1Run all of you back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if all of you can find a man, if there be any that executes judgment, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it.
3O LORD, are not yours eyes upon the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
5I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
6Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goes out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.
7How shall I pardon you for this? your children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.
14Wherefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, Because all of you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
15Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, says the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you know not, neither understand what they say.
17And they shall eat up yours harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat: they shall eat up your flocks and yours herds: they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees: they shall impoverish your fenced cities, wherein you trusted, with the sword.
19And it shall come to pass, when all of you shall say, Wherefore does the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shall you answer them, Like all of you have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall all of you serve strangers in a land that is not your's.
22Fear all of you not me? says the LORD: will all of you not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?
24Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that gives rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserves unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
28They are becoming fat, they shine: yea, they pass over the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will all of you do in the end thereof?
