Jeremiah
Chapter 12
1 You are right, God, when I speak with you. But let me ask you about your decisions: Why do bad people succeed? Why are all the cheaters happy?
2 You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and produce fruit. You are on their lips, but far from their hearts.
3 But you, God, know me; you see me and test my heart towards you. Take them away like sheep to be killed, and get them ready for their day of slaughter.
4 How long will the land be sad, and the plants in the fields dry up, because of the bad things the people living there do? The animals and birds are dying, because they think, “God won’t see what happens to us in the end.”
5 If you have raced with runners and they have tired you, then how can you race against horses? And if you get tired in a peaceful land where you felt safe, then what will you do when the Jordan River overflows?
6 Even your own brothers and your father’s family have been unfaithful to you; they have led a crowd against you. Do not trust them, even if they speak nicely to you.
7 I have abandoned my home, I have left my inheritance; I have handed over the one I love deeply to her enemies.
8 My inheritance is like a lion in the woods to me; it yells at me, so I have come to hate it.
9 My inheritance is like a bird with mixed colors, and the other birds are against it; all you animals of the field, come and eat it up.
10 Many shepherds have ruined my vineyard; they have walked all over my land; they have turned my lovely field into an empty wasteland.
11 They have ruined it, and now it’s sad and cries out to me; the whole land is ruined, because no one cares.
12 Robbers have attacked all the high places in the desert; God’s sword will destroy everything from one end of the land to the other, and no one will be safe.
13 They planted wheat but will harvest thorns; they worked hard for no gain; and they will be embarrassed by your crops because of God’s intense anger.
14 God says to all my bad neighbors who interfere with the land I gave to my people Israel: I will remove them from their land, and take out the house of Judah from among them.
15 After I remove them, I will come back, show them kindness, and bring each person back to their own property and land.
16 If they carefully learn the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying ‘God lives,’ just as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be established among my people.
17 If they don’t obey, I will completely uproot and destroy that nation, says God.