The sovereign master ¹  says, “These people say they are loyal to me; ²  they say wonderful things about me, ³  but they are not really loyal to me. ⁴  Their worship consists of nothing but man-made ritual. ⁵ 

This is a message ¹  about the animals in the Negev: Through a land of distress and danger, inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, ²  by snakes and darting adders, ³  they transport ⁴  their wealth on the backs of donkeys, their riches on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot help them. ⁵ 

The light of the full moon will be like the sun’s glare and the sun’s glare will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, ¹  when the Lord binds up his people’s fractured bones ²  and heals their severe wound. ³ 

Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

This is what the sovereign Lord says: “Look I will raise my hand to the nations; I will raise my signal flag to the peoples. They will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

This is what your sovereign master, ¹  the Lord your God, says: “Look, I have removed from your hand the cup of intoxicating wine, ²  the goblet full of my anger. ³  You will no longer have to drink it.

And now, what do we have here?” ¹  says the Lord. “Indeed my people have been carried away for nothing, those who rule over them taunt,” ²  says the Lord, “and my name is constantly slandered ³  all day long.

No foreigner who becomes a follower of ¹  the Lord should say, ‘The Lord will certainly ²  exclude me from his people.’ The eunuch should not say, ‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

I will bring them to my holy mountain; I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. ¹  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.” ² 

I, the Lord, ¹  hereby promise to make you ²  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ³  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land.

“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.”

You people of this generation, listen to what the Lord says. “Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel? Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? ¹  Why then do you ²  say, ‘We are free to wander. ³  We will not come to you any more?’

Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³  “Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵  I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire. And I will make this people like wood which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ¹  ‘Take note! ²  I am about to bring disaster on these people. It will come as punishment for their scheming. ³  For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ⁴  and they have rejected my law.

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ²  Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³  Friends and neighbors will die.’

So, go to the place in Shiloh where I allowed myself to be worshiped ¹  in the early days. See what I did to it ²  because of the wicked things my people Israel did.

I also explicitly commanded them: ¹  “Obey me. If you do, I ²  will be your God and you will be my people. Live exactly the way I tell you ³  and things will go well with you.”

I hear my dear people ¹  crying out ²  throughout the length and breadth of the land. ³  They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King ⁴  no longer there?’” The Lord answers, ⁵  “Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” ⁶ 

Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors ¹  to keep ²  when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. ³  I said at that time, ⁴  “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement ⁵  exactly as I commanded you. If you do, ⁶  you will be my people and I will be your God. ⁷ 

So, Jeremiah, ¹  do not pray for these people. Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf. Do not plead with me to save them. ²  For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.” ³