1 Roam the streets of Jerusalem and see now and know and seek in her broad places if you can find one person doing justice {mishpat: right judgment} and seeking faithfulness {emunah: steadfast reliability}; and I will forgive her.
2 Even if they say, “As the LORD {YHWH, Living Judge} lives,” surely they swear falsely {lasheqer: with deception}.
3 O LORD {YHWH, Righteous Examiner}, are not Your eyes looking for faithfulness? You struck them, but they felt no pain; You consumed them, yet they refused correction {musar: moral discipline}. They made their faces harder than rock, and they refused to return.
4 And I said, “Surely they are poor; they have become foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge} or the justice {mishpat: legal decision} of their God.”
5 I will go for myself to the great ones and will speak to them, for they have known the way of the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Judge} and the judgment of their God {Elohim, Lawgiver}; but they together have broken the yoke and torn off the bonds.
6 Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them, a wolf of the deserts will ravage them, and a leopard is watching over their cities. Everyone who goes out from there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions {pish’eihem: acts of rebellion} are many and their backslidings {meshuboteihem: apostate departures} have multiplied.
7 How can I {YHWH, Just Judge} forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me, and have sworn by what is not God. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery {ninafu: covenant betrayal} and assembled themselves in the house of a prostitute.
8 They were like well-fed horses {susim: vigorous animals}, rising early; each man neighed after the wife of his neighbor {re’ehu: companion}.
9 Shall I not punish these things? says the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge}; and on a nation such as this, shall not My soul {nefesh: Life-Essence} take vengeance?
10 Go up through her vine-rows {sharoteha: cultivated terraces} and destroy, but do not make a complete end; remove her branches, for they are not the LORD’s {YHWH, Covenant Judge}.
11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have acted very treacherously {bagad: to betray trust} against Me, declares the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Witness}.
12 They have spoken falsely of the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Judge} and said, "It is not He; calamity {ra'ah: disastrous event} will not come upon us, and sword and famine we shall not see."
13 And the prophets {neviim: spokespersons of God} will become as wind, and the word {diber: message or utterance} is not in them; thus it will be done to them.
14 Therefore, thus says the LORD God of hosts {YHWH Elohei Tsevaot, Commander of Armies}: “Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire {esh: purifying force}, and this people wood, and it shall consume them.”
15 Behold, I am bringing upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel—declares the LORD {YHWH, Supreme Judge}—a nation that is enduring {eitan: lasting strength}, an ancient nation whose language you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.
16 Their quiver is like an open grave {kever: death symbol}; they are all mighty men {gibborim: powerful warriors}.
17 They will consume your harvest {ketsirkha: land produce} and your bread; they will devour your sons and your daughters; they will consume your flock and your cattle; they will devour your vine and your fig tree. They will beat down {yeroshes: smash down} your fortified cities in which you trust by the sword.
18 “Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD {YHWH, Merciful Judge}, “I will not bring a complete destruction {kalah: utter annihilation} upon you.”
19 And it shall be, when you say, “For what reason has the LORD our God {YHWH Eloheinu, Covenant Judge} done all these things to us?” then you shall say to them, “Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods {elohei nechar: deities of outsiders} in your own land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.”
20 Declare this in the house {bayit: clan seat} of Jacob, and proclaim it in Judah {Yehudah: tribal territory}, saying:
21 Hear now this, O foolish {sakhal: lacking prudence} people, and without heart {lev: moral discernment}; they have eyes, yet they do not see; they have ears, yet they do not hear.
22 "Will you not fear Me?" declares the LORD {YHWH, Supreme Lawgiver}. "Will you not tremble before My presence {mipanai: immediate proximity}, the One who set sand as a boundary for the sea, an everlasting statute that it cannot cross. Though its waves surge, they cannot prevail; even when they roar, they will not cross over it."
23 But this people has a stubborn {sorer: obstinate resistance} and rebellious heart {lev: inner will}, and they have turned aside and gone.
24 And they did not say in their heart, “Let us now fear the LORD our God {YHWH Eloheinu, Faithful Provider}, who gives rain—the early rain and the latter rain—in its season; He preserves for us the appointed weeks {shvuot: harvest weeks} of the harvest.”
25 Your iniquities {avonoteikhem: moral wrongdoing} have turned these away, and your sins have withheld {manu: denied blessing} the good from you.
26 For wicked ones are found among my people; they lie in wait like ambushers—they set a trap {mashkhit: snare} and capture people {anashim: victims}.
27 Like a cage {kikhluv: confining enclosure} full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit {mir·māh: treachery}; therefore they have become great and grown rich.
28 They have grown fat and become sleek; indeed, they have gone beyond {avru: gone beyond bounds} in matters of evil. They did not judge the case of the fatherless {yatom: orphan child}, that it might prosper; and they did not decide the rights of the needy.
29 Shall I not punish for these things? declares the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge}. Shall my soul {nafshi: inner being} not take vengeance on a nation such as this?
30 A horror {shammah: appalling horror} and an outrage has happened in the land {erets: territory or country}.
31 The prophets have prophesied falsely, the priests {kohanim, ritual and judicial leaders} rule at their direction, and My {YHWH, Sovereign Judge} people love it so. But what will you do at its end?