5 Roam around Yerushalem’s streets and look and observe,

≈ and search around its plazas.

If you can find one person there who values justice and strives to be faithful,

then I’ll forgive the city.

2 Even when they make an oath in Yahweh’s name,

it’ll still be a lie.

3 Yahweh, don’t you look for honesty?

You struck them but they don’t even react.

You brought them to an end, but they refuse to accept correction.

They make their faces harder than rock and refuse to change.

4 Then I thought that maybe they’re just poor people?

They act foolishly because they’re not educated about Yahweh’s way

or what their god requires of them?

5 So I’ll go to the leaders and speak to them,

because they know Yahweh’s way and what their god requires.

However, all of them have broken out from under his yoke,

and torn off the chains.

6 Because of that, a lion from a thicket will attack them.

≈ A wolf from the wilderness will devastate them.

≈ A leopard lies in wait outside their cities—

→ everyone who goes out from them will be torn to pieces

because their disobedience is extensive

≈ and their disloyalty is substantial.

7 How could I forgive you for that?

Your children have abandoned me and have made oaths by things that are not gods.

I satisfied them, but they committed adultery

and ritually cut themselves[fn] at the prostitute’s house.

8 They were well-fed, lusty horses,

each man neighing at his neighbour’s wife.

9 Yahweh asks:

Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?

≈ Shouldn’t I avenge myself on a nation like that?

10 Go along the rows in the vineyard and destroy them,

but don’t completely destroy them—

break off their shoots because they don’t belong to Yahweh.

11 No, Yisrael’s and Yehudah’s people had indeed dealt treacherously with me.

That is Yahweh’s declaration.