Jeremiah 6:6–7

¹⁹¶ When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege:

²⁰Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.

²⁴Behold the mounts, they are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans, that fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence: and what thou hast spoken is come to pass; and, behold, thou seest it.

¹¹Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.

²³¶ Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

⁸For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.

²⁰But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

¹⁰Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

¹¹Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

¹²Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

³Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord God, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

⁴Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.

⁵Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed.

⁶Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁸Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

⁹In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.

¹⁰In thee have they discovered their fathers’ nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.

¹¹And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour’s wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.

¹²In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

¹WOE to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

⁸Even of late my people is risen up as an enemy: ye pull off the robe with the garment from them that pass by securely as men averse from war.

⁹The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away my glory for ever.

¹⁰Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.

¹AND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

²Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

⁹Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.

¹⁰They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.

¹²Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

²The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

³¶ That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

⁹Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.

¹⁰Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.

¹¹Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and guile depart not from her streets.

⁷For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust;

²³¶ Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.