7. At one moment I may decree concerning a nation or kingdom that I will uproot and tear down and destroy it;
8. but if that nation against whom I have decreed turns from its evil, then I will have a change of heart regarding the evil which I have decreed.
9. At another moment, I may decree concerning a nation or kingdom that I will build up and plant it;
10. but if that nation does what is evil in my eyes, refusing to obey my voice, then I will have a change of heart regarding the good with which I planned to bless it.
11. And now, tell this to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am fashioning evil against you and making a plan. Return, all of you, from your evil way; reform your ways and your deeds.
12. But they will say, “No use! We will follow our own devices; each one of us will behave according to the stubbornness of our evil hearts!”
13. Therefore thus says the Lord:Ask among the nations—who has ever heard the like?Truly horrible thingsvirgin Israel has done!
14. Does the snow of Lebanondesert the rocky heights?Do the gushing waters dry upthat flow fresh down the mountains?
15. Yet my people have forgotten me:they offer incense in vain.They stumble off their paths,the ways of old,Traveling on bypaths,not the beaten track.
16. Their land shall be made a waste,an object of endless hissing:All passersby will be horrified,shaking their heads.
17. Like the east wind, I will scatter thembefore their enemies;I will show them my back, not my face,in their day of disaster.
18. “Come,” they said, “let us devise a plot against Jeremiah, for instruction will not perish from the priests, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. Come, let us destroy him by his own tongue. Let us pay careful attention to his every word.”