How

How beautiful you are, my darling—how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.

How beautiful you are, my darling—how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! Your love is much better than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than all spices.

How is your beloved better than others, O most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another, that you charge us so?

How is your beloved better than others, O most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another, that you charge us so?

How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O daughter of the prince! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the handiwork of a master.

How fair and pleasant you are, O love, with your delights!

See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!

He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

…you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

…you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations.

The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?

And on that day the dwellers of this coastland will say, ‘See what has happened to our source of hope, those to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”

For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

…saying, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.

You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

For My own sake, My very own sake, I will act; for how can I let Myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

You welcome those who gladly do right, who remember Your ways. Surely You were angry, for we sinned. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?

“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!”

“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.

I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.

How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.

Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, how completely You have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

“Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”

How long must I see the signal flag and hear the sound of the horn?

“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”

Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.

How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the Law of the LORD is with us,’ when in fact the lying pen of the scribes has produced a deception?

Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse, says the LORD.

For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”

How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in a peaceful land, how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you follows the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.

Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, to turn Your wrath from them.

O inhabitant of Lebanon, nestled in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you, agony like a woman in labor.”

How long will this continue in the hearts of these prophets who prophesy falsehood, these prophets of the delusion of their own minds?

For behold, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears My Name, so how could you possibly go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, declares the LORD of Hosts.’

How dare you prophesy in the name of the LORD that this house will become like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted!” And all the people assembled against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

How awful that day will be! None will be like it! It is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved out of it.

How long will you wander, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the land—a woman will shelter a man.”

See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

“Tell us now,” they asked Baruch, “how did you write all these words? Was it at Jeremiah’s dictation?”

Then Jeremiah asked King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you or your servants or these people, that you have put me in prison?

This is what the LORD says: “See how the waters are rising from the north and becoming an overflowing torrent. They will overflow the land and its fullness, the cities and their inhabitants. The people will cry out, and all who dwell in the land will wail

The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning; Ashkelon will be silenced. O remnant of their valley, how long will you gash yourself?

‘Alas, O sword of the LORD, how long until you rest? Return to your sheath; cease and be still!’

How can it rest when the LORD has commanded it? He has appointed it against Ashkelon and the shore of its coastland.”

How can you say, ‘We are warriors, mighty men ready for battle’?

Mourn for him, all you who surround him, everyone who knows his name; tell how the mighty scepter is shattered—the glorious staff!

“How shattered it is! How they wail! How Moab has turned his back in shame! Moab has become an object of ridicule and horror to all those around him.”

“How shattered it is! How they wail! How Moab has turned his back in shame! Moab has become an object of ridicule and horror to all those around him.”

“How shattered it is! How they wail! How Moab has turned his back in shame! Moab has become an object of ridicule and horror to all those around him.”

How is the city of praise not forsaken, the town that brings Me joy?

How the hammer of the whole earth lies broken and shattered! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

How Sheshach has been captured! The praise of all the earth has been seized. What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger.

When they sit and when they rise, see how they mock me in song.

How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

How the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in pure gold, are now esteemed as jars of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!

Then the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”

Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.

For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

“Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any other branch among the trees in the forest?

Even when it was whole, it could not be made useful. How much less can it ever be useful when the fire has consumed it and charred it!

How weak-willed is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, while you do all these things, the acts of a shameless prostitute!

See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood.

Then they will lament for you, saying, “How you have perished, O city of renown inhabited by seafaring men—she who was powerful on the sea, along with her people, who imposed terror on all peoples!

Now as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’

They are to teach My people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to discern between the clean and the unclean.

How great are His signs, how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; His dominion endures from generation to generation.

How great are His signs, how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; His dominion endures from generation to generation.

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, “How long until the fulfillment of the vision of the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, and the surrender of the sanctuary and of the host to be trampled?”

How can I, your servant, speak with you, my lord? Now I have no strength, nor is any breath left in me.”

One of them said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long until the fulfillment of these wonders?”

He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

And Ephraim boasts: “How rich I have become! I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.”

How the cattle groan! The herds wander in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

“For they know not how to do right,” declares the LORD. “They store up violence and destruction in their citadels.”

And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”