Jeremiah 6:5

They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves.

Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.

He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.

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

Peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces.

Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife will be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways.

I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.’ ”

The Chaldeans, who fight against this city, will come and set this city on fire, and burn it with the houses on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

Yahweh has accomplished his wrath. He has poured out his fierce anger. He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

They will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will also give no hire any more.

Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths.

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “An adversary will overrun the land; and he will pull down your strongholds, and your fortresses will be plundered.”

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.

“ ‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments,

then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

In those days I saw some men treading wine presses on the Sabbath in Judah, bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys; also with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; and I testified against them in the day in which they sold food.

Yahweh of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”

The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.

The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.

For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.

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.

For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,

Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burned with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.

“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.” ’

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!

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

“Therefore now Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child out of the middle of Judah, to leave yourselves no one remaining;

“I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.”

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh.

He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in Yahweh’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied. Ah! It is made as lightning. It is pointed for slaughter.

You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths.

“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.’ ”

“It shall be eighteen thousand reeds around: and the name of the city from that day shall be, ‘Yahweh is there.’

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind;

For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”

For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.

but don’t stay there. Pursue your enemies, and attack them from the rear. Don’t allow them to enter into their cities; for Yahweh your God has delivered them into your hand.”

The children of Israel took all the plunder of these cities, with the livestock, as plunder for themselves; but every man they struck with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them. They didn’t leave any who breathed.

Saul said, “Let’s go down after the Philistines by night, and take plunder among them until the morning light, and let’s not leave a man of them.” They said, “Do whatever seems good to you.” Then the priest said, “Let’s draw near here to God.”

Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land, and to this house?’

They burned God’s house, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels.

God has shown himself in her citadels as a refuge.

for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

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

In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

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

There will be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem. It will not be quenched.” ’ ”

But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this house will become a desolation.” ’ ”

How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.”

but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.

but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.”

but I will send a fire on Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”

Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.

“As for these things which you see, the days will come, in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.”

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.

They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.