Jeremiah 6:1-10

“People of Benjamin, flee for your lives! Leave Jerusalem! Blow the shofar to warn the city of Tekoa! Send up a smoke signal at Beth Hakkerem! For disaster looms out of the north, a great destruction threatens you. Daughter Zion, you are so lovely and delicate, but I will destroy you. As shepherds pasture many flocks all around a city, so the camps of enemy soldiers encircle you, like many flocks of grazing sheep. In the morning, the soldiers will say, ‘Come on, prepare for war! We attack Jerusalem at noon!’ But later, as the sun grows hot, they will complain, ‘Woe to us, for the day is fading, and the shadows of evening grow long. Arise, let us go up and attack tonight, then we will easily destroy her strongholds.’ ” Here is what YAHWEH, Commander of Angel Armies, says: “Cut down the trees and set up a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This is a city ripe for punishment because she is riddled with brutal oppression. As a spring pours out its fresh water, so she pours out her fresh evil. All I see are the sick and wounded; the violence and destruction within her cry out. Learn your lesson, Jerusalem, lest I turn my back on you in disgust and make the whole land desolate, a land where no one lives!” YAHWEH, the Commander of Angel Armies, says: “As one gleans the grapes that remain in a vineyard, those who remain of Israel will be gleaned. As the hand of the grape gatherer goes through the vines one last time, the Babylonians will glean what the Assyrians leave behind.” If I speak to warn the remnant of Israel, no one will listen. Their ears are blocked, and they are incapable of hearing. The word of YAHWEH has become an object of scorn; it’s no longer a pleasure for them.