¹If you return, O Israel, the utterance of Yahweh, return to me; and if you remove your detestable things from my face, then you will not flee.

²And you will swear, As Yahweh lives, in stability, in justice, and in righteousness; then nations will bless themselves by him, and in him they will boast.

³For thus Yahweh says to the man of Judah and to Jerusalem: Break up fallow ground for yourselves, and do not sow among thorns.

⁴Circumcise yourselves for Yahweh and remove the foreskins of your heart, O man of Judah and dwellers of Jerusalem, lest my anger go forth like fire and burn, with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.

⁵Declare in Judah and in Jerusalem, make it heard, and say: Blow the horn in the land; call out with full voice, and say: Gather yourselves, and let us go into the walled cities.

⁶Lift up a banner toward Zion; bring yourselves into safety, do not stand still; for I am bringing disaster from the north, and great destruction.

⁷A lion has come up from his thicket, and a ruiner of nations has set out; he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste; your cities will fall in ruins, with no dweller.

⁸Because of this, gird on sackcloth, mourn and wail; for the burning anger of Yahweh has not turned back from us.

⁹And it will happen on that day, the utterance of Yahweh, that the heart of the king will perish, and the heart of the officials; the priests will be appalled and the prophets will be astounded.

¹⁰And I said, Alas, O Adonai Yahweh, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Wholeness will be yours; yet the sword has reached to the being.

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A glaring wind of the bare heights in the wilderness is on the way to the daughter of my people, not to winnow and not to cleanse.

¹²A wind too full for these will come for me; now I also will speak justices against them.

¹³Look, he comes up like clouds, and his chariots like a storm-wind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are devastated!

¹⁴Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. Until when will the thoughts of your iniquity lodge in your midst?

¹⁵For a voice is telling from Dan, and making trouble heard from the hill country of Ephraim.

¹⁶Mention it to the nations—look, make it heard over Jerusalem—watchers are coming from a land far away, and they give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

¹⁷Like those who guard a field they are over her all around, for she has rebelled against me—the utterance of Yahweh.

¹⁸Your way and your deeds have done these things to you; this is your evil, for it is bitter, for it has reached to your heart.

¹⁹My inward parts, my inward parts! I wait at the walls of my heart; my heart roars within me; I will not keep silent, for you have heard, my being, the sound of the trumpet, the shout of war.

²⁰Destruction upon destruction is called, for all the land is devastated; suddenly my tents are devastated, my curtains in an instant.

²¹Until when will I see the banner and hear the sound of the trumpet?

²²For my people are foolish; they do not know me. They are senseless children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they do not know how.

²³I looked at the land, and behold, it was shapeless and void; and at the skies, and their light was no more.

²⁴I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills shook themselves.

²⁵I looked, and behold, there was no human, and every bird of the skies had fled.

²⁶I looked, and behold, the garden-land was the wilderness, and all its cities were pulled down from the face of Yahweh, from the face of his burning anger.

²⁷For thus Yahweh has said: All the land will be a wasteland, yet I will not make a complete end.

²⁸Over this the land will mourn, and the skies above will grow dark; for I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not been sorry, and I will not turn back from it.

²⁹At the sound of the horseman and the shooter of the bow, every city is fleeing; they have come into the thickets, and have gone up onto the cliffs. Every city is forsaken, and no man dwells in them.

³⁰And you, O devastated one, what will you do? Though you dress in scarlet, though you ornament yourself with ornaments of gold, though you tear open your eyes with kohl, in vain you beautify yourself. Those who lusted for you have rejected you; they seek your being.

³¹For I heard a sound like a sick woman's, distress like one bearing her first child, the sound of the daughter of Zion. She gasps for breath, she spreads out her palms: Woe to me, for my being is exhausted before the killers!