Jer 5, Jer 8 | ESV | STEP | Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem , look and take note ! Search her squares to see if you can find a man , one who does justice and seeks truth , that I may pardon her.

1 ^aRun to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
look and take note!
Search her squares to see
^bif you can find a man,
one who does justice
and seeks truth,
^cthat I may pardon her.
2 ^dThough they say, “As the Lord lives,”
^eyet they swear falsely.
3 O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?
^fYou have struck them down,
but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
but they refused to take correction.
^gThey have made their faces harder than rock;
they have refused to repent.
4 Then I said, “These are only the poor;
they have no sense;
^hfor they do not know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.
5 I will go to the great
and will speak to them,
for they know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.”
ⁱBut they all alike had broken the yoke;
they had burst the bonds.
6 Therefore ^ja lion from the forest shall strike them down;
a ^kwolf from the desert shall devastate them.
^lA leopard is watching their cities;
everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,
because their transgressions are many,
their ^mapostasies are great.
7 ⁿ“How can I pardon you?
Your children have forsaken me
^oand have sworn by those who are no gods.
^pWhen I fed them to the full,
^qthey committed adultery
^rand trooped to the houses of whores.
8 They were well-fed, lusty stallions,
^seach neighing ^tfor his neighbor’s wife.
9 ^uShall I not punish them for these things?

declares the Lord;
and shall I not avenge myself
on a nation such as this?
10 ^v“Go up through her vine rows and destroy,
^wbut make not a full end;
strip away her branches,
for they are not the Lord’s.
11 ^xFor the house of Israel and the house of Judah
have been utterly treacherous to me,

declares the Lord.
12 They have spoken falsely of the Lord
and have said, ‘He will do nothing;
^yno disaster will come upon us,
^znor shall we see sword or famine.
13 The prophets will become wind;
the word is not in them.
Thus shall it be done to them!’”

The Lord Proclaims Judgment

14 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts:
“Because you have spoken this word,
behold, ^aaI am making my words in your mouth ^aba fire,
and this people wood, and the fire shall consume them.
15 ^acBehold, I am bringing against you
a nation from afar, O house of Israel,

declares the Lord.
It is an enduring nation;
it is an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know,
^adnor can you understand what they say.
16 ^aeTheir quiver is like ^afan open tomb;
they are all mighty warriors.
17 ^agThey 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;
your ^ahfortified cities in which you trust
they shall beat down with the sword.”
18 “But even in those days, declares the Lord, ^aiI will not make a full end of you. 19 And when your people say, ^aj‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, ^akso you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.’”

20 Declare this in the house of Jacob;
proclaim it in Judah:
21 “Hear this, ^alO foolish and senseless people,
^amwho have eyes, but see not,
who have ears, but hear not.
22 ^anDo you not fear me? declares the Lord.
Do you not tremble before me?
I placed the sand ^aoas the boundary for the sea,
a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;
though ^apthey roar, they cannot pass over it.
23 ^aqBut this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;
they have turned aside and gone away.
24 They do not say in their hearts,
‘Let us fear the Lord our God,
^arwho gives the rain in its season,
the autumn rain and the spring rain,
and keeps for us
^asthe weeks appointed for the harvest.’
25 ^atYour iniquities have turned these away,
and your sins have kept good from you.
26 For wicked men are found among my people;
^authey lurk like fowlers lying in wait. ^{▼▼The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain}
^awThey set a trap;
they catch men.
27 Like a cage full of birds,
their houses are full of deceit;
therefore they have become great and rich;
28 ^axthey have grown fat and sleek.
They know no bounds in deeds of evil;
^aythey judge not with justice
the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper,
and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
29 ^azShall I not punish them for these things?

declares the Lord,
and shall I not avenge myself
on a nation such as this?”
30 An appalling and ^bahorrible thing
has happened in the land:
31 ^bbthe prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests rule at their direction;
^bcmy people love to have it so,
but what will you do when the end comes?

Jeremiah 8

1 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. 2 And they shall be spread ^bdbefore the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. ^beAnd they shall not be gathered or buried. ^bfThey shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. 3 ^bgDeath shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family ^bhin all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

4 “You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
^biWhen men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?
5 Why then has this people ^bjturned away
in perpetual ^bkbacksliding?
^blThey hold fast to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 ^bmI have paid attention and listened,
but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
^bnlike a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7 Even the stork in the heavens
knows her times,
and ^bothe turtledove, ^bpswallow, and crane ^{▼▼The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain}
keep the time of their coming,
^brbut my people know not
the rules ^{▼▼Or just decrees} of the Lord.
8 ^bt“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
9 ^buThe wise men shall be put to shame;
they shall be dismayed ^bvand taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom is in them?
10 ^bwTherefore I will give their wives to others
and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
everyone ^bxis greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
11 They have healed ^bythe wound of my people lightly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, ^bzthey were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
^caTherefore they shall fall among the fallen;
when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

says the Lord.
13 When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
there are ^cbno grapes on the vine,
^ccnor figs on the fig tree;
^cdeven the leaves are withered,
and what I gave them has passed away from them.” ^{▼▼The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain}
14 Why do we sit still?
^cfGather together; ^cglet us go into the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
and has ^chgiven us ^cipoisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.
15 ^cjWe looked for peace, but no good came;
for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16 ^ck“The snorting of their horses is heard ^clfrom Dan;
at the sound of the neighing ^cmof their stallions
^cnthe whole land quakes.
They come ^coand devour the land and all that fills it,
the city and those who dwell in it.
17 For behold, I am sending among you ^cpserpents,
adders ^cqthat cannot be charmed,
^crand they shall bite you,”

declares the Lord.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me; ^{▼▼Compare Septuagint; the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain}
^ctmy heart is sick within me.
19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
from ^cuthe length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
^cvIs her King not in her?”
^cw“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
and with their foreign idols?”
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the wound of ^cxthe daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
^cyI mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22 Is there no ^czbalm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?