A nation from far away will attack you
1The Lord says:
‘Walk in the streets of Jerusalem
and look at all the market places.
See if you can find one man
who does what is right and who shows
that the truth is important to him.
If you find someone like that,
I will forgive the sins of the city.
2The people promise things and say:
“As sure as the Lord lives,”
but they promise things that they will not do.’
3I answered and said: ‘Lord, you want to see if these people
do what You want them to do.
But when you punished them,
they did not feel the pain.
When you made them suffer,
they did not want to listen.
Their heads were harder than stone.
They did not want to change their lives,
and they did not live as You wanted them to.’
4I thought they did that
because they were poor and foolish,
they did not know what God wanted,
and they did not know how their God
wanted them to do right.
5I thought that I would go
to the important people because
they should know what the Lord wanted,
and they should know how their God
wanted them to do right.
But they too were like cattle
that had broken the yokes and the ropes
that held them.
6The Lord says: ‘That is why lions
from the forest will attack them
and wolves from the desert will kill them.
Leopards will wait for them
near every city
and kill each one who comes out.
This will happen because they always
rebelled_against Me
and because they have betrayed Me.
7Jerusalem, I can not forgive
your people for these things.
They turned away from Me
and when they promised things,
they said the idols were their witnesses.
I gave them enough food to eat,
and they could live from that,
but then they went and served idols.
They came together in the temples of the idols.
8They became like fat horses,
like stallions that want to mate.
Each one of them wanted to have sex
with his neighbour's wife.
9Do you want Me to close my eyes
to this? I can not do that.
Do you want Me not to punish
the people who do this? No.
10I will send enemies to destroy
your vineyards, but not all of them.
They will cut off the branches,
and they will kill the Israelites and the people of Judah
because they are not mine.
11Yes, the Israelites
have been completely unfaithful to Me.’
This is what the Lord said.
12Those people told lies about the Lord.
They said: ‘The Lord
can not do anything bad to us.
No one will kill us, and we have a lot of food.
13The prophets say words that are useless.
They say things that the Lord
did not tell them.
What they say will not happen to us,
it will happen to them.’
14The Lord, the God who rules over all says:
‘Because they have said these words,
I will now make my words
in Jeremiah's mouth like a fire,
and I will make this nation the wood.
This fire will burn them,
and there will be nothing left over.
15Israelites, I will now bring a nation
from far away to attack you,
a nation which has been there for a long time.
Those people speak a language
that you do not understand.
16They are all good soldiers
who can fight in war,
and their arrows kill a lot of people.
17They will eat all your food
in your wheat_fields and in your homes,
they will kill your sons and your daughters,
and they will eat your sheep, goats and cattle.
They will destroy your vineyards
and your fig trees.
They will go to your cities with strong walls
and destroy them with their swords.
18But even then, I will not cause everyone to die.
19Jeremiah, they will ask: “Why did the Lord our God do all these things to us?” Then you must tell them that I say: “You have turned away from Me and you have served the gods of other nations in your land. Now you will have to serve other kings in a land that is not your land.” 20You must talk to the descendants of Jacob, and tell the people in the land_of_Judah:
21“Listen to what I say,
foolish people who can not think.
You have eyes but you don't want to see,
and you have ears but you don't want to listen.” ’
22The Lord says:
‘You must fear Me,
and you must tremble before Me,
because it was I who told the water
of the sea to come up to the beach,
to the border of the sea,
and the sea never goes over that border.
The waves keep on coming closer
and they make a loud_noise,
but they can not go past the sand.
23No, these people are stubborn and rebellious,
and they have turned away from Me.
24They did not say:
“Let us serve the Lord our God
who gives the rain, the rain in autumn
and the rain in spring,
and the rain at the right time.
It is the Lord who always gives the weeks
when we can harvest the wheat.”
25It is because you have done wrong
that it is not raining.
I have kept away everything that is good
because of the sins that you are doing.
26I do it because there are bad men
among the Israelites,
and these bad men catch people
like they catch birds in a trap.
27These people must work for them
in their homes
because they owe them money.
Their homes are like cages full of birds
that have been caught.
They are rich because they deceive people.
28They are fat and they look good.
They are like judges in court
who don't do what is right to people,
and they make bad things happen.
They don't help children
who have no fathers
or people who are poor.
29Do you want Me to close my eyes
to these things? No, I will not.
You don't want Me to punish the people
who do this, but I will punish them.’
This is what the Lord said.
30He also said: ‘Something very bad and shocking
has happened in the land_of_Judah.
31The prophets give messages
that the Lord has not given them.
The priests rule as they want to,
not as the Lord says,
and my people love it.
But what will you do when the end comes?
You will have trouble.’
