The time for punishment has come, the time when people will get what they deserve. When that happens, Israel will know it! "This prophet," you say, "is a fool. This inspired man is insane." You people hate me so much because your sin is so great.

God has sent me as a prophet to warn his people Israel. Yet wherever I go, you try to trap me like a bird. Even in God's Temple the people are the prophet's enemies.

The people of Israel have not repented; even though the LORD Almighty has punished them, they have not returned to him.

The old and honorable men are the head---and the tail is the prophets whose teachings are lies!

And so the Lord will not let any of the young men escape, and he will not show pity on any of the widows and orphans, because all the people are godless and wicked and everything they say is evil. Yet even so the LORD's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

They will say, "Prepare to attack Jerusalem! Get ready! We'll attack at noon!" But then they will say, "It's too late, the day is almost over, and the evening shadows are growing long.

We'll attack by night; we'll destroy the city's fortresses."

Their houses will be given to others, and so will their fields and their wives. I am going to punish the people of this land.

They act as if my people's wounds were only scratches. 'All is well,' they say, when all is not well.

So I will give their fields to new owners and their wives to other men. Everyone, great and small, tries to make money dishonestly. Even prophets and priests cheat the people.

My people, were you ashamed because you did these disgusting things? No, you were not ashamed at all; you don't even know how to blush! And so you will fall as others have fallen; when I punish you, that will be the end of you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

I, the LORD, tell you what I am going to do to those prophets whom I did not send but who speak in my name and say war and starvation will not strike this land---I will kill them in war and by starvation.

The people to whom they have said these things will be killed in the same way. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to all of them---including their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will make them pay for their wickedness."

There are more widows in your land than grains of sand by the sea. I killed your young men in their prime and made their mothers suffer. I suddenly struck them with anguish and terror.

My heart is crushed, and I am trembling. Because of the LORD, because of his holy words, I am like a man who is drunk, someone who has had too much wine.

I am about to punish you prophets who have false visions and make misleading predictions. You will not be there when my people gather to make decisions; your names will not be included in the list of the citizens of Israel; you will never return to your land. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.

Tell the prophets that their wall is going to fall down. I will send a pouring rain. Hailstones will fall on it, and a strong wind will blow against it.

Now this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "In my anger I will send a strong wind, pouring rain, and hailstones to destroy the wall.

"The wall and those who covered it with whitewash will feel the force of my anger. Then I will tell you that the wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it---

I will oppose you. I will make an example of you. I will remove you from the community of my people, so that all of you will know that I am the LORD.

Both prophets and anyone who consults them will get the same punishment.

My people are deceived by prophets who promise peace to those who pay them, but threaten war for those who don't. To these prophets the LORD says,

Those who predict the future will be disgraced by their failure. They will all be humiliated because God does not answer them.

I lost patience with three other shepherds, who hated me, and I got rid of them all in a single month.

At that time I will remove the names of the idols from the land, and no one will remember them any more. I will get rid of anyone who claims to be a prophet and will take away the desire to worship idols.

My children, plead with your mother---though she is no longer a wife to me, and I am no longer her husband. Plead with her to stop her adultery and prostitution.

The LORD says, "Do you think I sent my people away like a man who divorces his wife? Where, then, are the papers of divorce? Do you think I sold you into captivity like a man who sells his children as slaves? No, you went away captive because of your sins; you were sent away because of your crimes.

There are more widows in your land than grains of sand by the sea. I killed your young men in their prime and made their mothers suffer. I suddenly struck them with anguish and terror.

but your own great city will be humiliated and disgraced. Babylonia will be the least important nation of all; it will become a dry and waterless desert.

The LORD said, "People will use this proverb about you, Jerusalem: 'Like mother, like daughter.'

You really are your mother's daughter. She detested her husband and her children. You are like your sisters, who hated their husbands and their children. You and your sister cities had a Hittite mother and an Amorite father.

But the heavenly Jerusalem is free, and she is our mother.