1That is why the Lord our God has carried out the word which he spoke against us, against the judges who have governed Israel, against our kings, our princes and the people of Israel and Judah.
2No one under the sky has ever seen the like of what happened in Jerusalem, according to what is written in the book of Moses. 3For people among us came to eat their son’s and daughter’s flesh. 4And he handed them over into the power of all the surrounding kingdoms, so that they were cursed and humiliated among the neighboring peoples among whom the Lord had scattered them. 5Submission and not command has been our lot, because we have sinned against the Lord our God and have not listened to his voice.
6Just is the Lord our God, where as shame and confusion befit us and our ancestors right down to this day. 7All those evils which the Lord prophesied concerning us have fallen upon us. 8And we have not begged the Lord to make each of us turn away from the thoughts of our evil hearts. 9Then the Lord kept watch over the evils and allowed them to come upon us, for the Lord is just in all that he has commanded us to do. 10We have not listened to his voice nor followed the commands which the Lord has ordered us to keep.
11And now, Lord God of Israel, you who brought your people out of Egypt with a strong hand, with miracles and wonders and great power, you who stretched out your arm and made for yourself a name such as you have today, 12we have sinned. We have been godless and unjust, Lord, careless about all your commands. 13May your fury be turned away from us, for there are very few of us left among the nations in which you have scattered us.
14Hear our supplication and our prayer, O Lord, deliver us for your own honor and let us find favor with those who deported us. 15Let all the earth know that you are the Lord our God, because Israel and its people bear your name. 16Lord, look down from your holy dwelling place and think of us; Lord, incline your ear and listen; 17Lord, open your eyes and consider: it is not the dead, lying in the nether world, who will praise your glory and justice, 18since their spirit has been taken from their breast. Grieving under his burden, and walking bowed down and exhausted, the man with eyes sore from weeping and who is hungry – these are they, who can give you glory and justice, O Lord.
19For it is not on account of the merits of our ancestors and of our kings that we pour out our cry for pity before you, O Lord our God. 20You have sent down on us your fury and your anger as you announced through your servants, the prophets, saying, 21“Thus says the Lord: Bend your shoulders and serve the king of Babylon and you will dwell in the land that I gave to your ancestors. 22But if you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and serve the king of Babylon, 23I will bring to an end in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem the song of joy and gladness, the song of the bridegroom and the bride, and the whole country will become a desert without inhabitants. 24We did not listen to your invitation to serve the king of Babylon and so you carried out what you had foretold by your servants, the prophets, that the bones of our kings and our ancestors would be taken from their graves. 25See, they have been exposed to the heat of the day and the cold of the night; they died in cruel sufferings, by famine, by the sword and by plagues. 26And you have reduced the nation which bears your name to the state in which it is today because of the wickedness of the people of Judah.
27However, you have acted towards us, O Lord our God, indulgently and with great tenderness, 28as you foretold by your servant Moses, the day you ordered him to write down your Law in the presence of the children of Israel saying: 29If you do not listen to my voice, this great and vast multitude will be reduced to a small remnant among the nations where I shall scatter them; 30for I know well that they will not listen to me because they are a stiff-necked people. But in the land of their exile their hearts will be converted 31and they will know that I am the Lord their God. 32And I will give them a heart and listening ears, that they may praise me in the land of their exile and remember my name. 33They will repent of their stiff-necked obstinacy and their evil deeds, because they will remember what happened to their ancestors who had sinned before the Lord. 34And I will lead them into the land which I have promised by oath to their ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and they will take possession of it. I will increase their number and it will no longer diminish. 35I will make with them an everlasting covenant; I will be their God and they shall be my people. I will no longer drive my people Israel from the land which I have given them.
