Jeremiah 13:15-27

Hear this and listen well. Forsake your pride, for YAHWEH has spoken. Give all glory to YAHWEH your God before he brings darkness, and you stumble and fall on mountain paths in the dusk of twilight. Give him glory before he turns the light you’re longing for into a death shadow and deep gloom. If you will not listen, I will weep bitterly in secret from the depths of my soul because of your stubborn pride. My eyes gush with copious tears running down my face, because the flock of YAHWEH is taken captive. Say to King Jehoiachin and his mother, “Come down from your high thrones and take a humble seat, for your glorious crown has tumbled off your heads.” The cities in southern Judah are under siege, and no one can free them. All the people of Judah will be carried into exile, carried completely away. Lift up your eyes and see the Babylonians coming from the north. What will become of the cities of Judah? Like a beautiful flock of lambs, they were entrusted to your care. What will you say when those you courted as allies are appointed as your masters? You will be gripped with pain as a woman giving birth. And when you ask yourself, “Why are these things happening to me?”— it is because your sin was so enormous that your skirts are lifted up and your private parts exposed. Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin, or the leopard remove his spots? Of course not. And neither can you change from being schooled to do evil to doing good. “This is why I will scatter you like dust driven by the desert wind. You have it coming, and I have precisely measured your punishment,” declares YAHWEH, “because you have trusted in lies and forgotten me entirely. I, in turn, will lift your skirts over your face, and everyone will see your nakedness. Woe to you, Jerusalem! I have seen your adulteries, your lustful neighing, your shameless prostitution, your vile acts on the hills and in the fields. How long will you continue being unclean?”