Jeremiah 5

GOD’S WORD Translation

5 Walk around the streets of Jerusalem.
Look around, and think about these things.
Search the city squares.
See if you can find anyone
who does what is right and seeks the truth.
Then I will forgive Jerusalem.
² People say, “As the Lord lives …”
Yet, they lie when they take this oath.
³ Lord, your eyes look for the truth.
You strike these people, but they don’t feel it.
You crush them, but they refuse to be corrected.
They are more stubborn than rocks.
They refuse to turn back.
⁴ I thought, “These are poor, foolish people.
They don’t know the way of the Lord
and the justice that God demands.
⁵ Let me go to important people and speak to them.
They know the way of the Lord
and the justice that God demands.”
But they, too, had broken off their yokes ^[a]
and torn off their chains.
⁶ That is why a lion from the forest will attack them.
A wolf from the wilderness will destroy them.
A leopard will lie in ambush outside their cities.
All who leave the cities will be torn to pieces,
because they rebel so often
and they become more and more unfaithful.

Because you’ve talked like this,
I’m going to put my words in your mouth like a fire.
These people will be like wood.
My words will burn them up.
¹⁵ Nation of Israel, I’m going to bring a nation from far away
to attack you, declares the Lord.
It is a nation that has lasted a long time.
It is an ancient nation.
You don’t know the language of this nation.
You can’t understand what its people say.
¹⁶ Their arrow quivers are like open graves.
They are all mighty warriors.
¹⁷ They will devour your harvest and your food.
They will devour your sons and your daughters.
They will devour your flocks and your cattle.
They will devour your grapevines and your fig trees.
With their swords they will destroy
the fortified cities you trust.
¹⁸ Yet, even in those days, declares the Lord,
I won’t destroy all of you.

²⁰ “Tell this to the descendants of Jacob, and make this heard in Judah:
²¹ Hear this, you stupid and senseless people!
You have eyes, but you cannot see.
You have ears, but you cannot hear.
²² Don’t you fear me?” asks the Lord.
“Don’t you tremble in my presence?
I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
a permanent barrier that it cannot cross.
Although the waves toss continuously, they can’t break through.
Although they roar, they can’t cross it.
²³ But these people are stubborn and rebellious.
They have turned aside and wandered away from me.
²⁴ They don’t say to themselves,
‘We should fear the Lord our God.
He sends rain at the right time,
the autumn rain and the spring rain.
He makes sure that we have harvest seasons.’
²⁵ Your wickedness has turned these things away.
Your sins have kept good things away from you.