Therefore the showers have been withheld, And the late rain has not come. Yet you had a harlot’s forehead; You refused to feel dishonor.

“Why should I pardon you? Your sons have forsaken Me And sworn by those who are not gods. I had satisfied them to the full, Then they committed adultery And trooped to the harlot’s house.

They were well-fed lusty horses, Each one neighing after his neighbor’s wife.

“Go up through her vine rows and make them a ruin, But do not make a complete destruction; Remove her branches, For they are not Yahweh’s.

I know, O Yahweh, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.

But You, O Yahweh, You know me; You see me; And You test my heart’s attitude toward You. Drag them off like sheep for the slaughter And set them apart for a day of carnage!

Although our iniquities answer against us, O Yahweh, act for Your name’s sake! Truly our acts of faithlessness have been many; We have sinned against You.

Do not despise us, for Your own name’s sake; Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory; Remember and do not break Your covenant with us.

Men will not break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of comforting to drink for anyone’s father or mother.

“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will make you hear My words.”

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheel.

“Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares Yahweh. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

Thus says Yahweh, “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests.

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them.”’

and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot again be repaired; and they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place for burial.

and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, O king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates.

“Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness And his upper rooms without justice, Who uses his neighbor’s services without pay And does not give him his wages,

He will be buried with a donkey’s burial, Dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

For you will no longer remember the oracle of Yahweh because every man’s own word will become the oracle, and you have perverted the words of the living God, Yahweh of hosts, our God.

When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of Yahweh and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the house of Yahweh.

Alas! For that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s distress, But he will be saved from it.

“In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahweh and said to me, ‘Buy my field, please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for you have the legal judgment for possession, and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh.

“I bought the field which was at Anathoth from Hanamel my uncle’s son, and I weighed out the silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver.

and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the sight of Hanamel my uncle’s son and in the sight of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, in the sight of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard.

“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are established. So they do not drink wine to this day, for they have listened to their father’s command. But I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; yet you have not listened to Me.

And he went down to the king’s house, into the scribe’s chamber. And behold, all the officials were sitting there—Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the other officials.