1   Goe round about the wayes of Ierusalem, and looke, and consider, and seeke in the streetes therof, whether you can finde a man that doth iudgements, and seeketh fidelitie: & I wil be propicious vnto him.

2   Yea if they say: Our Lord liueth ^note this also they wil sweare falsely.

3   O Lord thyne eies

regard fidelitie: thou hast striken them, & they were not sorie: thou hast broken them, and they haue refused to receiue discipline: they haue hardned their faces more then the rocke, and they would not returne.

4   But I said: Perhaps they are poore & foolish, not knowing the way of the Lord, the iudgement of their God.

5   I wil go therfore to the great men, & wil speake to them: for they haue knowen the way of their Lord: & behold these altogether haue more broken the yoke, haue burst the bondes.

6   Therefore hath ^note the lion out of the wood striken them, ^note the woolf in the euening hath wasted them, ^note the leopard watching vpon their citties: euerie one of them that shal come forth, shal be taken, because their preuarications are multiplied, their reuoltinges are strengthned.

7   Wherupon can I be propicious to thee? thy children haue forsaken me, and sweare by them, that are not goddes: I filled them, & they committed aduoutrie, and did riotously in the harlots house

8   They are become as amarous horses, and stalions: euerie one neyed at his neighbours wife:

9   VVhy, shal I not visite vpon these thinges, saith our Lord? and on such a nation shal not my soule take reuenge?

10   Scale the walles therof, and dissipate them, but make not a consummation: take away the branches therof, because they are not the Lordes.

11   For by preuarication hath the house of Israel preuaricated against me, & the house of Iuda, saith our Lord.

12   They haue denied our Lord, and saied: It is not he: neither shal the euil come vpon vs: we shal not see sword & famine.

13   The prophets haue spoken into the wind, & there was no answer in them: these things therfore shal happen to them.

14   Thus saith our Lord the God of hostes: Because you haue spoken this word: behold, I geue my wordes in thy mouth as fire, & this people as stickes, and it shal deuoure them.

15   Behold I wil bring vpon you a nation from a far ô house of Israel, saith our Lord: a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not know, nor vnderstand what it speaketh.

16   The quiuer thereof is as an open sepulcher, they are al strong.

17   And it shal eate thy corne, and thy bread: it shal deuoure thy sonnes, and thy daughters: it shal eate thy flocke, & thy heards: it shal eate thy vineyard, and thy figge: & it shal destroy thy fenced cities, wherein thou hast confidence, with the sword.

18   But yet in those daies, saith our Lord: I ^note wil not bring you into consummation.

19   And if you shal say: Why hath the Lord our

God done al these thinges to vs? thou shalt say to them: As you haue forsaken me, and serued a strange god in your owne land, so shal you serue strange ones in a land not your owne.

20   Declare ye this to the house of Iacob, and make it heard in Iuda, saying:

21   Heare thou foolish people, that hast no hart, which hauing eies, seest not: and eates, and hearest not.

22   Me then wil you not feare, saith our Lord: and at my presence wil ye not be sorie? Who haue set the sand a limitie for the sea, an euerlasting precept, that shal not passe, and they shal be moued, and shal not preuaile: and the waues therof shal swel, and shal not passe ouer it.

23   But to this people their hart is become incredulous and exasperating, they are reuolted and departed.

24   And they haue not said in their hart: Let vs feare the Lord our God, who geueth vs the timely and lateward rayne in due season: who preserueth the fulnes of the yearly haruest vnto vs.

25   Your iniquities haue turned away these thinges, and your sinnes haue stayed good from you.

26   Because there are found impious men in my people, that lye in wate as foulers setting snares & trappes to take men.

27   As a net ful of birdes, so their houses are ful of guile: therefore are they magnified, & enriched.

28   They are made grosse and fatte: and haue transgressed my wordes most wickedly. The cause of the widow they haue not iudged; the cause of the pupil they haue not directed, and the iudgement of the poore they haue not iudged.

29    ^noteShal I not visite vpon these thinges, saith our Lord? or vpon such a nation shal not my soule take reuenge?

30   Astonishment and meruelous thinges are done in the land.

31   The prophets prophecied a lye, & the priests claped with their handes: and my people hath loued such thinges: what shal be done therefore in the later end thereof?

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