Jerusalem Refused to Repent

Jeremiah 5

¹ Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,

look around and take note!
Search its squares and see
if you can find one person
who acts justly
and seeks truth--
so that I may pardon Jerusalem. ₁
² Although they say, "As the Lord lives,"
yet they swear falsely.
³ O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth?
You have struck them,
but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
they have refused to turn back.

⁴ Then I said, "These are only the poor,
they have no sense;
for they do not know the way of the Lord,
the law of their God.
⁵ Let me go to the rich ₂
and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
the law of their God."
But they all alike had broken the yoke,
they had burst the bonds.

⁶ Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them,
a wolf from the desert shall destroy them.
A leopard is watching against their cities;
everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces--
because their transgressions are many,
their apostasies are great.

⁷ How can I pardon you?
Your children have forsaken me,
and have sworn by those who are no gods.
When I fed them to the full,
they committed adultery
and trooped to the houses of prostitutes.
⁸ They were well-fed lusty stallions,
each neighing for his neighbor's wife.
⁹ Shall I not punish them for these things?
+qsays the Lord;
and shall I not bring retribution
on a nation such as this?

¹⁰ Go up through her vine-rows and destroy,
but do not make a full end;
strip away her branches,
for they are not the Lord's.
¹¹ For the house of Israel and the house of Judah
have been utterly faithless to me,
+qsays the Lord.
¹² They have spoken falsely of the Lord,
and have said, "He will do nothing.
No evil will come upon us,
and we shall not see sword or famine."
¹³ The prophets are nothing but wind,
for the word is not in them.
Thus shall it be done to them!