Jeremiah 12  Common English Bible

12 If I took you to court, Lord,
    you would win.
But I still have questions about your justice.
    Why do guilty persons enjoy success?
    Why are evildoers so happy?
² You plant them, and they take root;
    they flourish and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
    but far from their hearts.
³ Yet you, Lord, you know me.
    You see me.
You can tell that I love you.^[a]
    So drag them away
    and butcher them like sheep.
    Prepare them for the slaughterhouse.
⁴ How long will the land mourn
    and the grass in the fields dry up?
The animals and birds are swept away
    due to the evil of those in the land.
The people say,
    “God doesn’t see what we’re up to!”

⁷ I have abandoned my house;
    I have deserted my inheritance.
    I have given the one I love
        into the power of her enemies.
⁸ My inheritance has turned against me
    like a lion in the forest;
        she growls at me;
            therefore, I have rejected her.
⁹ My inheritance has become
    like a bird of prey,
        surrounded and attacked.^[c]
Go, gather all the wild animals for the feast.
¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard;
    they have trampled down my field;
    they have reduced my treasured field
        to a desolate wilderness.
¹¹ They have devastated her;
    desolate, she cries out to me in distress:
        “The whole land is desolate,
        and no one seems to care.”
¹² Over all the desert roads
    destroyers march;
        for the sword of the Lord devours
    from one end of the land to the other;
        no one is safe.
¹³ They have sown wheat and reaped weeds;
    they have worn themselves out for nothing.
They will be ashamed of their^[d] harvest
    on account of the Lord’s fierce anger.