Today is the fifth day of October. Welcome to the daily audio Bible. I am Brian and it is great to be here with you today as we continue our journey forward and our next step forward on the journey will lead us back into the book of Jeremiah.

We are reading from the new international version this week and today Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 19 through 6 verse 15.

Oh my anguish, I anguish, I writhe in pain. Oh the agony of my heart, my heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet, I have heard the battle cry.

Disaster, follows disaster, the whole land lies in ruins. In an instant my tents are destroyed, my shelter in a moment. How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

My people are fools, they do not know me, they are senseless children, they have no understanding, they are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good.

I looked at the earth and it was formless and empty and at the heavens and their light was gone.

I looked at the mountains and they were quaking, all the hills were swaying. I looked and there were no people, every bird in the sky had flown away.

I looked and the fruitful land was a desert, all its towns lay in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

This is what the Lord says. The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely.

Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent. I have decided and will not turn back.

At the sound of horsemen and archers every town takes to flight, some go into the thickets, some climb up among the rocks, all the towns are deserted, no one lives in them.

What are you doing you devastated one? Why dress yourself in scarlet and put on jewels of gold? Why highlight your eyes with makeup?

You adorn yourself in vain, your lovers despise you, they want to kill you.

I hear a cry as of a woman in labor, a groan as of one bearing her first child.

The cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands and saying, lass, I am fainting, my life is given over to murderers.

Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares.

If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.

Although they say, as surely as the Lord lives, still they are swearing falsely.

Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You struck them but they felt no pain, you crushed them but they refused correction, they made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

I thought, these are only the poor, they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.

So I will go to the leaders and speak to them, surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.

But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds.

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