Jeremiah: the potter and the stocks · Habakkuk

Jeremiah 20 WEB

¹Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the LORD’s house, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in the LORD’s house. ³On the next day, Pashhur released Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD has not called your name Pashhur, but Magormissabib. ⁴For the LORD says, ‘Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes will see it. I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them captive to Babylon, and will kill them with the sword. ⁵Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all its precious things, yes, I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies. They will make them captives, take them, and carry them to Babylon. ⁶You, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house will go into captivity. You will come to Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried, you, and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.’” ⁷LORD, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me. ⁸For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because the LORD’s word has been made a reproach to me, and a derision, all day. ⁹If I say that I will not make mention of him, or speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in. I can’t. ¹⁰For I have heard the defaming of many: “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we will prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.” ¹¹But the LORD is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they won’t prevail. They will be utterly disappointed because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which will never be forgotten. ¹²But the LORD of Armies, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for I have revealed my cause to you. ¹³Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD, for he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evildoers. ¹⁴Cursed is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed. ¹⁵Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, “A boy is born to you,” making him very glad. ¹⁶Let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and didn’t repent. Let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime, ¹⁷because he didn’t kill me from the womb. So my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great. ¹⁸Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

Habakkuk 1–3 WEB

^1:1The revelation which Habakkuk the prophet saw. ²LORD, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save? ³Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. ⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted. ⁵“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. ⁹All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. ¹⁰Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. ¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.” ¹²Aren’t you from everlasting, LORD my God, my Holy One? We will not die. LORD, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. ¹³You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, ¹⁴and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. ¹⁷Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?

^2:1I will stand at my watch and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. ²The LORD answered me, “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read it. ³For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it, because it will surely come. It won’t delay. ⁴Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith. ⁵Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous: an arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol; he is like death and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations and heaps to himself all peoples. ⁶Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’ ⁷Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? ⁸Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. ⁹Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰You have devised shame to your house by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. ¹¹For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. ¹²Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! ¹³Behold, isn’t it from the LORD of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵“Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! ¹⁶You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink and be exposed! The cup of the LORD’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals will terrify you, because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them. ¹⁸“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? ¹⁹Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. ²⁰But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”

^3:1A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music. ²LORD, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD. Renew your work in the middle of the years. In the middle of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy. ³God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth. ⁴His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden. ⁵Plague went before him, and pestilence followed his feet. ⁶He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal. ⁷I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled. ⁸Was the LORD displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation? ⁹You uncovered your bow. You called for your sworn arrows. Selah. You split the earth with rivers. ¹⁰The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The storm of waters passed by. The deep roared and lifted up its hands on high. ¹¹The sun and moon stood still in the sky at the light of your arrows as they went, at the shining of your glittering spear. ¹²You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger. ¹³You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot. Selah. ¹⁴You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret. ¹⁵You trampled the sea with your horses, churning mighty waters. ¹⁶I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us. ¹⁷For even though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, ¹⁸yet I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! ¹⁹GOD, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.