אֵת

And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD to minister to Him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be His servants—all who keep the Sabbath without profaning it and who hold fast to My covenant—

Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lied and failed to remember Me or take this to heart? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me?

I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not profit you.

When you cry out, let your companies of idols deliver you! Yet the wind will carry off all of them, a breath will take them away. But he who seeks refuge in Me will inherit the land and possess My holy mountain.”

For day after day they seek Me and delight to know My ways, like a nation that does what is right and does not forsake the justice of their God. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.”

So shall they fear the name of the LORD where the sun sets, and His glory where it rises. For He will come like a raging flood, driven by the breath of the LORD.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners,

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD shall take no rest for yourselves,

…nor give Him any rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.

The LORD has sworn by His right hand and by His mighty arm: “Never again will I give your grain to your enemies for food, nor will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled.

For those who harvest grain will eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather grapes will drink the wine in My holy courts.”

But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

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?

…to a people who continually provoke Me to My face, sacrificing in the gardens and burning incense on altars of brick,

But you who forsake the LORD, who forget My holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,

I will destine you for the sword, and you will all kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen; you did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.

No longer will a nursing infant live but a few days, or an old man fail to live out his years. For the youth will die at a hundred years, and he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the LORD. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.

Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.

When you see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass; then the hand of the LORD will be revealed to His servants, but His wrath will be shown to His enemies.

“And I, knowing their deeds and thoughts, am coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see My glory.

I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from among them to the nations—to Tarshish, Put, and the archers of Lud; to Tubal, Javan, and the islands far away who have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. So they will proclaim My glory among the nations.

And they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the LORD on horses and chariots and wagons, on mules and camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the LORD, “just as the Israelites bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.”

But the LORD told me: “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ For to everyone I send you, you must go, and all that I command you, you must speak.

Then the LORD reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

Get yourself ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them, or I will terrify you before them.

They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’

I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable.

“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way?

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 have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”

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.

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.

I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it.

She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well.

Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.