The LORD will make you lose your mind; he will strike you with blindness and confusion.

You will grope about in broad daylight like someone blind, and you will not be able to find your way. You will not prosper in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to help you.

They shed your people's blood like water; blood flowed like water all through Jerusalem, and no one was left to bury the dead.

The LORD has made you drowsy, ready to fall into a deep sleep. The prophets should be the eyes of the people, but God has blindfolded them.

The people say, "Now we know why God does not save us from those who oppress us. We hope for light to walk by, but there is only darkness,

and we grope about like blind people. We stumble at noon, as if it were night, as if we were in the dark world of the dead.

Her leaders wandered through the streets as though blind, so stained with blood that no one would touch them.

"Don't worry about them! They are blind leaders of the blind; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch."

Some Pharisees who were there with him heard him say this and asked him, "Surely you don't mean that we are blind, too?"

Jesus answered, "If you were blind, then you would not be guilty; but since you claim that you can see, this means that you are still guilty."

What then? The people of Israel did not find what they were looking for. It was only the small group that God chose who found it; the rest grew deaf to God's call.

There is a secret truth, my friends, which I want you to know, for it will keep you from thinking how wise you are. It is that the stubbornness of the people of Israel is not permanent, but will last only until the complete number of Gentiles comes to God.

They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

But if you do not have them, you are so shortsighted that you cannot see and have forgotten that you have been purified from your past sins.

But if we hate others, we are in the darkness; we walk in it and do not know where we are going, because the darkness has made us blind.

You say, 'I am rich and well off; I have all I need.' But you do not know how miserable and pitiful you are! You are poor, naked, and blind.

The people have defiled the earth by breaking God's laws and by violating the covenant he made to last forever.

So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive.

The LORD says, "Do you think I sent my people away like a man who divorces his wife? Where, then, are the papers of divorce? Do you think I sold you into captivity like a man who sells his children as slaves? No, you went away captive because of your sins; you were sent away because of your crimes.

" LORD, our crimes against you are many. Our sins accuse us. We are well aware of them all.

Justice is driven away, and right cannot come near. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty finds no place there.

Israel, you brought this on yourself ! You deserted me, the LORD your God, while I was leading you along the way.

Your own evil will punish you, and your turning from me will condemn you. You will learn how bitter and wrong it is to abandon me, the LORD your God, and no longer to remain faithful to me. I, the Sovereign LORD Almighty, have spoken."

Judah, you have brought this on yourself by the way you have lived and by the things you have done. Your sin has caused this suffering; it has stabbed you through the heart.

Her honor is gone; she is naked and held in contempt. She groans and hides her face in shame. Jerusalem made herself filthy with terrible sin.

"He took note of all my sins and tied them all together; He hung them around my neck, and I grew weak beneath the weight. The Lord gave me to my foes, and I was helpless against them.

"But the LORD is just, for I have disobeyed him. Listen to me, people everywhere; look at me in my pain. My young men and women have been taken away captive.

But it happened, because her prophets sinned and her priests were guilty of causing the death of innocent people.

"Get away!" people shouted. "You're defiled! Don't touch me!" So they wandered from nation to nation, welcomed by no one.

Nothing is left of all we were proud of. We sinned, and now we are doomed.

We are sick at our very hearts and can hardly see through our tears,

The leaders are like lions roaring over the animals they have killed. They kill the people, take all the money and property they can get, and by their murders leave many widows.

The government officials are like wolves tearing apart the animals they have killed. They commit murder in order to get rich.

The wealthy cheat and rob. They mistreat the poor and take advantage of foreigners.

So I will turn my anger loose on them, and like a fire I will destroy them for what they have done." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

"We have sinned, we have been evil, we have done wrong. We have rejected what you commanded us to do and have turned away from what you showed us was right.

You, Lord, always do what is right, but we have always brought disgrace on ourselves. This is true of all of us who live in Judea and in Jerusalem and of all the Israelites whom you scattered in countries near and far because they were unfaithful to you.

You are merciful and forgiving, although we have rebelled against you.

All Israel broke your laws and refused to listen to what you said. We sinned against you, and so you brought on us the curses that are written in the Law of Moses, your servant.

giving us all the punishment described in the Law of Moses. But even now, O LORD our God, we have not tried to please you by turning from our sins or by following your truth.

"O Lord our God, you showed your power by bringing your people out of Egypt, and your power is still remembered. We have sinned; we have done wrong.

O God, hear my prayer and pleading. Restore your Temple, which has been destroyed; restore it so that everyone will know that you are God.

Lord, hear us. Lord, forgive us. Lord, listen to us, and act! In order that everyone will know that you are God, do not delay! This city and these people are yours."

Listen to me, you rulers of Israel, you that hate justice and turn right into wrong.

The city's rulers govern for bribes, the priests interpret the Law for pay, the prophets give their revelations for money---and they all claim that the LORD is with them. "No harm will come to us," they say. "The LORD is with us."

But the earth will become a desert because of the wickedness of those who live on it.

and Jehu said to them, "Throw her down!" They threw her down, and her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses. Jehu drove his horses and chariot over her body,

But the men who went out to bury her found nothing except her skull and the bones of her hands and feet.

Her remains will be scattered there like dung, so that no one will be able to identify them.' "

They left the bodies of your people for the vultures, the bodies of your servants for wild animals to eat.

They shed your people's blood like water; blood flowed like water all through Jerusalem, and no one was left to bury the dead.

You defeated them at Endor, and their bodies rotted on the ground.

Death has come in through our windows and entered our palaces; it has cut down the children in the streets and the young men in the marketplaces.

Dead bodies are scattered everywhere, like piles of manure on the fields, like grain cut and left behind by the reapers, grain that no one gathers. This is what the LORD has told me to say."

I, the LORD, have decided that four terrible things will happen to them: they will be killed in war; their bodies will be dragged off by dogs; birds will eat them, and wild animals will devour what is left over.

They will die of terrible diseases, and no one will mourn for them or bury them. Their bodies will lie like piles of manure on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation, and their bodies will be food for the birds and the wild animals.

The rich and the poor will die in this land, but no one will bury them or mourn for them. Not one of you will gash yourself or shave your head to show your grief.

But now, LORD, let their children starve to death; let them be killed in war. Let the women lose their husbands and children; let the men die of disease and the young men be killed in battle.

Young and old alike lie dead in the streets, Young men and women, killed by enemy swords. You slaughtered them without mercy on the day of your anger.

Her leaders wandered through the streets as though blind, so stained with blood that no one would touch them.

"I sent a plague on you like the one I sent on Egypt. I killed your young men in battle and took your horses away. I filled your nostrils with the stink of dead bodies in your camps. Still you did not come back to me.