You treat all the wicked like rubbish, and so I love your instructions.

Take the impurities out of silver and the artist can produce a thing of beauty.

Jerusalem, you were once like silver, but now you are worthless; you were like good wine, but now you are only water.

I will take action against you. I will purify you the way metal is refined, and will remove all your impurity.

"Mortal man, the Israelites are of no use to me. They are like waste metal---copper, tin, iron, and lead---left over after silver has been refined in a furnace.

So now I, the Sovereign LORD, am telling them that they are just as useless as that. I will bring them all together in Jerusalem

"You are like salt for the whole human race. But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again. It has become worthless, so it is thrown out and people trample on it.

LORD, have you completely rejected Judah? Do you hate the people of Zion? Why have you hurt us so badly that we cannot be healed? We looked for peace, but nothing good happened; we hoped for healing, but terror came instead.

Or have you rejected us forever? Is there no limit to your anger?

The God I serve will reject his people, because they have not listened to him. They will become wanderers among the nations.

I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.