Jeremiah 5

1 [Yahweh said to the people of Jerusalem], “Go up and down every street. Search in the marketplaces to find people who do what is fair/right, who try to be faithful to me. [If you find even one person like that], I will forgive [the people of Jerusalem and not destroy] their city.

Go to and fro in streets of Jerusalem, And see, I pray you, and know, And seek in her broad places, if ye find a man, If there be one doing judgment, seeking stedfastness — Then am I propitious to her.

2 But when people there say, ‘I solemnly declare that as surely as Yahweh lives, [I will do what he says],’ they are lying.”

And if they say, 'Jehovah liveth,' Surely to a falsehood they swear.

3 Yahweh, you are certainly [RHQ] searching for [people who tell the] truth. You struck/punished your people, but they did not pay any attention. You crushed them, but they ignored what you were telling them to do. They were extremely stubborn [IDM] and refused to return to you.

Jehovah, Thine eyes, are they not on stedfastness? Thou hast smitten them, and they have not grieved, Thou hast consumed them, They have refused to receive instruction, They made their faces harder than a rock, They have refused to turn back.

4 I thought, “[We cannot expect] these [people to act righteously, because they] are poor; they do not have any sense. They do not know the way Yahweh wants them to conduct their lives; they do not know what God requires them to do.

And I — I said, 'Surely these [are] poor, They have been foolish, For they have not known the way of Jehovah, The judgment of their God.

5 So, I will go and talk to their leaders, because they [surely] know how God wants them to conduct their lives.” But they also have stopped obeying Yahweh [MET], and they will not allow him to lead them.

I get me to the great, and I speak with them, For they have known the way of Jehovah, The judgment of their God.' Surely they together have broken the yoke, They have drawn away the bands.

6 Because of that, lions will come out of the forests and kill them; wolves from the desert will attack them; leopards that lurk/wait outside their cities will maul anyone who walks outside the cities. [Those things will happen] because the people have sinned very much against God and have turned away from him very frequently.

Therefore smitten them hath a lion out of the forest, A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them, A leopard is watching over their cities, Every one who is going out of them is torn, For many have been their transgressions, Mighty have been their backslidings.

7 Yahweh says, “I cannot [RHQ] forgive these people; [even] their children have abandoned me. When they solemnly declare something, they ask their gods [to show that what they say is true]. I gave my people everything that they needed, but they often went to [the shrines of their idols] and committed adultery there.

For this I am not propitious to thee, Thy sons have forsaken Me, And are satisfied by that which is not god, I satisfy them, and they commit adultery, And at the house of a harlot They gather themselves together.

8 [Just like] [MET] well-fed male horses neigh, wanting sex with female horses, each of the men desires to have sex with his neighbor’s wife.

Fed horses — they have been early risers, Each to the wife of his neighbour they neigh.

9 (Should I not punish them for this [RHQ]?/I will certainly get revenge on this nation for this!) I will certainly get revenge [RHQ] on this nation whose people behave like that!

For these do I not lay a charge? An affirmation of Jehovah, And on a nation such as this, Doth not My soul avenge itself?

10 [I will say to your enemies], ‘The people [of Judah and Israel are like a vineyard]. Go along the rows in their vineyards and get rid of [most of] the people, but do not kill all of them. These people do not belong to me, [so get rid of them], [like a gardener] [MET] lops/cuts off branches from a vine.

Go ye up on her walls, and destroy, And a completion make not, Turn aside her branches, for they [are] not Jehovah's,

11 The people of Israel and Judah have turned away from me completely.’

For dealt treacherously against Me have the house of Israel, And the house of Judah, an affirmation of Jehovah.

12 They have lied about me and said, ‘He will not punish us! He will not cause us to experience disasters! We will not experience wars or famines!

They have lied against Jehovah, And they say, '[It is] not He, Nor come in against us doth evil, Yea, sword and famine we do not see.

13 What [God’s] prophets say is nothing but hot air! They do not have messages [from God]! We would like [the disasters that they predict] to happen to them!’”

And the prophets become wind, And the word is not in them,' — thus it is done by them.

14 So, this is what Yahweh, the Commander of the armies of angels in heaven, has said to me: “Because my people are saying those things, I will give you a message to tell them [MTY] that will be [like] [MET] a fire, and [these people will be like] [MET] wood that the fire will burn up.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah, God of Hosts, Because of your speaking this word, Lo, I am making My words in thy mouth become fire, And this people wood, and it hath devoured them.

15 Listen to this, you people of Israel: I will bring [the army of] a distant nation to attack you. It is a very powerful nation that has existed for a long time. They speak a language that you do not know and which you will not be able to understand.

Lo, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, an affirmation of Jehovah, A nation — strong it [is], a nation — from of old it [is], A nation — thou knowest not its tongue, Nor understandest what it speaketh.

16 Their soldiers are all very strong, and the arrows from their quivers [MET] will (send many Israeli men to their graves/cause many Israeli people to die).

Its quiver [is] as an open sepulchre, All of them — mighty ones.

17 They will eat the food that you have harvested from your fields, and eat your bread. They will kill your sons and daughters, and they will kill your flocks [of sheep] and herds [of cattle]. They will eat your grapes and your figs. They will [also] destroy your cities that have high walls around them and kill the people with their swords.

And it hath consumed thy harvest and thy bread, They consume thy sons, and thy daughters, It consumeth thy flock, and thy herd, It consumeth thy vine, and thy fig-tree, It maketh poor thy fenced cities, In which thou art trusting — by the sword.

18 But even when those things happen, I will not get rid of all of you.

And even in those days, an affirmation of Jehovah, I do not make you a completion.

19 And when the survivors ask, ‘Why is Yahweh our God doing this to us?’ you will tell them, ‘You rejected him and worshiped foreign gods in your [own] land, so [now] you will become slaves of foreigners in a land that is not your land.’”

And it hath come to pass, when ye say, 'For what hath Jehovah our God done to us all these?' That thou hast said unto them, 'As ye have forsaken Me, And serve the gods of a foreigner in your land, So do ye serve strangers in a land not yours.

20 [Yahweh said to me], “Proclaim this to the people of Israel and Judah:

Declare ye this in the house of Jacob, And sound ye it in Judah, saying,

21 Listen to this, you people who are foolish and who do not have any sense: You have eyes, but [it is as though] you cannot see; you have ears, but [it is as though] you cannot hear.

Hear ye, I pray you, this, O people, foolish and without heart, Eyes they have, and they see not, Ears they have, and they hear not.

22 Why do you not revere me [RHQ]? You should [RHQ] tremble when you are in my presence! I, Yahweh, am the one who put a barrier along the shores so that the waters of the ocean cannot cross it [and flood the land]. The waves roll and roar, but they cannot go past that barrier.

Me do ye not fear, an affirmation of Jehovah? From My presence are ye not pained? Who hath made sand the border of the sea, A limit age-during, and it passeth not over it, They shake themselves, and they are not able, Yea, sounded have its billows, and they pass not over.

23 But you people [are not like the waves that obey me]. You people are very stubborn and rebellious. You have constantly turned away from me.

And this people hath an apostate and rebellious heart, They have turned aside, and they go on.

24 You do not say to yourselves, ‘We should revere Yahweh our God, the one who sends us rain at the times when we need it, the one who causes the grain to become ripe at the harvest season.’

And they have not said in their heart, 'Let us fear, we pray you, Jehovah our God, who is giving rain, The sprinkling and the gathered, in its season, The appointed weeks of harvest He keepeth for us.'

25 It is because of the wrong things that you have done, that those good things have not happened; it is because of the sins that you have committed that you have been prevented from receiving those blessings.

Your iniquities have turned these away, And your sins have kept the good from you.

26 Among my people are wicked people who hide along the roads to ambush/attack people like [SIM] men who hunt birds (put out nets/set traps) to catch them.

For the wicked have been found among My people. It looketh about the covering of snares, They have set up a trap — men they capture.

27 Like [a hunter has] a cage full of birds [that he has captured], their homes are full of things that they have gotten by deceiving others. So now they are [very] rich and powerful.

As a cage full of fowls, So their houses are full of deceit, Therefore they have been great, and are rich.

28 They are big and fat, and there is no limit to the evil things that they have done. They do not try to defend orphans in the courtrooms, and they do not help poor people to get what they have a right to receive.

They have been fat, they have shone, Yea, they have overpassed the acts of the evil, Judgment they have not judged, The judgment of the fatherless — and they prosper, And the judgment of the needy they have not judged.

29 So I will certainly [RHQ] punish them for doing those things. I will certainly [RHQ] (get revenge on their nation/do to their nation what they deserve).

For these do not I inspect, an affirmation of Jehovah, On a nation such as this, Doth not My soul avenge itself?

30 Very appalling/horrible and terrible [DOU] things are happening in this country:

An astonishing and horrible thing hath been in the land.

31 Prophets speak [only] lies and priests rule by their own authority, and you people like that! But when you [start to] experience disasters, what will you do [RHQ]?”

The prophets have prophesied falsely, And the priests bear rule by their means, And My people have loved [it] so, And what do they at its latter end?