Jeremiah 2:24

When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.

Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

They said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn’t listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us.”

For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs.

Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder?

Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

For Yahweh said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’ says Yahweh.”

There you will remember your ways, and all your deeds in which you have polluted yourselves. Then you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.

“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.

“Ephraim is like an easily deceived dove, without understanding. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria.

For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.

that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore behold, I have come today as the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.”

They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.

whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?

God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.

They give drink to every animal of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Man goes out to his work, to his labor until the evening.

I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals.

With my soul I have desired you in the night. Yes, with my spirit within me I will seek you earnestly; for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.

There is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.

But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.

Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Pray now to Yahweh our God for us.”

Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

“ ‘ “Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.

How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ then he will answer and tell you, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’

He will be like a wild donkey among men. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He will live opposed to all of his brothers.”

Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. Please look how my eyes have brightened, because I tasted a little of this honey.

Jehoahaz begged Yahweh, and Yahweh listened to him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, how the king of Syria oppressed them.

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey’s colt.

“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.

Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.

They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles .

Can you count the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth?

“Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey,

Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?

When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.”

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out.

How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?

Then they cried to Yahweh in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses,

“This is my resting place forever. I will live here, for I have desired it.

Don’t be overly righteous, neither make yourself overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left, and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.

Yahweh will strike Egypt, striking and healing. They will return to Yahweh, and he will be entreated by them, and will heal them.

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’

“ ‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?” But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.

Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim.

He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations.”

He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east.

Yahweh’s glory went up from the middle of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city.

“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’ ”

But the miry places of it, and its marshes, will not be healed. They will be given up to salt.

I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me.

Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.”

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?”