Jeremiah 4

1If you return, Israel, declares the LORD, return to me. If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer stray, 2and swear, “As surely as the LORD lives,” in truth, with justice and with righteousness, then the nations will bless themselves by him and take pride in him.

3For the LORD says this to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem: Plow up your unplowed ground, and do not sow among thorns. 4Circumcise yourselves for the LORD; circumcise your hearts, people of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up like fire and burn, and no one will put it out, because of the evil you have done. 5Announce it in Judah, proclaim it in Jerusalem, and say, “Blow the ram’s horn throughout the land!” Shout at the top of your voice and say, “Gather together! Let us go into the fortified cities!” 6Raise a signal flag toward Zion! Run for safety; do not wait! For I am bringing disaster from the north, a great and crushing ruin. 7A lion has left his thicket; a destroyer of nations has broken camp. He has left his place to make your land a wasteland. Your towns will lie in ruins, with no one living in them. 8So dress in sackcloth, lament and wail, for the LORD’s fierce anger has still not turned away from us.

9On that day, declares the LORD, the king and the officials will lose heart; the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be stunned. 10Then I said, “Oh, Lord GOD, truly you have led this people and Jerusalem far astray with the words, ‘You will have peace,’ while the sword is pressing at their throats!” 11At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told: “A scorching wind off the bare hills in the desert is blowing toward my dear people, not to winnow and not to clean the grain; 12a wind too strong for that comes at my command. Now I, too, will pronounce judgment on them.” 13See, he rises like gathering clouds, his chariots like a storm wind; his horses are quicker than eagles. “Woe to us! We are ruined!” 14Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart, so that you may be saved. How long will you let your wicked schemes make their home in you? 15For a voice is announcing from Dan, proclaiming disaster from the hill country of Ephraim. 16Report to the nations: look! Announce it against Jerusalem: “Besiegers are coming from a far country; they shout their war cry against the towns of Judah.” 17Like watchmen guarding a field they surround her, because she has rebelled against me, declares the LORD. 18Your conduct and your deeds have brought this on you. This is what your evil brings: how bitter it is, how it pierces to your heart!

19My insides, my insides! I twist in pain! My chest is bursting! My heart pounds within me; I cannot keep quiet, for you have heard it, my soul: the sound of the ram’s horn, the battle cry of war. 20Word comes of ruin upon ruin; the whole land lies devastated. Without warning my tents are torn down, my curtains in an instant. 21How long must I look at the signal flag and listen to the ram’s horn?

22For my people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil, but they do not know how to do good. 23I looked at the earth, and it was without form and empty; I looked to the heavens, and their light was gone. 24I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were rocking back and forth. 25I looked, and there was no one at all; every bird in the sky had flown away. 26I looked, and the orchard land had become a desert; all its towns had been torn down before the LORD, before his fierce anger.

27For the LORD says this: The whole land will be laid waste, but I will not destroy it completely. 28For this the earth will mourn, and the sky above will turn dark, because I have spoken and I have decided; I have not changed my mind, and I will not turn back from it. 29At the sound of horsemen and archers the people of every town run away. They go into the thickets; they climb up among the rocks. Every town is abandoned; no one lives in them. 30And you, ruined one, what will you do? Though you dress in scarlet, though you put on jewelry of gold, though you make your eyes look large with paint, you make yourself beautiful for nothing. Your lovers reject you; they are out to take your life. 31I hear a scream like that of a woman in labor, the agony of one bearing her first child: it is the voice of Daughter Zion, fighting for breath and holding out her hands: “Woe is me! My life is ebbing away before killers!”