15 And Jehovah proceeded to say to me: “If Moses and Samuel were standing before me, my soul would not be toward this people. There would be a sending of them away from before my face, that they might go out. 2 And it must occur that should they say to you, ‘Where shall we go out to?’ you must also say to them, ‘This is what Jehovah has said: “Whoever is for deadly plague, to deadly plague! And whoever is for the sword, to the sword! And whoever is for the famine, to the famine! And whoever is for the captivity, to the captivity!”’

3 “‘And I will commission over them four families,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘the sword to kill, and the dogs to drag away, and the flying creatures of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to eat and to bring to ruin. 4 And I will give them for a quaking to all the kingdoms of the earth on account of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem. 5 For who will show compassion upon you, O Jerusalem, and who will sympathize with you, and who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?’

6 “‘You yourself have deserted me,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘Backwards is the way you keep walking. And I shall stretch out my hand against you and bring you to ruin. I have got tired of feeling regret. 7 And I shall winnow them with a fork in the gates of the land. I shall certainly bereave [them] of children. I will destroy my people, [since] they have not turned back from their own ways. 8 To me their widows have become more numerous than the sand grains of the seas. I will bring for them, upon mother, young man, the despoiler at midday. I will cause to fall upon them suddenly excitement and disturbances. 9 The woman giving birth to seven has faded away; her soul has struggled for breath. Her sun has set while it is yet day; it has become ashamed and felt abashed.’ ‘And to the sword I shall give the mere remnant of them before their enemies,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.”

10 Woe to me, O my mother, because you have given birth to me, a man subject to quarrel and a man subject to strife with all the earth. I have given no loan, and they have given me no loan. All of them are calling down evil upon me.

11 Jehovah has said: “Surely I will minister to you for good. Surely I will intercede for you in the time of calamity and in the time of distress, against the enemy. 12 Can one break iron in pieces, iron out of the north, and copper? 13 Your resources and your treasures I shall give for mere plunder, not for a price, but for all your sins, even in all your territories. 14 And I will cause [them] to pass over with your enemies into a land that you have not known. For a fire itself has been ignited in my anger. Against YOU people it is kindled.”

15 You yourself have known. O Jehovah, remember me and turn your attention to me and avenge me upon my persecutors. In your slowness to anger do not take me away. Take note of my bearing reproach on account of your own self. 16 Your words were found, and I proceeded to eat them; and your word becomes to me the exultation and the rejoicing of my heart; for your name has been called upon me, O Jehovah God of armies. 17 I have not sat down in the intimate group of those playing jokes and begun exulting. Because of your hand I have sat down all by myself, for it is with denunciation that you have filled me. 18 Why has my pain become chronic and my stroke incurable? It has refused to be healed. You positively become to me like something deceitful, like waters that have proved untrustworthy.

19 Therefore this is what Jehovah has said: “If you will come back, then I shall bring you back. Before me you will stand. And if you will bring forth what is precious from valueless things, you will become like my own mouth. They themselves will come back to you, but you yourself will not come back to them.”

20 “And I have made you to this people a fortified copper wall; and they will certainly fight against you, but they will not prevail over you. For I am with you, to save you and to deliver you,” is the utterance of Jehovah. 21 “And I will deliver you out of the hand of the bad ones, and I will redeem you out of the palm of the tyrannical ones.”

16 And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: 2 “You must not take for yourself a wife, and you must not come to have sons and daughters in this place. 3 For this is what Jehovah has said concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who are giving them birth and concerning their fathers who are causing their birth in this land, 4 ‘With deaths from maladies they will die. They will not be bewailed, neither will they be buried. As manure upon the surface of the ground they will become; and by the sword and by famine they will come to an end, and their dead bodies will actually serve as food for the flying creatures of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.’

5 “For this is what Jehovah has said, ‘Do not enter into the house of a mourners’ feast, and do not go to bewail and do not sympathize with them.’

“‘For I have taken away my peace from this people,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘even loving-kindness and mercies. 6 And they will certainly die, the great ones and the small ones, in this land. They will not be buried, neither will people beat themselves for them, nor will anyone make cuts upon himself or make himself bald for them. 7 And they will not deal out to them any bread on account of mourning to comfort someone over the dead; neither will they give them the cup of consolation to drink on account of one’s father and on account of one’s mother. 8 And you must enter no house of banqueting at all to sit down with them to eat and to drink.’

9 “For this is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said, ‘Here I am causing to cease out of this place before the eyes of YOU people and in YOUR days the voice of exultation and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.’

10 “And it must occur that, when you tell to this people all these words and they actually say to you, ‘On what account has Jehovah spoken against us all this great calamity, and what is our error and what is our sin with which we have sinned against Jehovah our God?’ 11 you must also say to them, ‘“On account of the fact that YOUR fathers left me,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “and they kept going after other gods and serving them and bowing down to them. But me they left, and my law they did not keep. 12 And YOU yourselves have acted worse in YOUR doing than YOUR fathers, and here YOU are walking each one after the stubbornness of his bad heart in not obeying me. 13 And I will hurl YOU out from off this land into the land that YOU yourselves have not known, neither YOUR fathers, and there YOU will have to serve other gods day and night, because I shall not give YOU any favor.”’

14 “‘Therefore, look! days are coming,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘when it will no more be said: “As Jehovah is alive who brought the sons of Israel up out of the land of Egypt!” 15 but: “As Jehovah is alive who brought the sons of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands to which he had dispersed them!” and I shall certainly bring them back to their soil, which I gave to their forefathers.’

16 “‘Here I am sending for many fishers,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and they will certainly fish for them; and afterward I shall send for many hunters, and they will certainly hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the clefts of the crags. 17 For my eyes are upon all their ways. They have not been concealed from before me, neither has their error been hid from in front of my eyes. 18 And, first of all, I will repay the full amount of their error and of their sin, on account of their profaning my land. With the corpses of their disgusting things and their detestable things they had filled my inheritance.’”

19 O Jehovah my strength and my stronghold, and my place for flight in the day of distress, to you the nations themselves will come from the ends of the earth, and they will say: “Indeed our forefathers came to possess sheer falsehood, vanity and things in which there was nothing beneficial.” 20 Can earthling man make for himself gods when they are no gods?

21 “Therefore here I am causing them to know; at this one time I shall cause them to know my hand and my mightiness, and they will have to know that my name is Jehovah.”

17 “The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus. With a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, 2 when their sons remember their altars and their sacred poles beside a luxuriant tree, upon the high hills, 3 [on] the mountains in the field. Your resources, all your treasures, I shall give for mere plunder—your high places because of sin throughout all your territories. 4 And you let loose, even of your own accord, from your hereditary possession that I had given you. I also will make you serve your enemies in the land that you have not known; for as a fire YOU people have been ignited in my anger. To time indefinite it will keep kindled.”

5 This is what Jehovah has said: “Cursed is the able-bodied man who puts his trust in earthling man and actually makes flesh his arm, and whose heart turns away from Jehovah himself. 6 And he will certainly become like a solitary tree in the desert plain and will not see when good comes; but he must reside in parched places in the wilderness, in a salt country that is not inhabited. 7 Blessed is the able-bodied man who puts his trust in Jehovah, and whose confidence Jehovah has become. 8 And he will certainly become like a tree planted by the waters, that sends out its roots right by the watercourse; and he will not see when heat comes, but his foliage will actually prove to be luxuriant. And in the year of drought he will not become anxious, nor will he leave off from producing fruit.

9 “The heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate. Who can know it? 10 I, Jehovah, am searching the heart, examining the kidneys, even to give to each one according to his ways, according to the fruitage of his dealings. 11 [As] the partridge that has gathered together what it has not laid is the one making riches, but not with justice. At the half of his days he will leave them, and in his finale he will prove to be senseless.”

12 There is the glorious throne on high from the start; it is the place of our sanctuary. 13 O Jehovah, the hope of Israel, all those who are leaving you will be put to shame. Those apostatizing from me will be written down even in the earth, because they have left the source of living water, Jehovah. 14 Heal me, O Jehovah, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise.

15 Look! There are those saying to me: “Where is the word of Jehovah? Let it come in, please.” 16 But as for me, I did not hasten from being a shepherd following you, and for the desperate day I did not show any craving. You yourself have known the expression of my lips; in front of your face it has occurred. 17 Do not become something terrifying to me. You are my refuge in the day of calamity. 18 Let my persecutors be put to shame, but let me personally be put to no shame. Let them be the ones to be struck with terror, but let me personally not be struck with terror. Bring upon them the day of calamity, and break them even with twice as much breakdown.

19 This is what Jehovah has said to me: “Go, and you must stand in the gate of the sons of the people by which the kings of Judah enter in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. 20 And you must say to them, ‘Hear the word of Jehovah, YOU kings of Judah and all Judah and all YOU inhabitants of Jerusalem, who are entering in by these gates. 21 This is what Jehovah has said: “Watch out for YOUR souls, and do not carry on the sabbath day any load that YOU must bring in through the gates of Jerusalem. 22 And YOU must bring no load out of YOUR homes on the sabbath day; and no work at all must YOU do. And YOU must sanctify the sabbath day, just as I commanded YOUR forefathers; 23 but they did not listen or incline their ear, and they proceeded to harden their neck in order not to hear and in order to receive no discipline.”’

24 “‘“And it must occur that, if YOU strictly obey me,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “to bring in no load through the gates of this city on the sabbath day and to sanctify the sabbath day by not doing on it any work, 25 there will also certainly enter in by the gates of this city kings with princes, sitting on the throne of David, riding in the chariot and upon horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city will certainly be inhabited to time indefinite. 26 And people will actually come from the cities of Judah and from round about Jerusalem and from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland and from the mountainous region and from the Negeb, bringing whole burnt offering and sacrifice and grain offering and frankincense and bringing thanksgiving sacrifice into the house of Jehovah.

27 “‘“But if YOU will not obey me by sanctifying the sabbath day and not carrying a load, but there is a coming in [with it] through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, I will also set a fire ablaze in her gates, and it will certainly devour the dwelling towers of Jerusalem and will not be extinguished.”’”