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Even your brothers and your own family
    continue to deal treacherously with you
    as they pursue you while shouting threats.
Do not trust them
    even when they speak gentle words to you.

The Lord’s Lament[a]

I have abandoned my house
    and forsaken my heritage.
I have given the beloved of my heart
    into the hands of her enemies.
My own people have become to me
    like a lion in the forest;
they have threatened me incessantly,
    and therefore, I despise them.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 12:7 An editor has linked to the prophet’s call for vengeance (v. 3) the following two oracles, both of which speak of the judgment of God. The passage is probably an echo of the repression that was followed by the rebellion of Jehoiakim against his sovereign (Nebuchadnezzar). With the approval of the king of Babylon, some neighboring peoples engaged in a series of raids against Judah in about 599 B.C. (see 2 Ki 24:13). An accounting for their cruelty will be demanded of them, as well as the possibility of entering into the saving covenant, provided they renounce their false god, Baal, and follow the Lord. This marks the beginning of the call to universal salvation.