“If you will return, Israel,” says YHWH, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed; and you will swear, ‘As YHWH lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations will bless themselves in him, and they will glory in him.”
For YHWH says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Y’all are to break up your* untilled ground, and y’all must not sow among thorns. Y’all must circumcise yourselves* to YHWH, and take away the foreskins of y’all’s heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else my wrath will go out like fire and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the of y’all’s evil deeds.
Disaster From the North
Y’all must announce in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem saying, ‘Y’all blow the trumpet throughout the land!’ Y’all are to cry aloud and say, ‘Y’all must gather together! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’ Y’all must raise the signal toward Zion and flee for safety! Y’all must not stand still, for I will bring disaster from the north and a great destruction.”
A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has left his place to make your land desolate. Your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant. For this, y’all must put on sackcloth, and y’all are to lament and wail, for the fierce anger of YHWH has not turned away from us. “It will happen at that day,” says YHWH, “that the heart of the king will perish, along with the heart of the princes. The priests will be astonished, and the prophets will wonder.”
Then I said, “Alas, Lord YHWH! Surely you have deceived-deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘Y’all will have peace,’ when the sword is at our throats.”
At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind blows from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse. A full wind from these will come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.”
Look! He will advances like the clouds, and his chariots will be as the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined. Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you? For a voice declares from Dan, and proclaims trouble from the hills of Ephraim: “Y’all tell the nations: Look! Proclaim to Jerusalem: ‘Besiegers are coming from a far country, raising their voice against the cities of Judah. Like watchers of a field, they surround her, because she has been rebellious against me,’” says YHWH. “Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”
Jeremiah’s Anguish
My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment. How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?
“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.” I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void, and at the heavens, which had no light. I looked at the mountains, and they trembled; and all the hills moved back and forth. I looked, there were no human beings, and all the birds of the sky had fled. I looked, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of YHWH, before ʜɪꜱ fierce anger. For YHWH says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. I have planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.”
Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers. They go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks. Every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein. You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”