1 This is the vision God gave to Nahum, who lived in Elkosh, concerning the impending doom of Nineveh:^[a]

² God is jealous over those he loves; that is why he takes vengeance on those who hurt them. He furiously destroys their enemies. ³ He is slow in getting angry, but when aroused, his power is incredible, and he does not easily forgive. He shows his power in the terrors of the cyclone and the raging storms; clouds are billowing dust beneath his feet! ⁴ At his command the oceans and rivers become dry sand; the lush pastures of Bashan and Carmel fade away; the green forests of Lebanon wilt. ⁵ In his presence mountains quake and hills melt; the earth crumbles, and its people are destroyed.

⁶ Who can stand before an angry God? His fury is like fire; the mountains tumble down before his anger.

⁷ The Lord is good. When trouble comes, he is the place to go! And he knows everyone who trusts in him! ⁸ But he sweeps away his enemies with an overwhelming flood; he pursues them all night long.

⁹ What are you thinking of, Nineveh, to defy the Lord? He will stop you with one blow; he won’t need to strike again. ¹⁰ He tosses his enemies into the fire like a tangled mass of thorns. They burst into flames like straw. ¹¹ Who is this king^[b] of yours who dares to plot against the Lord? ¹² But the Lord is not afraid of him! “Though he build his army millions strong,” the Lord declares, “it will vanish.

“O my people, I have punished you enough! ¹³ Now I will break your chains and release you from the yoke of slavery to this Assyrian king.” ¹⁴ And to the king he says, “I have ordered an end to your dynasty; your sons will never sit upon your throne. And I will destroy your gods and temples, and I will bury you! For how you stink with sin!”

¹⁵ See, the messengers come running down the mountains with glad news: “The invaders have been wiped out and we are safe!” O Judah, proclaim a day of thanksgiving and worship only the Lord, as you have vowed. For this enemy from Nineveh will never come again. He is cut off forever; he will never be seen again.

3 Woe to filthy, sinful Jerusalem, city of violence and crime. ² In her pride she won’t listen even to the voice of God. No one can tell her anything; she refuses all correction. She does not trust the Lord nor seek for God.

³ Her leaders are like roaring lions hunting for their victims—out for everything that they can get. Her judges are like ravenous wolves at evening time, who by dawn have left no trace of their prey.

⁴ Her “prophets” are liars seeking their own gain; her priests defile the Temple by their disobedience to God’s laws.

⁵ But the Lord is there within the city, and he does no wrong. Day by day his justice is more evident, but no one heeds—the wicked know no shame.

⁶ “I have cut off many nations, laying them waste to their farthest borders; I have left their streets in silent ruin and their cities deserted without a single survivor to remember what happened. ⁷ I thought, ‘Surely they will listen to me now—surely they will heed my warnings, so that I’ll not need to strike again.’ But no; however much I punish them, they continue all their evil ways from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn.” ⁸ But the Lord says, “Be patient; the time is coming soon when I will stand up and accuse these evil nations. For it is my decision to gather together the kingdoms of the earth and pour out my fiercest anger and wrath upon them. All the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

⁹ “At that time I will change the speech of my returning people to pure Hebrew^[a] so that all can worship the Lord together. ¹⁰ My scattered people who live in the Sudan,^[b] beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, will come with their offerings, asking me to be their God again. ¹¹ And then you will no longer need to be ashamed of yourselves, for you will no longer be rebels against me. I will remove all your proud and arrogant people from among you; there will be no pride or haughtiness on my holy mountain. ¹² Those who are left will be the poor and the humble, and they will trust in the name of the Lord. ¹³ They will not be sinners, full of lies and deceit. They will live quietly, in peace, and lie down in safety, and no one will make them afraid.”

¹⁴ Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. ¹⁵ For the Lord will remove his hand of judgment and disperse the armies of your enemy. And the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you! At last your troubles will be over—you need fear no more.

¹⁶ On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be, “Cheer up, don’t be afraid. ^17-18 For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will give you victory. He will rejoice over you with great gladness; he will love you and not accuse you.” Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song.

“I have gathered your wounded and taken away your reproach. ¹⁹ And I will deal severely with all who have oppressed you. I will save the weak and helpless ones, and bring together those who were chased away. I will give glory to my former exiles, mocked and shamed.

²⁰ “At that time, I will gather you together and bring you home again, and give you a good name, a name of distinction among all the peoples of the earth, and they will praise you when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

1 ^1-2 These are God’s messages to Jeremiah the priest (the son of Hilkiah) who lived in the town of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. The first of these messages came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Amon’s son Josiah, king of Judah. ³ Others came during the reign of Josiah’s son Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and at various other times until July of the eleventh year of the reign of Josiah’s son Zedekiah, king of Judah, when Jerusalem was captured and the people were taken away as slaves.

⁴ The Lord said to me, ⁵ “I knew you before you were formed within your mother’s womb; before you were born I sanctified you and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.”

⁶ “O Lord God,” I said, “I can’t do that! I’m far too young! I’m only a youth!”

⁷ “Don’t say that,” he replied, “for you will go wherever I send you and speak whatever I tell you to. ⁸ And don’t be afraid of the people, for I, the Lord, will be with you and see you through.”

⁹ Then he touched my mouth and said, “See, I have put my words in your mouth! ¹⁰ Today your work begins, to warn the nations and the kingdoms of the world. In accord with my words spoken through your mouth I will tear down some and destroy them, and plant others, nurture them, and make them strong and great.”

¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, “Look, Jeremiah! What do you see?”

And I replied, “I see a whip made from the branch of an almond tree.”

¹² And the Lord replied, “That’s right, and it means that I will surely carry out my threats of punishment.”^[a]

¹³ Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see now?”

And I replied, “I see a pot of boiling water, tipping southward, spilling over Judah.”^[b]

¹⁴ “Yes,” he said, “for terror from the north will boil out upon all the people of this land. ¹⁵ I am calling the armies of the kingdoms of the north to come to Jerusalem and set their thrones at the gates of the city and all along its walls, and in all the other cities of Judah. ¹⁶ This is the way I will punish my people for deserting me and for worshiping other gods—yes, idols they themselves have made! ¹⁷ Get up and dress and go out and tell them whatever I tell you to say. Don’t be afraid of them, or else I will make a fool of you in front of them. ¹⁸ For see, today I have made you impervious to their attacks. They cannot harm you. You are strong like a fortified city that cannot be captured, like an iron pillar and heavy gates of brass. All the kings of Judah, its officers, priests, and people will not be able to prevail against you. ¹⁹ They will try, but they will fail. For I am with you,” says the Lord. “I will deliver you.”

2 Again the Lord spoke to me and said:

² Go and shout this in Jerusalem’s streets: This is what the Lord says! I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren deserts. ³ In those days Israel was a holy people, the first of my children.^[c] All who harmed them were counted deeply guilty, and great evil fell on anyone who touched them.

^4-5 O Israel, says the Lord, why did your fathers desert me? What sin did they find in me that turned them away and changed them into fools who worship idols? ⁶ They ignore the fact that it was I, the Lord, who brought them safely out of Egypt and led them through the barren wilderness, a land of deserts and rocks, of drought and death, where no one lives or even travels. ⁷ And I brought them into a fruitful land, to eat of its bounty and goodness, but they made it into a land of sin and corruption and turned my inheritance into an evil thing. ⁸ Even their priests cared nothing for the Lord, and their judges ignored me; their rulers turned against me, and their prophets worshiped Baal and wasted their time on nonsense.

⁹ But I will not give you up—I will plead for you to return to me and will keep on pleading; yes, even with your children’s children in the years to come!

^10-11 Look around you and see if you can find another nation anywhere that has traded in its old gods for new ones—even though their gods are nothing. Send to the west to the island of Cyprus; send to the east to the deserts of Kedar. See if anyone there has ever heard so strange a thing as this. And yet my people have given up their glorious God for silly idols! ¹² The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay. ¹³ For my people have done two evil things: They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters; and they have built for themselves broken cisterns that can’t hold water!

¹⁴ Why has Israel become a nation of slaves? Why is she captured and led far away?

¹⁵ I see great armies marching on Jerusalem with mighty shouts^[d] to destroy her and leave her cities in ruins, burned and desolate. ¹⁶ I see the armies of Egypt rising against her, marching from their cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes to utterly destroy Israel’s glory and power. ¹⁷ And you have brought this on yourselves by rebelling against the Lord your God when he wanted to lead you and show you the way!

¹⁸ What have you gained by your alliances with Egypt and with Assyria? ¹⁹ Your own wickedness will punish you. You will see what an evil, bitter thing it is to rebel against the Lord your God, fearlessly forsaking him, says the Lord Almighty. ²⁰ Long ago you shook off my yoke and broke away from my ties. Defiant, you would not obey me. On every hill and under every tree you’ve bowed low before idols.

²¹ How could this happen? How could this be? For when I planted you, I chose my seed so carefully—the very best. Why have you become this degenerate race of evil men? ²² No amount of soap or lye can make you clean. You are stained with guilt that cannot ever be washed away. I see it always before me, the Lord God says. ²³ You say it isn’t so, that you haven’t worshiped idols? How can you say a thing like that? Go and look in any valley in the land! Face the awful sins that you have done, O restless female camel, seeking for a male! ²⁴ You are a wild donkey, sniffing the wind at mating time. (Who can restrain your lust?) Any jack wanting you need not search, for you come running to him! ²⁵ Why don’t you turn from all this weary running after other gods? But you say, “Don’t waste your breath. I’ve fallen in love with these strangers and I can’t stop loving them now!”

^26-27 Like a thief, the only shame that Israel knows is getting caught. Kings, princes, priests, and prophets—all are alike in this. They call a carved-up wooden post their father, and for their mother they have an idol chiseled out from stone. Yet in time of trouble they cry to me to save them! ²⁸ Why don’t you call on these gods you have made? When danger comes, let them go out and save you if they can! For you have as many gods as there are cities in Judah. ²⁹ Don’t come to me—you are all rebels, says the Lord. ³⁰ I have punished your children, but it did them no good; they still will not obey. And you yourselves have killed my prophets as a lion kills its prey.

³¹ O my people, listen to the words of God: Have I been unjust to Israel? Have I been to them a land of darkness and of evil? Why then do my people say, “At last we are free from God; we won’t have anything to do with him again!” ³² How can you disown your God like that?^[e] Can a girl forget her jewels? What bride will seek to hide her wedding dress? Yet for years on end my people have forgotten me—the most precious of their treasures.

³³ How you plot and scheme to win your lovers. The most experienced harlot could learn a lot from you! ³⁴ Your clothing is stained with the blood of the innocent and the poor. Brazenly you murder without a cause. ³⁵ And yet you say, “I haven’t done a thing to anger God. I’m sure he isn’t angry!”^[f] I will punish you severely because you say, “I haven’t sinned!”

³⁶ First here, then there, you flit about, going from one ally to another for their help; but it’s all no good—your new friends in Egypt will forsake you as Assyria did before. ³⁷ You will be left in despair and cover your face with your hands, for the Lord has rejected the ones that you trust. You will not succeed despite their aid.

3 There is a law^[g] that if a man divorces a woman who then remarries, he is not to take her back again, for she has become corrupted. But though you have left me and married many lovers, yet I have invited you to come to me again, the Lord says. ² Is there a single spot in all the land where you haven’t been defiled by your adulteries—your worshiping these other gods?^[h] You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a client! You sit alone like a Bedouin in the desert. You have polluted the land with your vile prostitution. ³ That is why even the springtime rains have failed. For you are a prostitute and completely unashamed. ^4-5 And yet you say to me, “O Father, you have always been my Friend; surely you won’t be angry about such a little thing! Surely you will just forget it?” So you talk and keep right on doing all the evil that you can.

⁶ This message from the Lord came to me during the reign of King Josiah:

Have you seen what Israel does? Like a wanton wife who gives herself to other men at every chance, so Israel has worshiped other gods on every hill, beneath every shady tree. ⁷ I thought that someday she would return to me and once again be mine; but she didn’t come back. And her faithless sister Judah saw the continued rebellion of Israel. ⁸ Yet she paid no attention, even though she saw that I divorced faithless Israel. But now Judah too has left me and given herself to prostitution, for she has gone to other gods to worship them. ⁹ She treated it all so lightly—to her it was nothing at all that she should worship idols made of wood and stone. And so the land was greatly polluted and defiled. ¹⁰ Then, afterwards, this faithless one “returned” to me, but her “sorrow” was only faked, the Lord God says. ¹¹ In fact, faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah!

¹² Therefore, go and say to Israel, O Israel, my sinful people, come home to me again, for I am merciful; I will not be forever angry with you. ¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt; admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against him by worshiping idols under every tree; confess that you refused to follow me. ¹⁴ O sinful children, come home, for I am your Master, and I will bring you again to the land of Israel—one from here and two from there, wherever you are scattered. ¹⁵ And I will give you leaders after my own heart, who will guide you with wisdom and understanding.

¹⁶ Then, when your land is once more filled with people, says the Lord, you will no longer wish for “the good old days of long ago” when you possessed the Ark of God’s covenant. Those days will not be missed or even thought about, and the Ark will not be reconstructed, for the Lord himself will be among you. ¹⁷ The whole city of Jerusalem will be known as the throne of the Lord; all nations will come to him there and no longer stubbornly follow their evil desires. ¹⁸ At that time the people of Judah and of Israel will return together from their exile in the north, to the land I gave their fathers as an inheritance forever. ¹⁹ And I thought how wonderful it would be for you to be here among my children. I planned to give you part of this beautiful land, the finest in the world. I looked forward to your calling me “Father” and thought that you would never turn away from me again. ²⁰ But you have betrayed me; you have gone off and given yourself to a host of foreign gods; you have been like a faithless wife who leaves her husband.

²¹ I hear a voice high upon the windswept mountains, crying, crying. It is the sons of Israel who have turned their backs on God and wandered far away. ²² O my rebellious children, come back to me again and I will heal you from your sins.

And they reply, Yes, we will come, for you are the Lord our God. ²³ We are weary of worshiping idols on the hills and of having orgies on the mountains. It is all a farce. Only in the Lord our God can Israel ever find her help and her salvation. ²⁴ From our childhood we have seen everything our fathers had—flocks and herds and sons and daughters—squandered on priests and idols. ²⁵ We lie in shame and in dishonor, for we and our fathers have sinned from childhood against the Lord our God; we have not obeyed him.

4 O Israel, if you will truly return to me and absolutely discard your idols, ² and if you will swear by me alone, the living God, and begin to live good, honest, clean lives, then you will be a testimony to the nations of the world, and they will come to me and glorify my name.

³ The Lord is saying to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Plow up the hardness of your hearts; otherwise the good seed will be wasted among the thorns. ⁴ Cleanse your minds and hearts,^[i] not just your bodies, or else my anger will burn you to a crisp because of all your sins. And no one will be able to put the fire out.

⁵ Shout to Jerusalem and to all Judea, telling them to sound the alarm throughout the land. “Run for your lives! Flee to the fortified cities!” ⁶ Send a signal from Jerusalem: “Flee now, don’t delay!” For I the Lord am bringing vast destruction on you from the north.^{[j] 7} A lion—a destroyer of nations—stalks from his lair; and he is headed for your land. Your cities will lie in ruin without inhabitant. ⁸ Put on clothes of mourning and weep with broken hearts, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not stopped yet. ⁹ In that day, says the Lord, the king and the princes will tremble in fear; and the priests and the prophets will be stricken with horror.

¹⁰ (Then I said, “But Lord, the people have been deceived by what you said, for you promised great blessings on Jerusalem. Yet the sword is even now poised to strike them dead!”)

^11-12 At that time he will send a burning wind from the desert upon them—not in little gusts but in a roaring blast—and he will pronounce their doom. ¹³ The enemy shall roll down upon us like a storm wind; his chariots are like a whirlwind; his steeds are swifter than eagles. Woe, woe upon us, for we are doomed.

¹⁴ O Jerusalem, cleanse your hearts while there is time. You can yet be saved by casting out your evil thoughts. ¹⁵ From Dan and from Mount Ephraim your doom has been announced. ¹⁶ Warn the other nations that the enemy is coming from a distant land, and they shout against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. ¹⁷ They surround Jerusalem like shepherds moving in on some wild animal! For my people have rebelled against me, says the Lord. ¹⁸ Your ways have brought this down upon you; it is a bitter dose of your own medicine, striking deep within your hearts.

¹⁹ My heart, my heart—I writhe in pain; my heart pounds within me. I cannot be still because I have heard, O my soul, the blast of the enemies’ trumpets and the enemies’ battle cries. ²⁰ Wave upon wave of destruction rolls over the land, until it lies in utter ruin; suddenly, in a moment, every house is crushed. ²¹ How long must this go on? How long must I see war and death surrounding me?

²² “Until my people leave their foolishness, for they refuse to listen to me; they are dull, retarded children who have no understanding. They are smart enough at doing wrong, but for doing right they have no talent, none at all.”

²³ I looked down upon their land, and as far as I could see in all directions everything was ruins. And all the heavens were dark. ²⁴ I looked at the mountains and saw that they trembled and shook. ²⁵ I looked, and mankind was gone, and the birds of the heavens had fled.

²⁶ The fertile valleys were wilderness, and all the cities were broken down before the presence of the Lord, crushed by his fierce anger. ²⁷ The Lord’s decree of desolation covers all the land.

“Yet,” he says, “there will be a little remnant of my people left. ²⁸ The earth shall mourn, the heavens shall be draped with black, because of my decree against my people; I have made up my mind and will not change it.”

²⁹ All the cities flee in terror at the noise of marching armies coming near. The people hide in the bushes and flee to the mountains. All the cities are abandoned—all have fled in terror. ³⁰ Why do you put on your most beautiful clothing and jewelry and brighten your eyes with mascara? It will do you no good! Your allies despise you and will kill you.

³¹ I have heard great crying like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; it is the cry of my people gasping for breath, pleading for help, prostrate before their murderers.

5 Run up and down through every street in all Jerusalem; search high and low and see if you can find even one person who is fair and honest! Search every square, and if you find just one, I’ll not destroy the city! ² Even under oath, they all lie.

³ O Lord, you are looking for faithfulness. You have tried to get them to be honest, for you have punished them, but they won’t change! You have destroyed them, but they refuse to turn from their sins. They are determined, with faces hard as rock, not to repent.

⁴ Then I said, “But what can we expect from the poor and ignorant? They don’t know the ways of God. How can they obey him?”

⁵ I will go now to their leaders, the men of importance, and speak to them, for they know the ways of the Lord and the judgment that follows sin. But they too had utterly rejected their God.

⁶ So I will send upon them the wild fury of the “lion from the forest”; the “desert wolves” shall pounce upon them, and a “leopard” shall lurk around their cities so that all who go out shall be torn apart. For their sins are very many; their rebellion against me is great.

⁷ How can I pardon you? For even your children have turned away and worship gods that are not gods at all. I fed my people until they were fully satisfied, and their thanks was to commit adultery wholesale and to gang up at the city’s brothels. ⁸ They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s mate. ⁹ Shall I not punish them for this? Shall I not send my vengeance on such a nation as this? ¹⁰ Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy them! But leave a scattered few to live. Strip the branches from each vine, for they are not the Lord’s.

¹¹ For the people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against me, says the Lord. ¹² They have lied and said, “He won’t bother us! No evil will come upon us! There will be neither famine nor war! ¹³ God’s prophets,” they say, “are windbags full of words with no divine authority. Their claims of doom will fall upon themselves, not us!”

¹⁴ Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says to his prophets: Because of talk like this, I’ll take your words and prophecies and turn them into raging fire and burn up these people like kindling wood. ¹⁵ See, I will bring a distant nation against you, O Israel, says the Lord. It is a mighty nation, an ancient nation^[k] whose language you don’t understand. ¹⁶ Their weapons are deadly; the men are all mighty. ¹⁷ And they shall eat your harvest and your children’s bread, your flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, yes, and your grapes and figs; and they shall sack your walled cities that you think are safe.

¹⁸ But I will not completely blot you out. So says the Lord.

¹⁹ And when your people ask, “Why is it that the Lord is doing this to us?” then you shall say, “You rejected him and gave yourselves to other gods while in your land; now you must be slaves to foreigners in their lands.”

²⁰ Make this announcement to Judah and to Israel:

²¹ Listen, O foolish, senseless people—you with the eyes that do not see and the ears that do not listen— ²² have you no respect at all for me? the Lord God asks. How can it be that you don’t even tremble in my presence? I set the shorelines of the world by perpetual decrees, so that the oceans, though they toss and roar, can never pass those bounds. Isn’t such a God to be feared and worshiped?

^23-24 But my people have rebellious hearts; they have turned against me and gone off into idolatry. Though I am the one who gives them rain each year in spring and fall and sends the harvesttimes, yet they have no respect or fear for me. ²⁵ And so I have taken away these wondrous blessings from them. This sin has robbed them of all of these good things.

²⁶ Among my people are wicked men who lurk for victims like a hunter hiding in a blind. They set their traps for men. ²⁷ Like a coop full of chickens their homes are full of evil plots. And the result? Now they are great and rich, ²⁸ they are well fed and well groomed, and there is no limit to their wicked deeds. They refuse justice to orphans and the rights of the poor. ²⁹ Should I sit back and act as though nothing is going on? the Lord God asks. Shouldn’t I punish a nation such as this?

³⁰ A horrible thing has happened in this land— ³¹ the priests are ruled by false prophets, and my people like it so! But your doom is certain.

1 This is the message that came to the prophet Habakkuk in a vision from God:

² O Lord, how long must I call for help before you will listen? I shout to you in vain; there is no answer. “Help! Murder!” I cry, but no one comes to save. ³ Must I forever see this sin and sadness all around me?

Wherever I look I see oppression and bribery and men who love to argue and to fight. ⁴ The law is not enforced, and there is no justice given in the courts, for the wicked far outnumber the righteous, and bribes and trickery prevail.

⁵ The Lord replied: “Look, and be amazed! You will be astounded at what I am about to do! For I am going to do something in your own lifetime that you will have to see to believe. ⁶ I am raising a new force on the world scene, the Chaldeans,^[a] a cruel and violent nation who will march across the world and conquer it. ⁷ They are notorious for their cruelty. They do as they like, and no one can interfere. ⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards. They are a fierce people, more fierce than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry move proudly forward from a distant land; like eagles they come swooping down to pounce upon their prey. ⁹ All opposition melts away before the terror of their presence. They collect captives like sand.

¹⁰ “They scoff at kings and princes and scorn their forts. They simply heap up dirt against their walls and capture them! ^11 [b]They sweep past like wind and are gone, but their guilt is deep, for they claim their power is from their gods.”

¹² O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—is your plan in all of this to wipe us out? Surely not! O God our Rock, you have decreed the rise of these Chaldeans to chasten and correct us for our awful sins. ¹³ We are wicked, but they far more! Will you, who cannot allow sin in any form, stand idly by while they swallow us up? Should you be silent while the wicked destroy those who are better than they?

¹⁴ Are we but fish, to be caught and killed? Are we but creeping things that have no leader to defend them from their foes? ¹⁵ Must we be strung up on their hooks and dragged out in their nets, while they rejoice? ¹⁶ Then they will worship their nets and burn incense before them! “These are the gods who make us rich,” they’ll say.

¹⁷ Will you let them get away with this forever? Will they succeed forever in their heartless wars?