Jeremiah 12 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

You are always in the right, Yahweh, whenever I bring my case to you. But let me put one thing on the table: Why does the way of the corrupt succeed? Why do the treacherous 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 tested what my heart feels toward you. Drag them off like sheep to the slaughter, set them apart for the day of killing.

How long will the land mourn 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 tangled brush along the Jordan?"

"Even your own brothers — your own father's family — even they have betrayed you. Even they are shouting for a mob against you. Don't trust them, no matter how nicely they talk to you."

"I have abandoned my house. I have deserted my inheritance. I have handed the one I deeply love over to her enemies."

"My inheritance has turned on me like a lion in the forest. She has roared against me — that is why I have come to despise her."

"Is my inheritance a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go — gather all the wild animals. Bring them to feed on her."

"Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. 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 no one even cares."

"Destroyers have come across every barren hilltop in the wilderness, because Yahweh's sword devours from one end of the land to the other. No one — no living thing — has peace."

"They planted wheat but harvested thorns. 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 uproot 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 have compassion 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, 'As Yahweh lives,' just as they once taught my people to swear by Baal — then they will be built up right among my people."

"But if any nation will not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it." This is Yahweh's declaration.