“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ¹  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ²  says the Lord. “For ³  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ² 

When they had heard it all, ¹  they expressed their alarm to one another. ²  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ³ 

does not eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains ¹  or pray to the idols ²  of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, does not have sexual relations with a ³  woman during her period,

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to ¹  your wife ²  again, even though she loves ³  another man ⁴  and continually commits adultery. ⁵  Likewise, the Lord loves ⁶  the Israelites ⁷  although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.” ⁸ 

Listen now, Joshua the high priest, both you and your colleagues who are sitting before you, all of you ¹  are a symbol that I am about to introduce my servant, the Branch. ² 

Before that time there was no compensation for man or animal, nor was there any relief from adversity for those who came and went, because I had pitted everybody – each one – against everyone else.

Do not plan evil in your hearts against one another. Do not favor a false oath – these are all things that I hate,’ says the Lord.”

Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land,” says the Lord, “but instead I will turn every last person over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from them.”

In all cases of illegal possessions, ¹  whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item, about which someone says ‘This belongs to me,’ ²  the matter of the two of them will come before the judges, ³  and the one whom ⁴  the judges declare guilty ⁵  must repay double to his neighbor.

you must bring the two of them to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry out though in the city and the man because he violated ¹  his neighbor’s fiancée; ²  in this way you will purge ³  evil from among you.

So I, the Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. ¹  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom ²  to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the Lord, affirm it! ³  I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ⁴