Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?
Parallel translations
- WEB Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
- KJV O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?
- NKJV O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, That you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
- NASB ¶Wash your heart from evil, Jerusalem, So that you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts Lodge within you?
- NLT O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved. How long will you harbor your evil thoughts?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God pleads with Jerusalem to wash her heart of wickedness so she may be saved. It matters because salvation requires inner cleansing, not just outward escape.
Overview
Even amid announcements of doom, the Lord appeals for genuine repentance: cleanse the heart and lodge no more evil thoughts. The problem is internal corruption, and so must be the cure. This need for a washed heart finds its answer in Christ, who cleanses His people inwardly by His Spirit and word (Psalm 51:10; Titus 3:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Jas 4:8Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
- Acts 8:22Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for the intent of your heart.
- Isa 55:7Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Luke 11:39“Now then,” said the Lord, “you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
- Rom 1:21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
- 1 Cor 3:20And again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
- Prov 1:22“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge?
- Ps 66:18If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
- Matt 12:33Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
- Isa 1:16–19Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!
- Jer 13:27Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”
- Matt 23:26–27Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.
- Matt 15:19–20For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
- Ps 119:113The double-minded I despise, but Your law I love.
- Ezek 18:31Cast away from yourselves all the transgressions you have committed, and fashion for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 4:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.