The one who digs a pit ¹  will fall into it; the one who rolls a stone – it will come back on him.

“I have been inactive ¹  for a long time; I kept quiet and held back. Like a woman in labor I groan; I pant and gasp. ² 

Those who trust in idols will turn back and be utterly humiliated, ¹  those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”

For the sake of my reputation ¹  I hold back my anger; for the sake of my prestige ²  I restrain myself from destroying you. ³ 

I offered my back to those who attacked, ¹  my jaws to those who tore out my beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spitting.

Justice is driven back; godliness ¹  stands far off. Indeed, ²  honesty stumbles in the city square and morality is not even able to enter.

Look down from heaven and take notice, from your holy, majestic palace! Where are your zeal ¹  and power? Do not hold back your tender compassion! ² 

In light of all this, ¹  how can you still hold back, Lord? How can you be silent and continue to humiliate us?

The sound of battle comes from the city; the sound comes from the temple! It is the sound of the Lord paying back his enemies.

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. ¹  Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ¹  continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. ²  They refuse to turn back to me. ³ 

The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.

The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. In days to come you will come to understand this. ¹ 

But later ¹  they had changed their minds. They had taken back their male and female slaves that they had freed and forced them to be slaves again. ² 

If they do this, tell ¹  them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to die in the dungeon of Jonathan’s house.’” ² 

Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return ¹  to you; renew our life ²  as in days before, ³ 

He unrolled it before me, and it had writing on the front ¹  and back; ²  written on it were laments, mourning, and woe.

Next I noticed the man dressed in linen with the writing kit at his side bringing back word: “I have done just as you commanded me.”

oppresses the poor and the needy, ¹  commits robbery, does not give back what was given in pledge, prays to ²  idols, performs abominable acts,