אֵת

…but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again.

Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer.

Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.

Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit.

They dress the wound of the daughter of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.

“For behold, I will send snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the LORD.

Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.

You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a desert, so no one can pass through it?

And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.

Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel.

For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, at this time I will sling out the inhabitants of the land and bring distress upon them so that they may be captured.”

For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. It will make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not his own; no one who walks directs his own steps.

Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.

“Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.

You must tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,

…which I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, ‘Obey Me, and do everything I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God.’

This was in order to establish the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is to this day.” “Amen, LORD,” I answered.

Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry them out.