What Does the Bible Say?

My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, causing them to roam the mountains. They have wandered from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.

All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the LORD, their true pasture, the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’

“Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph— you who plunder My inheritance— because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,

Line up in formation around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her! Spare no arrows! For she has sinned against the LORD.

Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, a search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found; for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “The sons of Israel are oppressed, and the sons of Judah as well. All their captors hold them fast, refusing to release them.

Jeremiah had written on a single scroll about all the disaster that would come upon Babylon—all these words that had been written concerning Babylon.

Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will grow weary.’” Here end the words of Jeremiah.

The captain of the guard also took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—anything made of pure gold or fine silver.

Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

Why should any mortal man complain, in view of his sins?

“We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven.”

My eyes overflow unceasingly, without relief,

The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

O Daughter of Zion, your punishment is complete; He will not prolong your exile. But He will punish your iniquity, O Daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

But the house of Israel will be unwilling to listen to you, since they are unwilling to listen to Me. For the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted.

Now if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. If you did not warn him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous acts he did will not be remembered. And I will hold you responsible for his blood.

But if you warn the righteous man not to sin, and he does not sin, he will indeed live because he heeded your warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.

Before them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.