ve given
my dear soul into the hand of her enemies.

12:8. My inheritance is become to me as a lion in the wood: it hath
cried out against me, therefore have I hated it.

12:9. Is my inheritance to me as a speckled bird? is it as a bird dyed
throughout? come ye, assemble yourselves, all ye beasts of the earth,
make haste to devour.

12:10. Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my
portion under foot: they have changed my delightful portion into a
desolate wilderness.

12:11. They have laid it waste, and it hath mourned for me. With
desolation is all the land made desolate; because there is none that
considereth in the heart.

12:12. The spoilers are come upon all the ways of the wilderness, for
the sword of the Lord shall devour from one end of the land to the other
end thereof: there is no peace for all flesh.

12:13. They have sown wheat, and reaped thorns: they have received an
inheritance, and it shall not profit them: you shall be ashamed of your
fruits, because of the fierce wrath of the Lord.

12:14. Thus saith the Lord against all wicked neighbours, that touch the
inheritance that I have shared out to my people Israel: Behold I will
pluck them out of their land, and I will pluck the house of Juda out of
the midst of them.

12:15. And when I shall have plucked them out, I will return, and have
mercy on them: and will bring them back, every man to his inheritance,
and every man into his land.

12:16. And it shall come to pass, if they will be taught, and will learn
the ways of my people, to swear by my name: The Lord liveth, as they
have taught my people to swear by Baal: that they shall be built up in
the midst of my people.

12:17. But if they will not hear, I will utterly pluck out and destroy
that nation, saith the Lord.

Jeremias Chapter 13

Under the figure of a linen girdle is foretold the destruction of the
Jews. Their obstinacy in sin brings all miseries upon them.

13:1. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and get thee a linen girdle, and
thou shalt put it about thy loins, and shalt not put it into water.

13:2. And I got a girdle according to the word of the Lord, and put it
about my loins.

13:3. And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying:

13:4. Take the girdle which thou hast got, which is about thy loins, and
arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.

13:5. And I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord had comman