Old Testament · Prophets

Jeremiah chapter 12

You are always , Yahweh, whenever I to you. But let me put one thing on the table: Why does the way of the corrupt succeed? Why do the live at ease?You planted them, and they took root. They grow tall, they even bear fruit. You’re always on their lips but never in their hearts.But you know me, Yahweh, you see me, you’ve toward you. Drag them off like sheep to the slaughter, .How long will and the grass of every field wither? The animals and birds are swept away because the people who live there are corrupt. They keep saying, “He can’t see what we’ll end up doing.”“If you’ve been running with people on foot and they’ve already worn you out, how will you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe, open country, what will you do in the ?”“Even your own brothers — your own father’s family — even they have betrayed you. Even they are against you. Don’t trust them, no matter how nicely they talk to you.”“I have abandoned . I have deserted my inheritance. I have handed over to her enemies.”“ has turned on me like a lion in the forest. She has roared against me — that is why I have her.”“Is my inheritance a with other birds of prey circling against her? Go — gather all the wild animals. Bring them to feed on her.”“Many have destroyed . They have trampled my field. They have turned my beautiful plot of land into a desolate wasteland.”“They have made her a wasteland. Desolate, she mourns before me. The whole land is laid waste, and .”“Destroyers have come across every barren hilltop in the wilderness, because devours from one end of the land to the other. No one — no living thing — has .”“They . They exhausted themselves for nothing. Be ashamed of your harvests — they come from the burning anger of Yahweh.”This is what Yahweh says about all my corrupt neighbors who have seized the inheritance I gave to my people Israel: “Watch — I am about to them from their land. And I will uproot the house of Judah from among them.”“But after I have uprooted them, I will turn back and on them. I will bring each one back to their own inheritance, each one back to their own land.”“And if they truly learn the ways of my people — swearing by my name, ‘,’ just as they once taught my people to swear by — then they will be right among my people.”“But if any nation will not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it.” This is .