God’s Answer to Jeremiah

5 “If you have raced with men on foot

and they have worn you out,

how can you compete with horses?

If you stumble in a peaceful land,

how will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

6 Even your brothers—

your own father’s household—

even they have betrayed you;

even they have cried aloud against you.

Do not trust them,

though they speak well of you.

7 I have forsaken My house;

I have abandoned My inheritance.

I have given the love of My life

into the hands of her enemies.

8 My inheritance has become to Me

like a lion in the forest.

She has roared against Me;

therefore I hate her.

9 Is not My inheritance to Me

like a speckled bird of prey

with other birds of prey [fn] circling against her?

Go, gather all the beasts of the field;

bring them to devour her.

10 Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard;

they have trampled My plot of ground.

They have turned My pleasant field

into a desolate wasteland.

11 They have made it a desolation;

desolate before Me, it mourns.

All the land is laid waste,

but no man takes it to heart.

12 Over all the barren heights in the wilderness

the destroyers have come,

for the sword of the LORD devours

from one end of the earth to the other.

No flesh has peace.

13 They have sown wheat but harvested thorns.

They have exhausted themselves to no avail.

Bear the shame of your harvest

because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”