8:1At that time, an affirmation of Jehovah, They bring the bones of the kings of Judah, And the bones of its princes, And the bones of the priests, And the bones of the prophets, And the bones of inhabitants of Jerusalem, Out of their graves,

8:2And have spread them to sun, and to moon, And to all the host of the heavens, that they have loved, And that they have served, And that they have walked after, And that they have sought, And to which they have bowed themselves, They are not gathered, nor buried, They are for dung on the face of the ground.

8:3And chosen is death rather than life By all the remnant who are left of this evil family, In all the remaining places, whither I have driven them, An affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts.

8:4And thou hast said unto them: Thus said Jehovah, Do they fall, and not rise? Doth he turn back, and not return?

8:5Wherefore hath this people of Jerusalem Turned back -- a perpetual backsliding? They have kept hold on deceit, They have refused to turn back.

8:6I have given attention, yea, I hearken, They do not speak right, No man hath repented of his wickedness, Saying, What have I done? Every one hath turned to his courses, As a horse is rushing into battle.

8:7Even a stork in the heavens hath known her seasons, And turtle, and swallow, and crane, Have watched the time of their coming, And -- My people have not known the judgment of Jehovah.

8:8How do ye say, We are wise, And the law of Jehovah is with us? Surely, lo, falsely it hath wrought, The false pen of scribes.

8:9Ashamed have been the wise, They have been affrighted, and are captured, Lo, against a word of Jehovah they kicked, And the wisdom of what -- have they?

8:10Therefore, I give their wives to others, Their fields to dispossessors, For from the least even unto the greatest, Every one is gaining dishonest gain, From prophet even unto priest, every one is dealing falsely.

8:11And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people slightly, Saying, Peace, peace! and there is no peace.

8:12They were ashamed when they did abomination! Yea, they are not at all ashamed, And blushing they have not known, Therefore, they do fall among falling ones, In the time of their inspection they stumble, said Jehovah.

8:13I utterly consume them, an affirmation of Jehovah, There are no grapes in the vine, Yea, there are no figs in the fig-tree, And the leaf hath faded, And the strength they have passeth from them.

8:14Wherefore are we sitting still? Be gathered, and we go in to the fenced cities, And we are silent there, For Jehovah our God hath made us silent, Yea, He causeth us to drink water of gall, For we have sinned against Jehovah.

8:15Looking for peace -- and there is no good, For a time of healing, and lo, terror.

8:16From Dan hath been heard the snorting of his horses, From the voice of the neighings of his mighty ones, Trembled hath all the land, And they come in and consume the land and its fulness, The city and the inhabitants in it.

8:17For, lo, I am sending among you serpents, Vipers that have no charmer, And they have bitten you, an affirmation of Jehovah.

8:18My refreshing for me is sorrow, For me my heart is sick.

8:19Lo, the voice of a cry of the daughter of my people from a land afar off, Is Jehovah not in Zion? is her king not in her? Wherefore have they provoked Me with their graven images, With the vanities of a foreigner?

8:20Harvest hath passed, summer hath ended, And we -- we have not been saved.

8:21For a breach of the daughter of my people have I been broken, I have been black, astonishment hath seized me.

8:22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? For wherefore hath not the health of the daughter of my people gone up?

9:1Who doth make my head waters, And mine eye a fountain of tears? And I weep by day and by night, For the wounded of the daughter of my people.

9:2Who doth give me in a wilderness A lodging-place of travellers? And I leave my people, and go from them, For all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous ones.

9:3And they bend their tongue, their bow is a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah!

9:4Each of his friend -- beware ye, And on any brother, do not trust, For every brother doth utterly supplant, For every friend slanderously doth walk,

9:5And each at his friend they mock, And truth they do not speak, They taught their tongue to speak falsehood, To commit iniquity they have laboured.

9:6thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit, Through deceit they refused to know Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.

9:7Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Lo, I am refining them, and have tried them, For how do I do because of the daughter of My people?

9:8A slaughtering arrow is their tongue, Deceit it hath spoken in its mouth, Peace with its neighbour it speaketh, And in its heart it layeth its ambush,

9:9For these things do not I see after them? An affirmation of Jehovah, Against a nation such as this doth not My soul avenge itself?

9:10For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, And for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, For they have been burnt up without any passing over, Nor have they heard the voice of cattle, From the fowl of the heavens unto the beast they have fled, they have gone.

9:11And I make Jerusalem become heaps, A habitation of dragons, And the cities of Judah I make a desolation, Without inhabitant.

9:12Who is the wise man? and he understandeth this, And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah spake? And he doth declare it, For what hath the land perished? It hath been burnt up as a wilderness, Without any passing through.

9:13And Jehovah saith: Because of their forsaking My law that I set before them, And they have not hearkened to My voice nor walked in it,

9:14And they walk after the stubbornness of their heart, And after the Baalim, that their fathers taught them,

9:15Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: Lo, I am causing them -- this people -- to eat wormwood, And I have caused them to drink water of gall,

9:16And I have scattered them among nations Which they knew not, they and their fathers, And have sent after them the sword, Till I have consumed them.

9:17Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come,

9:18And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.

9:19For -- a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.

9:20But hear, ye women, a word of Jehovah, And your ear receiveth a word of His mouth, And teach ye your daughters wailing, and each her neighbour lamentation.

9:21For death hath come up into our windows, It hath come into our palaces, To cut off the suckling from without, Young men from the broad places.

9:22Speak thus -- an affirmation of Jehovah, And fallen hath the carcase of man, As dung on the face of the field, And as a handful after the reaper, And there is none gathering.

9:23Thus said Jehovah: Let not the wise boast himself in his wisdom, Nor let the mighty boast himself in his might, Let not the rich boast himself in his riches,

9:24But -- in this let the boaster boast himself, In understanding and knowing Me, For I am Jehovah, doing kindness, Judgment, and righteousness, in the earth, For in these I have delighted, An affirmation of Jehovah.

9:25Lo, days are coming -- an affirmation of Jehovah, And I have laid a charge on all circumcised in the foreskin,

9:26On Egypt, and on Judah, and on Edom, And on the sons of Ammon, and on Moab, And on all cutting the corner of the beard, Who are dwelling in the wilderness, For all the nations are uncircumcised, And all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart!

10:1Hear ye the word, O house of Israel, That Jehovah hath spoken for you.

10:2Thus said Jehovah: Unto the way of the nations accustom not yourselves, And by the signs of the heavens be not affrighted, For the nations are affrighted by them.

10:3For the statutes of the peoples are vanity, For a tree from a forest hath one cut, Work of the hands of an artificer, with an axe,

10:4With silver and with gold they beautify it, With nails and with hammers they fix it, And it doth not stumble.

10:5As a palm they are stiff, and they speak not, They are surely borne, for they step not, Be not afraid of them, for they do no evil, Yea, also to do good is not in them.

10:6Because there is none like Thee, O Jehovah, Great art Thou, and great Thy name in might.

10:7Who doth not fear Thee, king of the nations? For to Thee it is becoming, For among all the wise of the nations, And in all their kingdom there is none like Thee.

10:8And in one they are brutish and foolish, An instruction of vanities is the tree itself.

10:9Spread-out silver from Tarshish is brought, And gold from Uphaz, Work of an artizan, and of the hands of a refiner, Blue and purple is their clothing, Work of the skilful -- all of them.

10:10And Jehovah is a God of truth, He is a living God, and a king age-during, From His wrath shake doth the earth, And nations endure not His indignation.

10:11Thus do ye say to them, The gods Who the heavens and earth have not made, They do perish from the earth, And from under these heavens.

10:12The maker of the earth by His power, The establisher of the world by His wisdom, Who, by His understanding, stretched forth the heavens,

10:13At the voice He giveth forth, A multitude of waters is in the heavens, And He causeth vapours to come up from the end of the earth, Lightnings for rain He hath made, And bringeth out wind from His treasures.

10:14Brutish is every man by knowledge, Put to shame is every refiner by a graven image, For false is his molten image. And there is no breath in them.

10:15Vanity are they, work of erring ones, In the time of their inspection they perish.

10:16Not like these is the Portion of Jacob, For framer of all things is He, And Israel is the rod of His inheritance, Jehovah of Hosts is His name.

10:17Gather from the land thy merchandise, O dweller in the bulwark,

10:18For thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land at this time, And have been an adversary to them, So that they are found out.

10:19Wo to me for my breaking, Grievious hath been my smiting, And I said, Only, this is my sickness, and I bear it.

10:20My tent hath been spoiled, And all my cords have been broken, My sons have gone out from me, and they are not, There is none stretching out any more my tent, And raising up my curtains.

10:21For the shepherds have become brutish, And Jehovah they have not sought, Therefore they have not acted wisely, And all their flock is scattered.

10:22A voice of a report, lo, it hath come, Even a great shaking from the north country, To make the cities of Judah a desolation, A habitation of dragons.

10:23I have known, O Jehovah, that not of man is his way, Not of man the going and establishing of his step.

10:24Chastise me, O Jehovah, only in judgment, Not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me small.

10:25Pour out Thy fury on the nations that have not known Thee, And on the families that have not called in Thy name, For they have eaten up Jacob, Yea, they have eaten him up, yea, they consume him, And his habitation they have made desolate!

11:1The word that hath been unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying:

11:2`Hear ye the words of this covenant, and ye have spoken unto the men of Judah, and unto the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

11:3and thou hast said unto them, Thus said Jehovah God of Israel: Cursed is the man who doth not obey the words of this covenant,

11:4That I commanded your fathers, In the day of My bringing them out from the land of Egypt, Out of the iron furnace, saying, Hearken to My voice, and ye have done them, According to all that I command you, And ye have been to Me for a people, And I am to you for God,

11:5In order to establish the oath that I have sworn to your fathers, To give to them a land flowing with milk and honey, as this day. And I answer and say, `Amen, O Jehovah.'

11:6And Jehovah saith unto me, `Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of this covenant, And ye have done them.

11:7For I certainly testified against your fathers, In the day of My bringing them up out of the land of Egypt -- till this day, Rising early and testifying, saying, Hearken to My voice,

11:8And they have not hearkened nor inclined their ear, And they walk each in the stubbornness of their evil heart, And I bring on them all the words of this covenant, That I commanded to do, and they did not.'

11:9And Jehovah saith unto me: `A conspiracy is found in the men of Judah, And in the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

11:10They have turned back to the iniquities of their first fathers, Who refused to hear My words, And they have gone after other gods to serve them, The house of Israel, and the house of Judah, Have made void My covenant, that I made with their fathers.

11:11Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am bringing in unto them evil, That they are not able to go out from, And they have cried unto Me, And I do not hearken unto them.

11:12And the cities of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem have gone, And they have cried unto the gods, To whom they are making perfume, And they give no deliverance at all to them, In the time of their vexation.

11:13For -- the number of thy cities have been thy gods, O Judah, And -- the number of the streets of Jerusalem Ye have placed altars to a shameful thing, Altars to make perfume to Baal.

11:14And thou, thou dost not pray for this people, Nor dost thou lift up for them cry and prayer, For I do not hearken in the time of their calling unto Me for their vexation.

11:15What -- to My beloved in My house, Her doing wickedness with many, And the holy flesh do pass over from thee? When thou dost evil, then thou exultest.

11:16`An olive, green, fair, of goodly fruit,' Hath Jehovah called thy name, At the noise of a great tumult He hath kindled fire against it, And broken have been its thin branches.

11:17And Jehovah of Hosts, who is planting thee, Hath spoken evil concerning thee, For the evil of the house of Israel, and of the house of Judah, That they have done to themselves, To provoke Me to anger, to make perfume to Baal.

11:18And, O Jehovah, cause me to know, and I know, Then Thou hast showed me their doings.

11:19And I am as a trained lamb brought to slaughter, And I have not known That against me they have devised devices: We destroy the tree with its food, and cut him off From the land of the living, And his name is not remembered again.

11:20And O Jehovah of Hosts, judging righteousness, Trying reins and heart, I do see Thy vengeance against them, For unto Thee I have revealed my cause.'

11:21Therefore, thus said Jehovah concerning the men of Anathoth, who are seeking thy life, saying: Do not prophesy in the name of Jehovah, And thou dost not die by our hands.

11:22Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: `Lo, I am seeing after them, The chosen ones die by sword, Their sons and their daughters die by famine,

11:23And they have no remnant, For I bring evil unto the men of Anathoth, The year of their inspection!'