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22 You may ask,
    “Why are these things happening to me?”
It is because of your many terrible sins.
Like an adulteress, they have torn off your dress
    to make you ashamed.
23 You have done evil things for a long time.
    So you cannot now start to do good things.
Can anyone change the colour of his skin?
    Can a leopard remove the marks on its body?
No! And you cannot change yourselves either.’

24 The Lord says,

‘I will blow you away,
    as a hot desert wind blows away straw.

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22 And if you ask yourself,
    “Why has this happened to me?”(A)
it is because of your many sins(B)
    that your skirts have been torn off(C)
    and your body mistreated.(D)
23 Can an Ethiopian[a] change his skin
    or a leopard its spots?
Neither can you do good
    who are accustomed to doing evil.(E)

24 “I will scatter you like chaff(F)
    driven by the desert wind.(G)

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 13:23 Hebrew Cushite (probably a person from the upper Nile region)