15-16. “So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, ‘War and famine will never come here’—these preachers will die in war and by starvation. And the people to whom they’ve been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied—no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I’ll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.
17-18. “And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them:“‘My eyes pour out tears.Day and night, the tears never quit.My dear, dear people are battered and bruised,hopelessly and cruelly wounded.I walk out into the fields,shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses.I walk into the city,shocked by the sight of starving bodies.And I watch the preachers and priestsgoing about their business as if nothing’s happened!’”
19-22. God, have you said your final No to Judah?Can you simply not stand Zion any longer?If not, why have you treated us like this,beaten us nearly to death?We hoped for peace—nothing good came from it;We looked for healing—and got kicked in the stomach.We admit, O God, how badly we’ve lived,and our ancestors, how bad they were.We’ve sinned, they’ve sinned,we’ve all sinned against you!Your reputation is at stake! Don’t quit on us!Don’t walk out and abandon your glorious Temple!Remember your covenant.Don’t break faith with us!Can the no-gods of the godless nations cause rain?Can the sky water the earth by itself?You’re the one, O God, who does this.So you’re the one for whom we wait.You made it all,you do it all.