still day; she is ashamed and abashed. And their remnant I will give to the sword before the face of their enemies, the utterance of Yahweh.

¹⁰Woe to me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land! I have not lent, and they have not lent to me; all of them curse me.

¹¹Yahweh said: Surely I have freed you for good; surely I have made the enemy plead with you in the time of evil and in the time of distress.

¹²Can iron break iron from the north, and bronze?

¹³Your wealth and your treasures I will give as plunder, not for a price, and for all your sins, throughout all your boundaries.

¹⁴I will make your enemies cross over into a land that you have not known; for a fire has been kindled in my anger; against you it will burn.

¹⁵You know, Yahweh; remember me and attend to me, and take vengeance for me on those who pursue me. Do not take me away in your slowness to anger; know that for your sake I bear reproach.

¹⁶Your words were found, and I ate them; and your word became to me a joy and the gladness of my heart, for your name is called over me, Yahweh, God of hosts.

¹⁷I did not sit in the company of those who laugh, nor did I exult; before your hand I sat alone, for you filled me with indignation.

¹⁸Why has my pain become unending, and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you truly be to me like a deceptive thing, waters that are not reliable?

¹⁹Therefore thus Yahweh said: If you turn back, I will bring you back, and you will stand before my face; and if you bring out what is precious from what is worthless, you will be like my mouth. They will turn back to you, but you will not turn back to them.

²⁰I will make you a wall of bronze, fortified, for this people; they will fight against you, but they will not prevail over you; for I am with you to save you and to rescue you, the utterance of Yahweh.

²¹I will rescue you from the hand of the evil ones, and I will ransom you from the palm of the tyrannical ones.