¹ For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem:

² I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land.

³ And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink.

⁴ But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head.

⁵ For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples.

⁶ And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country.

⁷ Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads.

⁸ And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it.

⁹ Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up.

¹⁰ Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.

¹¹ Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down.

¹² Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about.

¹³ Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied.

¹⁴ Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction.

¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

¹⁶ And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

¹⁷ And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more.

¹⁸ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.

¹⁹ Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰ And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation.

²¹ And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion.

¹ The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.

² Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

³ Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.

⁴ Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads.

⁵ Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes [her young], because there is no grass.

⁶ The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.

⁷ Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name's sake, Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you.

⁸ You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?

⁹ Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can't save? Yet you, Yahweh, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; don't leave us.

¹⁰ Thus says Yahweh to this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahweh does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

¹¹ Yahweh said to me, Don't pray for this people for [their] good.

¹² When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

¹³ Then I said, Ah, Lord Yahweh! behold, the prophets tell them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.

¹⁴ Then Yahweh said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I didn't send them, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I to them: they prophesy to you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart.

¹⁵ Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I didn't send them, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By Sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.

¹⁶ The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them--them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them.

¹⁷ You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

¹⁸ If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.

¹⁹ Have you utterly rejected Judah? has your soul loathed Zion? why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

²⁰ We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against you.

²¹ Do not abhor [us], for your name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of your glory: remember, don't break your covenant with us.

²² Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the sky give showers? Aren't you he, Yahweh our God? therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.