Jeremiah 14–16

Jeremiah 14–16 WEB

^14:1This is the LORD’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought: ²“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up. ³Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. ⁴Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads. ⁵Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. ⁶The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation. ⁷Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, LORD; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you. ⁸You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night? ⁹Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t save? Yet you, LORD, are in the middle of us, and we are called by your name. Don’t leave us. ¹⁰The LORD says to this people: “Even so they have loved to wander. They have not restrained their feet. Therefore the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins.” ¹¹The LORD said to me, “Don’t pray for this people for their good. ¹²When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.” ¹³Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, the prophets tell them, ‘You will not see the sword, neither will you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” ¹⁴Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. ¹⁵Therefore the LORD says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. ¹⁶The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them. ¹⁷“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. ¹⁸If I go out into the field, then behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’” ¹⁹Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! ²⁰We acknowledge, LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against you. ²¹Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake. Do not disgrace the throne of your glory. Remember, and don’t break your covenant with us. ²²Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, the LORD our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

^15:1Then the LORD said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out! ²It will happen when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’ ³“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says the LORD: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. ⁴I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. ⁵For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare? ⁶You have rejected me,” says the LORD. “You have gone backward. Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you. I am weary of showing compassion. ⁷I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways. ⁸Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. ⁹She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD. ¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me. ¹¹The LORD said, “Most certainly I will strengthen you for good. Most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. ¹²Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and bronze? ¹³I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders. ¹⁴I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which will burn on you.” ¹⁵LORD, you know. Remember me, visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors. You are patient, so don’t take me away. Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach. ¹⁶Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, LORD, God of Armies. ¹⁷I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice. I sat alone because of your hand, for you have filled me with indignation. ¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? ¹⁹Therefore the LORD says, “If you return, then I will bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take out the precious from the vile, you will be as my mouth. They will return to you, but you will not return to them. ²⁰I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you,” says the LORD. ²¹“I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”

^16:1Then the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ²“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.” ³For the LORD says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: ⁴“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.” ⁵For the LORD says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says the LORD, “even loving kindness and tender mercies. ⁶Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them. ⁷Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. ⁸“You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” ⁹For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. ¹⁰It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’ ¹¹then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says the LORD, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. ¹²You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me. ¹³Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’ ¹⁴“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that it will no more be said, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ ¹⁵but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers. ¹⁶“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.” ¹⁹LORD, my strength, my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit. ²⁰Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?” ²¹“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.”