Jeremiah 2:21-35

21Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? 22Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD. 23How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done— a restless young camel running here and there, 24a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her. 25Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved foreigners, and after them I will go.’ 26“As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, 27who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Arise and save us!’ 28But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah. 29“Why do you contend with me? You have all transgressed against me, declares the LORD. 30In vain have I struck your children; they took no correction; your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion. 31And you, O generation, behold the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness? Why then do my people say, ‘We are free, we will come no more to you’? 32Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number. 33“How well you direct your course to seek love! So that even to wicked women you have taught your ways. 34Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor; you did not find them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things 35you say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’