Jeremiah 8:4–13

The Blind Perversity of the Whole Nation

⁴You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:

When people fall, do they not get up again?

If they go astray, do they not turn back?^*

⁵Why then has this people^e turned away

in perpetual faithlessness?

They have held fast to deceit;

they have refused to return.^*

⁶I have given heed and listened,

but they do not speak honestly;

no one repents of wickedness,

saying, “What have I done!”

All of them turn to their own course

like a horse plunging headlong into battle.^*

⁷Even the stork in the heavens

knows its times,

and the turtledove, swallow, and crane^f

observe the time of their coming,

but my people do not know

the ordinance of the Lord.^*

⁸How can you say, “We are wise,

and the law of the Lord is with us,”

when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes

has made it into a lie?^*

⁹The wise shall be put to shame;

they shall be dismayed and taken;

since they have rejected the word of the Lord,

what wisdom is in them?^*

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to others

and their fields to conquerors,

because from the least to the greatest

everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

from prophet to priest,

everyone deals falsely.^*

¹¹They have treated the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly,

saying, “Peace, peace,”

when there is no peace.^*

¹²They acted shamefully; they committed abomination,

yet they were not at all ashamed;

they did not know how to blush.

Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;

at the time when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

says the Lord.^*

¹³I will surely gather them,^g says the Lord;

there are no grapes on the vine

nor figs on the fig tree;

even the leaves are withered,

and what I gave them has passed away from them.^h*