Jeremiah 17:3

You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into Yahweh’s assembly forever,

‘Behold, the days come that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, will be carried to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says Yahweh.

Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of Yahweh’s house to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

Also Cyrus the king brought out the vessels of Yahweh’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought out of Jerusalem, and had put in the house of his gods;

He spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, since they are burned?”

‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up until today, will be carried to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says Yahweh.

I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders.

Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, Yahweh says, “Don’t listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Behold, the vessels of Yahweh’s house will now shortly be brought again from Babylon;’ for they prophesy a lie to you.

“We are confounded, because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house.”

They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels.

Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always,

They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They left no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey.

For the saying which he cried by Yahweh’s word against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely happen.”

He killed all the priests of the high places that were there, on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.

He carried out from there all the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold, which Solomon king of Israel had made in Yahweh’s temple, as Yahweh had said.

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

For Yahweh says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”

On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

Within two full years I will bring again into this place all the vessels of Yahweh’s house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried to Babylon.

“ ‘You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you are quiet? Put yourself back into your scabbard; rest, and be still.’

Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple.

“ ‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they will profane it.

in that you build your vaulted place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been as a prostitute, in that you scorn pay.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it.

therefore, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession. They will set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk.

He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel will no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places;

Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them.

“Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake.

Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.

Yahweh’s word that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Yahweh says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of Yahweh of Armies, ‘The Holy Mountain.’ ”

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.

You are happy, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, the sword of your excellency? Your enemies will submit themselves to you. You will tread on their high places.”

But all the silver, gold, and vessels of bronze and iron are holy to Yahweh. They shall come into Yahweh’s treasury.”

They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and he cut down the incense altars that were on high above them. He broke the Asherah poles, the engraved images, and the molten images in pieces, made dust of them, and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

At the return of the year, king Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the valuable vessels of Yahweh’s house, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Also let the gold and silver vessels of God’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is at Jerusalem, everything to its place. You shall put them in God’s house.

It yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. Also they have power over our bodies and over our livestock, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

On that day they read in the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and it was found written in it that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever,

God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles, or the incense altars.

For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.

Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

Yahweh has sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, “Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners will not drink your new wine, for which you have labored,

“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all its precious things, yes, I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies. They will make them captives, take them, and carry them to Babylon.

For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her. They mocked at her desolations.

Your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

You will know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols.

“Or if I bring a sword on that land, and say, ‘Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off from it man and animal;’

“Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, ‘When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman;

Some of those who are wise will fall, to refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even to the time of the end; because it is yet for the time appointed.

This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”

I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more.

Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh has peace.

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it.

and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.

I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.

Heap on the wood. Make the fire hot. Boil the meat well. Make the broth thick, and let the bones be burned.

What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.