Jeremiah 13:15-27

The people must not think that they are better than other people.

15 Listen to me.

Listen very carefully.

Do not think that you do not need to listen!

The Lord has spoken.

16 Give honour to the Lord your God,

before he makes it dark.

Then your feet will not find the path,

as the hills become dark.

You want it to get light.

But God will make it very dark.

17 If you do not listen,

I will weep in secret.

You think that you do not need the Lord.

That is why I will cry.

Water will fall from my eyes

like a great river.

This will happen because the Lord will make his people prisoners.

18 Speak to the king and to the queen, his mother.

Say, ‘Come down from your thrones.

The gold crowns will fall from your heads.’

19 The cities in the south of Judah will not be open,

and there will be nobody to open them.

Enemies will take all the people in Judah to a foreign country.

They will take them away completely.

20 Look up. See people who are coming from the north.

The people that made you important are gone.

You are like shepherds who have lost their sheep.

21 The Lord will give your authority to other people.

People from the country that was your special friend will rule over you.

You will have pain,

pain like the pain of a woman who is having a baby.

22 You may ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’

It is because of the many wrong things that you have done.

That is why people have torn off your clothes.

And they have hurt you.

23 A black man cannot make himself white,

and an animal cannot change its colour.

In the same way, you cannot do good things

if you have always done evil things.

24 ‘I will blow you away,

as the desert wind blows straw.

25 That is what I have decided to do to you,’ says the Lord.

‘I will do it because you have forgotten me.

And you have listened to false gods.

26 I will pull off your clothes.

You will be ashamed.

27 You have had sex with women who are not your wives.

And everyone will see that you have done that.

They will know that men have paid women

to have sex with them.

I have seen the bad things that you do

on the hills and in the fields.

It will be very bad for you, people in Jerusalem!

You should not always do wrong things.’