The Lord will continually lead you; he will feed you even in parched regions. ¹  He will give you renewed strength, ²  and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring that continually produces water.

Foreigners will rebuild your walls; their kings will serve you. Even though I struck you down in my anger, I will restore my favor and have compassion on you. ¹ 

Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)? But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, ¹  for a god that cannot help them at all! ² 

“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, ¹  and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Does a young woman forget to put on her jewels? Does a bride forget to put on her bridal attire? But my people have forgotten me for more days than can even be counted.

Even your clothes are stained with the lifeblood of the poor who had not done anything wrong; you did not catch them breaking into your homes. ¹  Yet, in spite of all these things you have done, ² 

Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ¹  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ² 

From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal, has taken away ¹  all that our ancestors ²  worked for. It has taken away our flocks and our herds, and even our sons and daughters.

So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore. ¹ 

Even the stork knows when it is time to move on. ¹  The turtledove, swallow, and crane ²  recognize ³  the normal times for their migration. But my people pay no attention to ⁴  what I, the Lord, require of them. ⁵ 

Everyone must be on his guard around his friends. He must not even trust any of his relatives. ¹  For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. ²  And all of his friends will tell lies about him.

The Lord says, “Do not start following pagan religious practices. ¹  Do not be in awe of signs that occur ²  in the sky even though the nations hold them in awe.

Listen! News is coming even now. ¹  The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ²  from a land in the north. ³  It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.

Then I said, ¹  “O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ²  even though our sins speak out against us. ³  Indeed, ⁴  we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ³ 

They will be like a shrub ¹  in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.

I have at this time placed all these nations of yours under the power ¹  of my servant, ²  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I have even made all the wild animals subject to him. ³ 

For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ¹  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ² 

It will not be like the old ¹  covenant that I made with their ancestors ²  when I delivered them ³  from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” ⁴  says the Lord. ⁵ 

Zedekiah will be carried off to Babylon and will remain there until I have fully dealt with him. ¹  I, the Lord, affirm it! ²  Even if you ³  continue to fight against the Babylonians, ⁴  you cannot win.’”