1“At that time, declares Yahweh, they will bring out of their graves the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
2and they will spread them before the sun and the moon and all the army of heaven that they have loved, and that they have served, and that they have followed, and that they have sought, and that they have worshiped. And they will not be collected and buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground.
3Death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places where I have driven them, says Yahweh of Armies.
4Moreover, you are to tell them: This is what Yahweh says: Do people fall and not get up again? If one turns away, does he not return?
5Why then has this people of Jerusalem turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return to me.
6I listened and heard, but they did not speak what was right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns aside to his own race course like a horse that plunges forward into the battle.
7Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed times, and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane keep the time of their coming; but my people do not know the regulations of Yahweh.
8How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us?’ But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
9The wise men will be put to shame, they will be dismayed and captured. Behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, so what kind of wisdom is in them?
10So I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will take possession of them, because everyone from the least even to the greatest is greedy for gain; from the prophet to the priest everyone deals falsely.
11They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
12Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations? No, they were not at all ashamed, and they do not know how to blush; therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the day that I visit them they will be cast down, says Yahweh.
13I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh, no grapes will be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will fade; and the things that I have given them will pass away from them.”
14Why are we sitting still? Assemble yourselves, and let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s perish there; for Yahweh our God has doomed us to perish, and given us poisonous water to drink because we have sinned against Yahweh.
15We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, but behold, terror!
16“The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles. For they are coming to devour the land and all that is in it, the city and those who live in it.
17For behold, I will send snakes among you, venomous serpents that cannot be charmed; and they will bite you,” says Yahweh.
18Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.
19Behold, the sound of the cry of the daughter of my people from a far away land: isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her? Why do they anger me with their carved images and with foreign idols?
20The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
21For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt. I go about in black; dismay has seized me.
22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
REV Bible
