Lamentations 1:8

“Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.”

He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him.

You shall clothe them with belts, Aaron and his sons, and bind headbands on them. They shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute. You shall consecrate Aaron and his sons.

I love those who love me. Those who seek me diligently will find me.

When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.

You make us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.

“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer.

if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they not obey my voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would benefit them.

“Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away.

Esteem her, and she will exalt you. She will bring you to honor when you embrace her.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

It will happen when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren’t washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all.

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.

Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.

If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

The keeper of the prison didn’t look after anything that was under his hand, because Yahweh was with him; and that which he did, Yahweh made it prosper.

Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your father’s house, in that you have forsaken Yahweh’s commandments, and you have followed the Baals.

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

The king of Babylon attacked them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God, and turned away from evil.

In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

The word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them;

“Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live, and he will escape with his life, and he will live.’

“My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon. He is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.”

“Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;

“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

“Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.

They will also bring up a company against you, and they will stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords.

“Yet you say, ‘Why doesn’t the son bear the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done that which is lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes, and has done them, he will surely live.

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

and will cause their voice to be heard over you, and will cry bitterly. They will cast up dust on their heads. They will wallow in the ashes.

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

“Therefore I have also made you contemptible and wicked before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.

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.

If anyone serves me, let him follow me. Where I am, there my servant will also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?

Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works.

You will leave your name for a curse to my chosen; and the Lord Yahweh will kill you. He will call his servants by another name,

If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear.

All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become despised.”

therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated. I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside of the camp.

“Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed.

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.

and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.’ ”

Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”

As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me,’ ” says Yahweh.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

They are all grievous rebels, going around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly.

I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.

They came in and possessed it, but they didn’t obey your voice and didn’t walk in your law. They have done nothing of all that you commanded them to do. Therefore you have caused all this evil to come upon them.

For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this day, so that I should remove it from before my face,

Therefore Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you a liberty,” says Yahweh, “to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will make you be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, to serve other gods that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers.

Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed Yahweh’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.”

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”

Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

“ ‘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.

“Son of man, when a land sins against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread, and send famine on it, and cut off from it man and animal;

They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.

“For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘I will bring up a mob against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.

They will dwell in it securely. Yes, they will build houses, plant vineyards, and will dwell securely, when I have executed judgments on all those who scorn them all around. Then they will know that I am Yahweh their God.” ’ ”

The nations will know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they trespassed against me, and I hid my face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword.

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.

Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.

I will bring distress on men, that they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Yahweh, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.

and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.