¹Go about in the streets of Jerusalem, and see, please, and know, and search in her broad places, if you will find a man, if there is one who does justice, who seeks steadiness, so that I may forgive her.

²And though they say, "As Yahweh lives," surely they swear to falsehood.

³Yahweh, are your eyes not on steadiness? You struck them, but they did not writhe; you brought them to an end, but they refused to take discipline. They made their faces harder than a crag; they refused to return.

⁴And I said, "They are only the poor; they have acted foolishly, for they do not know the way of Yahweh, the justice of their God."

⁵Let me go to the great ones and speak with them, for they know the way of Yahweh, the justice of their God. But together they have broken the yoke and torn off the fetters.

⁶Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them, a wolf of the desert plains will devastate them, a leopard is watching over their cities; everyone who goes out from them will be torn in pieces, for their transgressions are many, their turnings away are numerous.

⁷How can I forgive you for this? Your sons forsook me and swore by what is not God. I satisfied them, and they committed adultery, and they throng to the house of a prostitute.

⁸They are well-fed, lustful horses; each man neighs at his neighbor's wife.

⁹Shall I not punish for these things?—the utterance of Yahweh—or on a nation like this, shall my being not avenge itself?

¹⁰Go up among her rows and ruin them, but do not make a complete end; remove her tendrils, for they are not Yahweh's.

¹¹For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have utterly betrayed me—the utterance of Yahweh.

¹²They have denied Yahweh and said, "He is not, and evil will not come upon us; sword and famine we will not see."

¹³The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them; so let it be done to them.

¹⁴Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts: Because you have spoken this word, look, I am making my words in your mouth into a fire, and this people into wood, and it will devour them.

¹⁵Look, I am bringing against you a nation from a distance, house of Israel, the utterance of Yahweh; a nation of strength it is, a nation from forever it is, a nation whose language you do not know, and you will not hear what it speaks.

¹⁶Its quiver is like a grave wide open; all of them are mighty men.

¹⁷And it will devour your harvest and your food; they will devour your sons and your daughters; it will devour your flock and your herd; it will devour your vine and your fig tree; it will shatter with the sword your fortified cities, in which you trust.

¹⁸And even in those days, the utterance of Yahweh, I will not make a complete destruction of you.

¹⁹And it will be, when you say, “Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?” then you will say to them, “Just as you forsook me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”

²⁰Tell this in the house of Jacob, and make it heard in Judah, saying:

²¹Hear this, please, O senseless people, without a heart: they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear.

²²Will you not fear me? the utterance of Yahweh. Or will you not writhe before my face, I who set the sand as a boundary for the sea, a decree of forever, and it will not pass over it? Though they toss, they cannot prevail; though its waves roar, they cannot pass over it.

²³But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone.

²⁴And they did not say in their heart, “Let us fear Yahweh our God, who gives the rain, the first rain and the spring rain, in its time, who keeps for us the prescribed weeks of the harvest.”

²⁵Your guilt has turned these things away, and your sins have withheld the good from you.

²⁶For wicked people are found among my people; they lie in wait like fowlers laying a trap; they set a snare of destruction; they catch men.

²⁷Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and grown rich.

²⁸They have grown fat and sleek; also they go beyond the words of evil. They have not pleaded a cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the justice of the needy they have not judged.

²⁹Shall I not visit for these things? the utterance of Yahweh. Or shall my being not avenge itself on a nation such as this?

³⁰A desolation and a horrible thing has come to pass in the land:

³¹The prophets have prophesied in falsehood, and the priests rule by their hands, and my people have loved it so. And what will you do at its end?