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“Roam through the streets of Yerushalayim. See now and know; seek in its squares whether you can find an ish, whether there is one doing Judgment and seeking faithfulness, so that I may forgive her.
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Though they say, ‘Yahuah lives,’ surely they swear by falsehood.”
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Yahuah, are not Your eyes toward faithfulness? You struck them, but they did not writhe. You consumed them, but they refused to receive correction. They made their faces harder than rock; they refused to return.
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Then I said, “Surely these are the poor; they act foolishly, for they do not know the Way of Yahuah, the Judgment of their Elohim.
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I shall go to the great ones and speak with them, for they know the Way of Yahuah, the Judgment of their Elohim.” Yet together they broke the yoke and tore the bonds.
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Therefore a lion from the forest strikes them; a wolf of the desert ruins them; a leopard watches over their cities. Everyone going out from them shall be torn, for their transgressions are many and their turnings-away are strong.
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“Over what shall I forgive you? Your sons have forsaken Me and sworn by those who are not elohim. I satisfied them, yet they committed adultery and gathered themselves by troops in the house of one committing whoredom.
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They became fed horses rising early; each ish neighs after the ishah of his companion.
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Shall I not visit concerning these?” declares Yahuah. “And upon a nation such as this, shall My being not avenge itself?
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Ascend upon her vine rows and destroy, but do not make a complete end. Remove her branches, for they are not Yahuah’s.
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For the House of Yisra’el and the House of Yehudah have dealt utterly treacherously against Me,” declares Yahuah.
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They have denied Yahuah and said, “He is not. Evil shall not come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.
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The prophets shall become wind, and the Word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them.”
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Therefore thus says Yahuah Elohim of Hosts: “Because you speak this word, see, I am making My Words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall consume them.
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See, I am bringing upon you a nation from afar, House of Yisra’el,” declares Yahuah. “It is an enduring nation; it is a nation from ancient time, a nation whose tongue you do not know and whose speech you do not understand.
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Its quiver is like an open grave; all of them are mighty ones.
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And it shall devour your harvest and your bread. It shall devour your sons and your daughters. It shall devour your flocks and your herds. It shall devour your vines and your fig trees. It shall batter with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
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Yet even in those days,” declares Yahuah, “I shall not make a complete end of you.
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And it shall be when they say, ‘Because of what has Yahuah our Elohim done all these to us?’ then you shall say to them, ‘As you forsook Me and served foreign elohim in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land not yours.’
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Declare this in the House of Yaaqov, and cause it to be heard in Yehudah, saying,
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‘Hear this now, foolish people without heart, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.
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Do you not fear Me?’ declares Yahuah. ‘Do you not writhe before My face? I placed the sand as the boundary of the sea, an everlasting statute it cannot pass. Though its waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot cross it.
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But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside and walked away.
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And they did not say in their heart, “Let us now fear Yahuah our Elohim, who gives rain—the early rain and the latter rain—in its time, and guards for us the appointed weeks of harvest.”
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Your crookedness has turned these away, and your sins have withheld the good from you.
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For wicked ones are found among My people. They watch like those crouching for birds; they set a destroyer and capture men.
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Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become great and rich.
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They have grown fat; they shine. They have even crossed beyond the words of evil. They do not judge the cause— the cause of the fatherless—yet they prosper; and they do not judge the Judgment of the poor.
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Shall I not visit concerning these?’ declares Yahuah. ‘And upon a nation such as this, shall My being not avenge itself?’
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An astonishing and horrible thing has come to be in the land:
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the prophets prophesy by falsehood, and the Kohenim rule by their own hands; and My people love it so. But what shall you do at its end?”