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Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of Adonai spoken, so that he can proclaim it? Why has the land perished and been laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through?

Thus says Adonai -Tzva'ot: "Mark this, then summon the mourning women, so that they will come; send for those who are best [at mourning], so that they will come:

‘Have them hurry and wail for us, so our eyes will be wet from crying, and our eyelids gush with tears.'

class="poetry"> I wish I were out in the desert, in some travelers' lodge — then I could get away from my people and distance myself from them! "Indeed they are all adulterers, a band of traitors is what they are. They bend their tongues, their ‘bow' of falsehood, and hold sway in the land, but not for truth. For they go from evil to evil, and me they do not know," says Adonai . Everyone, be on guard against your neighbor, don't trust even a brother; for every brother is out to trick you, and every neighbor goes around gossiping. Everyone deceives his neighbor, no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to lie, they wear themselves out with sinning. "You inhabit a world of deceit; deceitfully they refuse to know me," says Adonai . "Therefore," says Adonai -Tzva'ot, "I will refine them and test them. What else can I do with the daughter of my people? Their tongues are sharpened arrows; with their mouths they speak deceit — they say nice words to their neighbors, while inwardly plotting against them. Should I not punish them for these things?" asks Adonai . "Should I not take vengeance on such a nation?" I weep and wail for the mountains and lament over the desert pastures, because they have been burned up; no one passes through; they no longer hear the sound of cattle; the birds and wild animals have fled, are gone. "I will make Yerushalayim a heap of ruins, turn it into a lair for jackals, and make the cities of Y'hudah desolate, with no one living there." Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of Adonai spoken, so that he can proclaim it? Why has the land perished and been laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through? Adonai answers: "Because they abandoned my Torah, which I set before them, and neither listened to what I said nor lived accordingly, but have lived by their own hearts' stubbornness and by the ba‘alim, as their ancestors taught them — therefore," says Adonai -Tzva'ot, the God of Isra'el: "I will feed this people bitter wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known. I will send the sword after them until I have wiped them out." Thus says Adonai -Tzva'ot: "Mark this, then summon the mourning women, so that they will come; send for those who are best [at mourning], so that they will come: ‘Have them hurry and wail for us, so our eyes will be wet from crying, and our eyelids gush with tears.' For the sound of wailing is heard from Tziyon: ‘We are utterly ruined, we are completely ashamed, because we have left the land, and our homes have been torn down!'" You women, hear the word of Adonai ! Let your ears receive the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail, have each teach her friend how to lament: "Death has come up through our windows, it has entered our palaces, it has cut down children in the streets and young people in the public places." Say: "Here is what Adonai says: ‘The corpses of people are scattered like dung in an open field, like sheaves left behind by the reaper with no one to gather them.'" Here is what Adonai says: "The wise man should not boast of his wisdom, the powerful should not boast of his power, the wealthy should not boast of his wealth; instead, let the boaster boast about this: that he understands and knows me — that I am Adonai , practicing grace, justice and righteousness in the land; for in these things I take pleasure," says Adonai . "The days are coming," says Adonai , "when I will punish all those who have been circumcised in their uncircumcision — Egypt, Y'hudah, Edom, the people of ‘Amon and Mo'av, and all those living in the desert who cut the edges [of their beard]: "For although all the Goyim are uncircumcised, all the house of Isra'el have uncircumcised hearts."

they deck it with silver and gold. They fix it with hammer and nails, so that it won't move.

for here is what Adonai says: "At this time I am slinging away the inhabitants of the land; I will distress them, so that they will feel it."

so that I can fulfill the oath that I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is today."'" Then I responded, "Amen, Adonai ."

"So you, [Yirmeyahu,] don't pray for this people! Don't cry or pray on their behalf, because I won't listen to them when they cry to me because of their troubles.

What right does my beloved have to be in my house, when she has behaved so shamelessly with so many? Offerings of consecrated meat can no longer help, because it is when you are doing evil that you are happy."

But I was like a tame lamb led to be slaughtered; I did not know that they were plotting schemes against me — "Let's destroy the tree with its fruit, we'll cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be forgotten."

Adonai -Tzva'ot, righteous judge, tester of motives and thoughts, I have committed my cause to you; so let me see your vengeance on them.

For me, my heritage has become like a lion in the forest — she roared out against me; so now I hate her.

They sowed wheat and reaped thorns, they wore themselves out and gained nothing. So be ashamed of your [tiny] harvest, the result of Adonai 's fierce anger.

So I bought a loincloth, as Adonai had said, and put it on.

So I went and hid it in Parah, as Adonai had ordered me.

So I went to Parah and dug up the loincloth; but when I took it from the place where I had hidden it, I saw that it was ruined and useless for anything.

"Here is what Adonai says: ‘This is how I will ruin what makes Y'hudah so proud and Yerushalayim so very proud:

For just as a loincloth clings to a man's body, I made the whole house of Isra'el and the whole house of Y'hudah cling to me,' says Adonai , ‘so that they could be my people, building me a name and becoming for me a source of praise and honor. But they would not listen.

So you are to tell them, "This is what Adonai the God of Isra'el says: ‘Every bottle is filled with wine.'" Then when they ask you, "Don't we already know that every bottle is filled with wine?"

Can an Ethiopian change his skin? or a leopard its spots? If they can, then you can do good, who are so accustomed to doing evil.