5Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. 2Although they say, “As the Lord lives,” yet they swear falsely. 3O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back. 4Then I said, “These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the Lord, the law of their God. 5Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the law of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds. 6Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces— because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great. 7How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. 8They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife. 9Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
10Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the Lord’s. 11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the Lord. 12They have spoken falsely of the Lord, and have said, “He will do nothing. No evil will come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine.” 13The prophets are nothing but wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them! 14Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: Because they have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them. 15I am going to bring upon you a nation from far away, O house of Israel, says the Lord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. 16Their quiver is like an open tomb; all of them are mighty warriors. 17They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; they shall destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
From the oremus Bible Browser https://bible.oremus.org v2.9.2 30 June 2021.