O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, That you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge 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?
- BSB Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts 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 this, your wickedness, and ask God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.
- Isa 55:7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- Luke 11:39The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
- Rom 1:21Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.
- 1 Cor 3:20And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.”
- Prov 1:22“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?
- Ps 66:18If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened.
- Matt 12:33“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit.
- Isa 1:16–19Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.
- Jer 13:27I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?”
- Matt 23:26–27You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.
- Matt 15:19–20For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.
- Ps 119:113I hate double-minded men, but I love your law.
- Ezek 18:31Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make yourself a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, 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.