Jeremiah 6:17

⁴The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear),

¹“Cry aloud! Don’t spare! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.

¹¹But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.

¹¹The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”

¹⁰His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.

¹I will stand at my watch and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

²“Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, ‘When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman, ³if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blows the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and doesn’t heed the warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. ⁵He heard the sound of the trumpet and didn’t take warning. His blood will be on him; whereas if he had heeded the warning, he would have delivered his soul. ⁶But if the watchman sees the sword come and doesn’t blow the trumpet, and the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’

⁷“So you, son of man, I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warnings from me. ⁸When I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you don’t speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand. ⁹Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he doesn’t turn from his way; he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.

¹⁷Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.

⁶Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and the LORD hasn’t done it? ⁷Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. ⁸The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken. Who can but prophesy?

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.”

²⁰“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he will die. Because you have not given him warning, he will die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his blood at your hand. ²¹Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous not sin, and he does not sin, he will surely live, because he took warning; and you have delivered your soul.”