Jeremiah 17:16

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

²⁷for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

²⁰how I didn’t shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,

¹⁴So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and the LORD’s hand was strong on me. ¹⁵Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Aviv who lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.

¹⁶At the end of seven days, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from me. ¹⁸When I tell the wicked, ‘You will surely die;’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity; but I will require his blood at your hand. ¹⁹Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn’t turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he will die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.”

¹⁷“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. ¹⁸If I go out into the field, then behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’” ¹⁹Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! ²⁰We acknowledge, LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against you. ²¹Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake. Do not disgrace the throne of your glory. Remember, and don’t break your covenant with us.

¹⁴Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; ¹⁵and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

¹²For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

²⁰Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

¹⁷But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

¹⁷For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.