1. The Lord says, “Walk up and down the streets of Jerusalem.Look around and think about these things.Search the public squares of the city.See if you can find one person who does honest things.Find just one who searches for the truth.If you can, I will forgive this city.
2. The people say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’But they don’t really mean it.”
3. Lord, don’t you look for truth in people?You hit the people of Judah.But they didn’t feel any pain.You crushed them,but they refused to learn what is right.They became more stubborn than a rock.They refused to turn back to God.
4. But I thought,“These are only the poor, foolish people.They have not learned the way of the Lord.They do not know what their God wants them to do.
5. So I will go to the leaders of Judah.I will talk to them.Surely they understand the way of the Lord.They know what God wants them to do.”But the leaders had all joined together to break away from the Lord.They broke their ties with him.
6. So a lion from the forest will attack them.A wolf from the desert will kill them.A leopard is hiding and waiting for them near their towns.It will tear to pieces anyone who comes out of the city.This will happen because the people of Judah have sinned greatly.They have wandered away from the Lord many times.
7. The Lord said, “Tell me why I should forgive you.Your children have left me.They have made promises to idols that are not gods at all.I gave your children everything they needed.But they still were like an unfaithful wife to me.They spent much time in houses of prostitutes.
8. They are like well-fed, male horses filled with sexual desire.Each one wants another man’s wife.
9. Shouldn’t I punish the people of Judah for doing these things?” says the Lord.“I should give a nation such as this the punishment it deserves.
10. “Go along and cut down Judah’s vineyards.But do not completely destroy them.Cut off all her people as if they were branches.Do it because they do not belong to the Lord.
11. The families of Israel and Judahhave been completely unfaithful to me,” says the Lord!
12. Those people have lied about the Lord.They have said, “The Lord will not do anything to us!Nothing bad will happen to us.We will never see war or hunger.
13. The prophets are like an empty wind.The word of God is not in them.Let these bad things they say happen to them.”