You can try to wash away your guilt with a strong detergent. You can use as much soap as you want. But the stain of your guilt is still there for me to see,” ¹  says the Lord God. ² 

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

Why do you constantly go about changing your political allegiances? ¹  You will get no help from Egypt just as you got no help from Assyria. ² 

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. ¹  The process of refining them has proved useless. ²  The wicked have not been purged.

But your ancestors ¹  did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate ²  and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

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.

Then the Lord told me about ¹  some men from Anathoth ²  who were threatening to kill me. ³  They had threatened, ⁴  “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!” ⁵ 

Over and over again ¹  the Lord has sent ²  his servants the prophets to you. But you have not listened or paid attention. ³ 

They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ¹  I tried over and over again ²  to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. ³ 

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine. ¹ 

They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ¹  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there.

ק (Qof) I called for my lovers, ¹  but they had deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city. Truly they had ²  searched for food to ³  keep themselves ⁴  alive. ⁵ 

Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders.

“‘This is because they have led my people astray saying, “All is well,” ¹  when things are not well. When anyone builds a wall without mortar, ²  they coat it with whitewash.

For her blood was in it; she poured it on an exposed rock; she did not pour it on the ground to cover it up with dust.

It has tried my patience; ¹  yet its thick rot is not removed ²  from it. Subject its rot to the fire! ³ 

“Please test your servants for ten days by providing us with some vegetables to eat and water to drink.

And ¹  in that you saw iron mixed with wet clay, so people will be mixed ²  with one another ³  without adhering to one another, just as ⁴  iron does not mix with clay.

So all the king’s wise men came in, but they were unable to read the writing or to make known its ¹  interpretation to the king.

Now the wise men and ¹  astrologers were brought before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation. But they were unable to disclose the interpretation of the message.