¹You are righteous, O Lord,

When I take issue with you,

But I will contend a legal issue with you.

Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

All those who act treacherously are at ease.

²You planted them,

And they for their part have taken root;

They sprout up and also produce fruit.

You are near in their mouth

But far away in their inward feelings.

³But you, O Lord, know me;

You see me, and you test my heart's attitude to you.

Draw them off like sheep for the slaughter,

And devote them to the day of killing.

⁴How long will the land mourn,

And the herbaceous vegetation of the whole countryside dry up?

On account of the evil of those who inhabit it,

It is causing cattle and fowl to die out,

Because they said,

“He will not see our end result.”

⁵“If when you run with the foot soldiers,

They tire you out,

How can you compete with the horses?

And if you were confident only in a land at peace,

What will you do at the rising of the Jordan?

⁶For even your brothers,

And also those of your father's house,

Have betrayed you.

Even they called after you loudly;

Do not believe them

When they speak of good things to you.

⁷I have forsaken my house,

I have abandoned my inheritance;

I have delivered my dear love

Into the hand of her enemies.

⁸My inheritance has become like a lion in the forest.

It has decried me,

Which is why I have come to hate it.

⁹Is my inheritance a coloured bird of prey to me?

Is the bird of prey circling round about it?

Come and gather all the wild animals;

Bring them to eat.

¹⁰Many shepherds have ruined my vineyard,

They have trodden down what I have apportioned;

They have made my pleasant apportionment into a desert of desolation.”

¹¹“He has made it a desolation;

A desolate land mourns to me.

The whole land has been made desolate,

For there is no-one who gives his mind to it.

¹²The despoilers have come to all the high places in the desert,

For the sword of the Lord has devoured

From one end of the land

To the other end of the land.

There is no peace for any flesh.

¹³They have sown wheat,

But they have reaped thorns;

They have exhausted themselves

But are not benefited by it.

So be put to shame by your produce,

Because of the furious anger of the Lord.”

¹⁴This is what the Lord says to all my evil neighbours who touch the inheritance which I have given as an inheritance to my people Israel: “I am about to pluck them out of their land, and I will pluck the house of Judah up from where they are. ¹⁵And it will come to pass, after I have plucked them up, that I will relent, and I will have compassion on them, and I will bring them back, each to his inheritance, and each to his land. ¹⁶And it will come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name – as the Lord lives – just as they used to teach my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up among my people. ¹⁷But if they will not heed it, I will eradicate that people, eradicating and annihilating, says the Lord.”