Open English Translation JER Chapter 12

12 Yahweh, you do what’s right when I bring you a case.

→ Nevertheless, I want to talk with you about justice:

Why do wicked people prosper?

≈ Why are treacherous people able to relax?

2 You planted them like trees and they’ve taken root,

then they’ve grown and produced fruit.

They’re full of talk about you,

but they’re really far from you.

3 but Yahweh, you know me.

≈ You see me, and test my heart toward you.

Drag them away like sheep doing to slaughter,

≈ and reserve a time for them to be slaughtered.

4 How much longer will the land be dry for

with the plants in the countryside withering up?

Even the wild animals and birds have diminished in number,

because people have said that he won’t see what will happen to us.

5 If you’ve run with foot soldiers and they’ve worn you out,

how will you compete with horses?

If you’re falling to the ground in a safe region,

how will you do in the thickets by the Yarden (Jordan) river?

6 Even your brothers and other family members are working against you.

≈ They speak out against you.

Don’t trust them when they say good things about you.

7 I’ve abandoned my country.

I’ve walked away from my inheritance.

I’ve given my dearly loved one into the hand of its enemies.

8 My inheritance become like a lion in a forest for me.

That country always speaks against me so I hate it.

9 My inheritance is like a speckled bird of prey to me,

with other birds of prey all around it.

Go and get all the wild animals from the countryside to come and eat.

10 Many shepherds (foreign rulers) have ruined my vineyard—

they’ve trampled my area.

They’ve made my desirable region into a desolate wasteland.

11 They’ve made it into a wasteland—it’s mourning to me.

All the land has been made desolate because there’s no one who cares about it.

12 Destroyers have come to all the bare hilltops in the wilderness,

because a sword is devouring for Yahweh, from each end of the land.

There’s no peace for any living thing.

13 People have sown wheat and harvested thorns.

They’ve wearied themselves but not profited,

and they were ashamed by your low production

resulting from Yahweh’s fierce anger.

14 Yahweh says this: All my evil neighbours who touch the inheritance that I gave to my Israeli people, listen, I’ll uproot them from the land, and I’ll uproot Yehudah’s descendants from among them. 15 Then after I’ve uprooted them, I’ll have compassion on them again, and I’ll bring them back—each one back to their own inheritance and their own land. 16 If they’ll properly learn the ways of my people, to make promises using my name saying, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ instead of how my people were taught to make promises by Baal, then they’ll prosper and be my people again. 17 However if they won’t listen when I uproot the nation, then I’ll uproot it to destroy it. That is Yahweh’s declaration.