¹ So the Lord confirmed his word, which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged Israel and against our kings and against our princes and against the people of Israel and Judah.

² Under the whole heaven there has not been done the like of what he has done in Jerusalem, in accordance with what is written in the law of Moses,

³ that we should eat, one the flesh of his son and another the flesh of his daughter.

⁴ And he gave them into subjection to all the kingdoms round us, to be a reproach and a desolation among all the surrounding peoples, where the Lord has scattered them.

⁵ They were brought low and not raised up, because we sinned against the Lord our God, in not heeding his voice.

⁶ Righteousness belongs to the Lord our God, but shame to us and our fathers, as at this day.

⁷ All those calamities with which the Lord threatened us have come upon us.

⁸ Yet we have not entreated the favour of the Lord by turning away, each of us, from the thoughts of his wicked heart.

⁹ And the Lord has kept watch over the calamities, and the Lord has brought them upon us, for the Lord is righteous in all his works that he has commanded us,

¹⁰ yet we have not obeyed his voice, to walk in the statutes of the Lord that he set before us.

Prayer for Deliverance

¹¹ And now, O Lord God of Israel, you who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and with signs and wonders and with great power and outstretched arm and have made for yourself a name, as at this day,

¹² we have sinned, we have been ungodly, we have done wrong, O Lord our God, against all your ordinances.

¹³ Let your anger turn away from us, for few of us are left, among the nations where you have scattered us.

¹⁴ Hear, O Lord, our prayer and our supplication, and for your own sake deliver us and grant us favour in the sight of those who have carried us into exile;

¹⁵ that all the earth may know that you are the Lord our God, for Israel and his descendants are called by your name.

¹⁶ O Lord, look down from your holy habitation and consider us. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear;

¹⁷ open your eyes, O Lord, and see; for the dead who are in Hades, whose spirit has been taken from their bodies, will not ascribe glory or justice to the Lord,

¹⁸ but the person that is greatly distressed, that goes about bent over and feeble, and the eyes that are failing and the person that hungers will ascribe to you glory and righteousness, O Lord.

¹⁹ For it is not because of any righteous deeds of our fathers or our kings that we bring before you our prayer for mercy, O Lord our God.

²⁰ For you have sent your anger and your wrath upon us, just as you declared by the hand of your servants the prophets, saying:

²¹ Thus says the Lord: Bend your shoulders and serve the king of Babylon, and you will remain in the land that I gave to your fathers.

²² But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord and will not serve the king of Babylon,

²³ I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the region round Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, and the whole land will be a desolation without inhabitants.

²⁴ But we did not obey your voice, to serve the king of Babylon; and you have confirmed your words, which you spoke by the hands of your servants the prophets, that the bones of our kings and the bones of our fathers would be taken out of their place;

²⁵ and look, they have been cast out to the heat of day and the frost of night. They perished in great misery, by famine and sword and dispatch.

²⁶ And the house that is called by your name you have made as it is today, because of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

God’s Promise Recalled

²⁷ Yet you have dealt with us, O Lord our God, in all your kindness and in all your great compassion,

²⁸ as you spoke by the hand of your servant Moses on the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the people of Israel, saying,

²⁹ “If you will not obey my voice, this very great multitude of voices will surely turn into a small one among the nations, where I will scatter them.

³⁰ For I know that they will not obey me, for they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile they will come to themselves,

³¹ and they will know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart that obeys and ears that hear;

³² and they will praise me in the land of their exile and will remember my name

³³ and will turn from their stubbornness and their wicked deeds; for they will remember the way of their fathers, who sinned before the Lord.

³⁴ I will bring them again into the land that I swore to give to their fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, and they will rule over it; and I will increase them, and they will not be diminished.

³⁵ I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God and they shall be my people; and I will never again remove my people Israel from the land that I have given them.”