14 This is Yahweh’s message to Yirmeyah regarding droughts:

2 Yehudah (Judah) is in mourning and its gates are neglected.

They’re mourning for the land

and Yerushalem is crying out in distress.

3 The leading citizens send their servants out for water,

but when they get to the wells, they didn’t find any.

They return with empty containers—

ashamed and humiliated, and with their heads covered in grief.

4 The ground is cracked open because there hasn’t been any rain.

The farmers are ashamed—they’ve covered their heads in grief,

5 because even the doe in the countryside abandoned her newborn fawn as there was no grass.

6 Wild donkeys stand on bare hills and pant for breath like jackals—

their eyes have failed because there’s no vegetation.

7 Even though our transgressions testify against us,

do something, Yahweh, for the sake of your reputation

because we sinned against you with our frequent rebellion.

8 You are Yisrael’s hope—the one who rescues it at a time of distress.

Why would you act like a stranger in the land—

≈ like a traveller who’s stopped in to stay the night.

9 Why are you like someone just standing there with their mouth open—

like a warrior who’s powerless to save someone?

You’re here among us, Yahweh, and we’ve been calling out to you to rescue us.

Don’t abandon us.

10 This is what Yahweh says about this nation:

They love to wander, so they’ve gone wherever their feet take them,

→ but Yahweh hasn’t accepted them.

Now he’ll remember their wickedness

≈ and he’ll punish them for their disobedience.

11 Yahweh told me, “Don’t pray for good to come to this nation 12 because even if they fast, I won’t listen to their petition, and when they offer up a burnt offering and a grain offering, I won’t be accepting them, because I’m bringing an end to them by the sword, and famine, and disease.”

13 Then I said, “Oh no, my master Yahweh. Listen, the prophets are telling the people that they won’t experience war or famine because you’ll give them ongoing peace in this place.”

14 “The prophets use my name but speak deceitfully,” Yahweh answered. “I didn’t appoint them and I didn’t send them, and I didn’t give them a false vision. The worthless prophecies that they’re proclaiming to you all come from their own minds.” 15 Therefore Yahweh says, “Now those prophets who I never sent but who are using my name and say that no war or famine will happen in this region, well those prophets will meet their own ends through war and famine. 16 Then the people that they prophesied to will be thrown out into Yerushalem’s streets because of famine and war. No one will be there to bury them or their wives, sons, or daughters, as I’ll pour their wickedness out onto them.

17 Then you’ll pass this message onto them:

Day and night the tears run down my eyes.

Don’t let them stop, because of the terrible damage

as my virgin daughter has been shattered—

my people have received a very severe wound.

18 If I go out into the countryside, wow, I see those who were killed by the sword.

Then if I go into the city, wow, there’s diseases caused by famine,

because both prophets and priests have gone into a land that they weren’t familiar with.