Jeremiah 23–25

Jeremiah 23–25 WEB

^23:1“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the LORD. ²Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says the LORD. ³“I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. They will no longer be afraid or dismayed, neither will any be lacking,” says the LORD. ⁵“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch; and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely. This is his name by which he will be called: The LORD our righteousness. ⁷“Therefore, behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that they will no more say, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ ⁸but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up and who led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will dwell in their own land.” ⁹Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the LORD, and because of his holy words. ¹⁰“For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right; ¹¹for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says the LORD. ¹²Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says the LORD. ¹³“I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” ¹⁵Therefore the LORD of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” ¹⁶The LORD of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. ¹⁷They say continually to those who despise me, ‘The LORD has said, “You will have peace;”’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’ ¹⁸For who has stood in the council of the LORD, that he should perceive and hear his word? Who has listened to my word, and heard it? ¹⁹Behold, the LORD’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm! It will burst on the head of the wicked. ²⁰The LORD’s anger will not return until he has executed and performed the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. ²¹I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied. ²²But if they had stood in my council, then they would have caused my people to hear my words, and would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. ²³“Am I a God at hand,” says the LORD, “and not a God afar off? ²⁴Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says the LORD. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD. ²⁵“I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ ²⁶How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart? ²⁷They intend to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they each tell his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. ²⁸The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?” says the LORD. ²⁹“Isn’t my word like fire?” says the LORD; “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? ³⁰“Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who each steal my words from his neighbor. ³¹Behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who use their tongues, and say, ‘He says.’ ³²Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams,” says the LORD, “who tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting; yet I didn’t send them or command them. They don’t profit this people at all,” says the LORD. ³³“When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, asks you, saying, ‘What is the message from the LORD?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘“What message? I will cast you off,” says the LORD.’ ³⁴As for the prophet, the priest, and the people, who say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ I will even punish that man and his household. ³⁵You will say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ and, ‘What has the LORD said?’ ³⁶You will mention the message from the LORD no more, for every man’s own word has become his message; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of Armies, our God. ³⁷You will say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ ³⁸Although you say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ therefore the LORD says: ‘Because you say this word, “The message from the LORD,” and I have sent to you, telling you not to say, “The message from the LORD,” ³⁹therefore behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off with the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence. ⁴⁰I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which will not be forgotten.’”

^24:1The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the LORD’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. ²One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. ³Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.” ⁴The LORD’s word came to me, saying, ⁵“The LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good. ⁶For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. ⁷I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart. ⁸“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. ⁹I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. ¹⁰I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

^25:1The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (this was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), ²which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ³From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the LORD’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened. ⁴The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear), ⁵saying, “Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forever more. ⁶Don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; then I will do you no harm.” ⁷“Yet you have not listened to me,” says the LORD, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.” ⁸Therefore the LORD of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words, ⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. ¹⁰Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. ¹¹This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹²“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says the LORD, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. ¹³I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.” ¹⁵For the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. ¹⁶They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send among them.” ¹⁷Then I took the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom the LORD had sent me: ¹⁸Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; ¹⁹Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people; ²⁰and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon; ²²and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; ²⁴and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; ²⁶and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them. ²⁷“You shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’ ²⁸It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “You shall surely drink. ²⁹For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You will not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of Armies.”’ ³⁰“Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and tell them, “‘The LORD will roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation. He will mightily roar against his fold. He will give a shout, as those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. ³¹A noise will come even to the end of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations. He will enter into judgment with all flesh. As for the wicked, he will give them to the sword,”’ says the LORD.” ³²The LORD of Armies says, “Behold, evil will go out from nation to nation, and a great storm will be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth.” ³³The slain of the LORD will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They won’t be lamented. They won’t be gathered or buried. They will be dung on the surface of the ground. ³⁴Wail, you shepherds, and cry. Wallow in dust, you leader of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions have fully come, and you will fall like fine pottery. ³⁵The shepherds will have no way to flee. The leader of the flock will have no escape. ³⁶A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the leader of the flock, for the LORD destroys their pasture. ³⁷The peaceful folds are brought to silence because of the fierce anger of the LORD. ³⁸He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.