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⁹Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. ¹⁰Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. ¹¹Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. ¹²Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

¹⁴Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become plunder? ¹⁵The lions have roared against him, they have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant. ¹⁶Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head. ¹⁷Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way? ¹⁸What then do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? Or what do you gain by going to Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates? ¹⁹Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.

²⁰For long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds, and you said, “I will not serve!” On every high hill and under every green tree you sprawled and played the whore. ²¹Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine? ²²Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, says the Lord God. ²³How can you say, “I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals”? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done— a restive young camel interlacing her tracks, ²⁴a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her. ²⁵Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, “It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.” ²⁶As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed— they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, ²⁷who say to a tree, “You are my father,” and to a stone, “You gave me birth.” For they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. But in the time of their trouble they say, “Come and save us!” ²⁸But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.