Jeremiah 4

¹ ‘If you wish to come back, Israel – it is Yahweh who speaks – it is to me you must return. Do away with your abominations and you will have no need to avoid me.

² If you swear, “As Yahweh lives!” truthfully, justly, honestly, the nations will bless themselves by you, and glory in you.

³ For thus speaks Yahweh to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Clean your ground thoroughly, sow nothing among thorns.

⁴ Circumcise yourselves for Yahweh; off with the foreskin of your hearts (men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem), lest my wrath should leap out like a fire, and burn with no one to quench it, in return for the wickedness of your deeds.’

⁵ Announce it in Judah, proclaim it in Jerusalem! Sound the trumpet in the countryside, shout the message aloud: Mobilise! Take to the fortified towns!

⁶ Signpost the way to Zion; Run! Do not delay! I am bringing you disaster from the North, an immense calamity.

⁷ The lion is up from his thicket, the destroyer of nations is on his way, he has come from his home to reduce your land to a desert; your towns will be in ruins, deserted.

⁸ So wrap yourselves in sackcloth, lament and wail, since the burning anger of Yahweh has not turned away from us.

⁹ ‘That day – it is Yahweh who speaks – the king’s heart will fail him, the princes’ hearts will fail them too, the priests will stand aghast, the prophets stupefied.

¹⁰ People will say, “Ah, Lord Yahweh, how utterly you deceived us by saying: You will have peace,[*a] even when the sword is at our throats!”

¹¹ When that time comes, this will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: From the bare heights a scorching wind blows from the desert on the daughter of my people – and not to winnow or to cleanse!

¹² A wind, full of threats, comes at my command. Now I myself am going to pronounce sentence on them!

¹³ “Look, he is advancing like the clouds, his chariots like a hurricane, his horses swifter than eagles. Trouble is coming! We are lost!”

¹⁴ Wash your heart clean of wickedness, Jerusalem, and so be saved. How long will you harbour in your breast your pernicious thoughts?

¹⁵ For a voice from Dan shouts the news, proclaims disaster from the highlands of Ephraim.

¹⁶ Give warning of it, announce it in Judah, proclaim it to Jerusalem: “Enemies are coming from a distant country, shouting their war cry against the towns of Judah;

¹⁷ they surround Jerusalem like watchmen round a field because she has apostatised from me – it is Yahweh who speaks.

¹⁸ Your own behaviour and actions have brought this on you. This is your fate! How bitter! How it pierces your heart!”‘

¹⁹ I am in anguish! I writhe with pain! Walls of my heart! My heart is throbbing! I cannot keep quiet, for I have heard the trumpet call and the cry of war.

²⁰ Ruin on ruin is the news: the whole land is laid waste, my tents are suddenly destroyed, in one moment all that sheltered me is gone.

²¹ How long must I see the standard and hear the trumpet call?

²² ‘This is because my people are stupid, they do not know me, they are slow-witted children, they have no understanding: they are clever enough at doing wrong, but do not know how to do right.’

²³ I looked to the earth, to see a formless waste; to the heavens, and their light had gone.

²⁴ I looked to the mountains, to see them quaking and all the heights astir.

²⁵ I looked, to see no man at all, the very birds of heaven had fled.

²⁶ I looked, to see the wooded country a wilderness, all its towns in ruins, at the presence of Yahweh, at the presence of his burning anger.

²⁷ Yes, thus speaks Yahweh, ‘The whole land shall be laid waste, I will make an end of it once for all;

²⁸ at which the earth will go into mourning, and the heavens above grow dark. For I have spoken and will not change my mind, I have decided and will not go back on it.’

²⁹ At the cry ‘Horsemen and bowmen!’ the whole country takes flight: some plunge into the thickets, others scale the rocks; every town is abandoned, no one is left there.

³⁰ And you, what are you going to do? You may dress yourself in scarlet, put on ornaments of gold, enlarge your eyes with paint but you make yourself pretty in vain. Your lovers disdain you, your life is what they are seeking.

³¹ Yes, I hear screams like those of a woman in labour, anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; they are the screams of the daughter of Zion, gasping, hands outstretched, ‘Ah, I despair! I am fainting away with murderers surrounding me.’