Shared Word Translation
Jeremiah 5
Roam through the streets of Jerusalem; look, please, and take note. Search her squares: if you can find anyone, if there is one who does justice, who seeks faithfulness, then I will forgive her.
Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” they swear falsely.
LORD, are not your eyes upon faithfulness? You struck them, but they did not grieve; you brought them to an end, but they refused to receive discipline. They made their faces harder than rock; they refused to turn back.
Then I said, “Surely these are only the poor; they have acted foolishly, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
I will go to the great and speak with them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, together, had broken the yoke; they had torn off the bonds.
Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them; a wolf of the desert plains will devastate them. A leopard watches over their cities; everyone who goes out from them will be torn apart. For their rebellions are many; their turnings away are great.
“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by what is not God. I satisfied them, and they committed adultery; they crowd into the house of a prostitute.
They are well-fed, lustful stallions; each one neighs after the wife of a neighbor.
Should I not punish for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not take vengeance on a nation like this?”
“Go up among her vine rows and destroy, but do not make a full end. Strip away her branches, for they do not belong to the LORD.
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have utterly betrayed me,” declares the LORD.
They have denied LORD and said, “He is nothing. No evil will come upon us; we will not see sword or famine.
The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”
Therefore, thus says the LORD, God of hosts: “Because you speak this word, look, I am making my words fire in your mouth, and this people wood; the fire will consume them.
Look, I am bringing against you a nation from far away, house of Israel,” declares the LORD. “It is an enduring nation; it is a nation from ancient time. It is a nation whose language you do not know, and you will not understand what it speaks.
Its quiver is like an open grave; all of them are warriors.
It will consume your harvest and your bread; they will consume your sons and your daughters. It will consume your flock and your herd; it will consume your vine and your fig tree. With the sword it will crush your fortified cities in which you trust.
“But even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.
And when you ask, ‘Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ then you shall say to them, ‘As you forsook me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah, saying:
“Hear this, please, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.
Will you not fear me?” declares the LORD. “Will you not tremble before me—I who set the sand as a boundary for the sea, an enduring decree that it cannot cross? Though its waves rage, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot cross it.
But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside and gone away.
They do not say in their heart, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives rain—the early rain and the latter rain—in its season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have withheld good from you.
For wicked people are found among my people. They watch, crouching like bird-catchers; they set a destructive trap; they catch people.
Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become great and rich.
They have grown fat; they are sleek. They have gone beyond deeds of evil. They do not judge the case—the case of the orphan—yet they prosper; and they do not uphold the justice of the needy.
Should I not punish for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not take vengeance on a nation like this?”
A shocking and horrible thing has happened in the land:
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love it so. But what will you do when its end comes?