[Jeremiah 1]
{1:1} The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.
{1:2} The word of the Lord, which came to him in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign,
{1:3} and which came to him in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, even until the completion of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, even until the transmigration of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
{1:4} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{1:5} “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you went forth from the womb, I sanctified you. And I made you a prophet to the nations.”
{1:6} And I said: “Alas, alas, alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am a boy.”
{1:7} And the Lord said to me: “Do not choose to say, ‘I am a boy.’ For you shall go forth to everyone to whom I will send you. And you shall speak all that I will command you.
{1:8} You should not be afraid before their face. For I am with you, so that I may deliver you,” says the Lord.
{1:9} And the Lord put forth his hand, and he touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me: “Behold, I have placed my words in your mouth.
{1:10} Behold, today I have appointed you over nations and over kingdoms, so that you may root up, and pull down, and destroy, and scatter, and so that you may build and plant.”
{1:11} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “I see a staff, keeping watch.”
{1:12} And the Lord said to me: “You have seen well. For I will keep watch over my word, so that I may accomplish it.”
{1:13} And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a cooking pot upon a fire, and its face is before the face of the north.”
{1:14} And the Lord said to me: “From the north, an evil will spread over all the inhabitants of the earth.
{1:15} For behold, I will call together all the close associates of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord. And they will arrive, and each one of them will place his throne at the entrance to the gates of Jerusalem, and over all its surrounding walls, and over all the cities of Judah.
{1:16} And I will speak my judgments with them, concerning all the wickedness of those who have forsaken me, and who have offered libations to strange gods, and who have adored the work of their own hands.
{1:17} Therefore, you should gird your waist, and rise up, and speak to them everything that I instruct you. You should not have dread before their face. For I will cause you to be unafraid of their countenance.
{1:18} For certainly, this day, I have made you like a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and a brass wall, over all the land, to the kings of Judah, to its leaders, and to the priests, and to the people of the land.
{1:19} And they will make war against you, but they will not prevail. For I am with you, says the Lord, so that I may free you.”
[Jeremiah 2]
{2:1} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{2:2} “Go, and cry out to the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the Lord: I have remembered you, taking pity on your youth and on the charity of your betrothal, when you followed me into the desert, into a land which is not sown.
{2:3} Israel is holy to the Lord, the first of his fruits. All those who devour him commit an offense. Evils will overwhelm them, says the Lord.”
{2:4} Listen to the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all you families of the house of Israel.
{2:5} Thus says the Lord: “What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they would draw far away from me, and would walk after emptiness, and would become empty?
{2:6} And they have not said: ‘Where is the Lord, who caused us to ascend from the land of Egypt; who led us through the desert, through an uninhabited and impassable land, through a land of drought and of the image of death, through a land in which no one walked and in which no man lived?’
{2:7} And I led you into the land of Carmel, so that you would eat from its fruit and from its excellence. And having entered it, you defiled my land, and you turned my inheritance into an abomination.
{2:8} The priests have not sad: ‘Where is the Lord?’ And those who held the law did not know me. And the pastors betrayed me. And the prophets prophesied in Baal and followed idols.
{2:9} Because of this, I will still contend in judgment against you, says the Lord, and I will dispute with your sons.
{2:10} Cross over to the isles of Kittim, and gaze. And send to Kedar, and consider diligently. And see if anything like this has ever been done.
{2:11} See if a nation has ever changed their gods, though certainly those are not gods. Yet truly, my people have exchanged their glory for an idol.
{2:12} Be astonished at this, O heavens, and be utterly desolate, O gates of heaven, says the Lord.
{2:13} For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that are unable to hold water.
{2:14} Is Israel a servant, or one born into slavery? Then why has he become a prey?
{2:15} The lions have roared over him, and they have uttered their voice. They have set his land in solitude; his cities have been burned up, and there is no one who lives in them.
{2:16} Likewise, the sons of Memphis and of Tahpanhes have defiled you, even to the top of the head.
{2:17} Has this not been done to you because you abandoned the Lord your God, in that time when he was leading you by the way?
{2:18} And now what do you want from the way of Egypt, but to drink their turbid water? And what do you want from the way of the Assyrians, but to drink the water of their river?
{2:19} Your own malice will reprove you, and your own apostasy will rebuke you! But know and perceive this: it is an evil and bitter thing for you to forsake the Lord your God, and to be without my fear within you, says the Lord, the God of hosts.
{2:20} From ancient times, you have broken my yoke; you have torn apart my bonds, and you have said, ‘I will not serve.’ For on every high hill, and under every leafy tree, you have been debased, O harlot.
{2:21} Yet I planted you as an elect vineyard, with only true seed. Then how have you been turned away from me, toward that which is depraved, O strange vineyard?
{2:22} Even if you wash yourself with soap, and increase your use of herbal soaps, you are still stained by your iniquity in my sight, says the Lord God.
{2:23} How can you say: ‘I have not been polluted. I have not walked after Baal?’ Consider your ways in the steep valley. Acknowledge what you have done, so that you may be like a swift runner, following his course.
{2:24} A wild donkey accustomed to solitude, out of the desire in his soul, caught the scent of his lover. Now nothing will turn him away from her. All those who seek her will not cease. But they will find her in her menstruation.
{2:25} You should keep your foot from being naked, and your throat from being thirsty. But you have said: ‘I have lost hope. I will not do it. For certainly, I have loved strangers, and I will walk after them.’
{2:26} In the same way that a thief is confounded when he has been apprehended, so the house of Israel has been confounded, they and their kings, their leaders and priests and prophets.
{2:27} For they say to a piece of wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You have conceived me.’ They have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their affliction, they will say: ‘Rise up and deliver us.’
{2:28} Where are your gods that you made for yourselves? Let them rise up and deliver you in the time of your affliction. For certainly, your gods were like the number of your cities, O Judah.
{2:29} Why do you want to contend against me in judgment? You have all forsaken me, says the Lord.
{2:30} I have struck your children to no effect; they have not accepted discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets. Your generation is like a raging lion.
{2:31} Consider the word of the Lord. Have I become like a wilderness to Israel, or like a land late to bear fruit? Then why have my people said, ‘We are withdrawing; we will no longer approach you’?
{2:32} Can a virgin forget her ornament, or a bride the covering across her breast? Yet truly, my people have forgotten me, for innumerable days.
{2:33} Why are you striving to claim that your way is good, as if to seek my love, when all the while you are also displaying your malice by your own way,
{2:34} and in your armpits there is found the blood of poor and innocent souls? I have found them, not in ditches, but everywhere that I mentioned previously.
{2:35} And you have said: ‘I am innocent and without sin. And because of this, let your fury be turned away from me.’ Behold, I will contend with you in judgment, because you have said: ‘I have not sinned.’
{2:36} How exceedingly vile you have become, repeating your ways again and again! And so, you will be ashamed of Egypt, just as you were ashamed of Assur.
{2:37} For you will also depart from that place, and your hand will be upon your head. For the Lord has crushed your confidence, and you will have nothing prosperous by it.”
[Jeremiah 3]
{3:1} “It is commonly said: ‘If a man has divorced his wife, and she departs from him, she will marry another man.’ So why would he return to her again? Is not that woman polluted and defiled? But you have fornicated yourself with many lovers. Even so, return to me, says the Lord, and I will accept you.
{3:2} Lift your eyes straight up, and see where you did not debase yourself. You were sitting in the roadways, waiting for them, like a robber in the wilderness. And you have polluted the land by your fornications and by your wickedness.
{3:3} For this reason, the rain showers were withheld, and there were no late season rains. You made your face like that of a promiscuous woman; you were not willing to blush.
{3:4} Therefore, at least from this moment on, call out to me: ‘You are my father, the guide of my virginity.’
{3:5} Why should you be angry unceasingly? And will you continue in this to the end? Behold, you have spoken and done evil, for you were able to do so.”
{3:6} And, in the days of king Josiah, the Lord said to me: “Have you not seen what the apostate Israel has done? She has brought herself up to every lofty mountain, and she has lain down under every leafy tree, and she has committed fornication there.
{3:7} And when she had done all these things, I said: ‘Return to me.’ But she did not return. And her deceitful sister Judah saw this:
{3:8} that because the apostate Israel had committed adultery, I had dismissed her and had given her a bill of divorce. Yet her deceitful sister Judah was not afraid. But she, too, went and committed fornication herself.
{3:9} And by the act of her fornication, she defiled the land. For she committed adultery with that which is stone and wood.
{3:10} And after all these things, her deceitful sister Judah has not returned to me with her whole heart, but with lies, says the Lord.”
{3:11} And the Lord said to me: “The apostate Israel has justified her own soul by comparing herself to the deceitful Judah.
{3:12} Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and you shall say: Return, O apostate Israel, says the Lord. For I will not avert my face from you. For I am holy, says the Lord, and I will not be angry forever.
{3:13} So then, truly acknowledge your iniquity, that you have betrayed the Lord your God, and that you have spread your ways to strangers, under every leafy tree, and that you have not listened to my voice, says the Lord.
{3:14} Convert, O rebellious sons, says the Lord. For I am your leader. And so, I will take you, one from a city, and two from a family, and I will lead you into Zion.
{3:15} And I will give you pastors according to my own heart. And they will feed you with knowledge and doctrine.
{3:16} And when you have been multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord, they will no longer say: ‘The Ark of the covenant of the Lord!’ And it will not enter into the heart, and they will not call it to mind. It will neither be visited, nor made use of, any longer.
{3:17} In that time, Jerusalem will be called: ‘The Throne of the Lord.’ And all the nations will be gathered to it, in the name of the Lord, in Jerusalem. And they will not walk after the depravity of their own most wicked heart.
{3:18} In those days, the house of Judah will go to the house of Israel, and they will come from the land of the north, at the same time, to the land that I gave to your fathers.
{3:19} But I said: How shall I place you among the sons, and distribute to you a desirable land, the preeminent inheritance of the host of the Gentiles? And I said: You will call me Father, and you will not cease to walk after me.
{3:20} But, in the same way that a woman spurns her lover, so also has the house of Israel spurned me, says the Lord.”
{3:21} A voice has been heard in the highways, the weeping and wailing of the sons of Israel. For they have made their own ways sinful; they have forgotten the Lord their God.
{3:22} “Convert, O rebellious sons! And I will heal your rebelliousness.” “Behold, we are returning to you. For you are the Lord our God!
{3:23} Truly, the hills were liars, with the multitude of the mountains. Truly, the salvation of Israel is in the Lord our God.
{3:24} Confusion has devoured the labor of our fathers, from our youth, with their flocks and their herds, with their sons and their daughters.
{3:25} We will sleep in our confusion, and our disgrace will cover us. For we have sinned against the Lord our God: we and our fathers, from our youth, even to this day. And we have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God.”
[Jeremiah 4]
{4:1} “O Israel, if you would return, says the Lord, then be converted to me. If you remove your offense from before my face, then you will not be shaken.
{4:2} And you will swear, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth and in judgment and in justice.” And the Gentiles will bless him, and they will praise him.
{4:3} For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and of Jerusalem: “Break new ground, and do not choose to sow upon thorns.
{4:4} Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins from your hearts, O men of Judah, O inhabitants of Jerusalem. Otherwise my indignation may burst forth and flare up like a fire. And then there will be no one who can extinguish it, because of the wickedness of your thoughts.
{4:5} Declare it in Judah, and make it known in Jerusalem! Speak out and sound the trumpet in the land! Cry out strongly and say: ‘Gather yourselves! And let us go forth to fortified cities!’
{4:6} Lift up a standard in Zion. Be strengthened! Do not choose to stand still. For I am bringing an evil from the north, with great destruction.
{4:7} The lion has ascended from his den, and the pillager of the nations has lifted himself up. He has gone forth from his place, so that he may set your land in desolation. Your cities will be laid waste, remaining without an inhabitant.
{4:8} Concerning this, wrap yourselves in haircloth, mourn and wail: ‘For the wrath of the fury of the Lord has not been turned away from us.’
{4:9} And this shall be in that day, says the Lord: The heart of the king will perish, with the heart of the princes. And the priests will be stupefied, and the prophets will be in consternation.”
{4:10} And I said: “Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! Could it be that you have deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: ‘Peace shall be yours,’ while, behold, the sword reaches even to the soul?”
{4:11} “In that time, it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: ‘A burning wind is in the ways that are in the desert, along the way of the daughter of my people, but not to winnow and not to cleanse.’
{4:12} A full spirit from these places will come to me. And now I will speak my judgments over them.
{4:13} Behold, he will ascend like a cloud, and his chariot will ascend like a tempest. His horses are swifter than eagles. ‘Woe to us! For we are being devastated!’
{4:14} Wash your heart from malice, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will harmful thoughts abide in you?
{4:15} For there is a voice, of someone announcing from Dan, and he is making known the idol from mount Ephraim.
{4:16} Say to the nations: ‘Behold, it has been heard in Jerusalem! Guardians are coming from a far away land, to utter their voice against the cities of Judah.’
{4:17} They have been stationed over her, like the guardians of fields, all around. For she has provoked me to wrath, says the Lord.
{4:18} Your ways and your thoughts have brought these things upon you. This is your own wickedness. And it is bitter, because it has touched your heart.
{4:19} I am afflicted in my heart, in my heart. The senses of my heart have been stirred up within me. I will not remain silent. For my soul has heard the voice of the trumpet, the clamor of the battle.
{4:20} Destruction upon destruction has been called forth. And the entire earth has been devastated. My tabernacles have been destroyed suddenly, and my tents in an instant.
{4:21} How long shall I watch those who are fleeing, and listen to the voice of the trumpet?
{4:22} For my foolish people have not known me. They are foolish and mad sons. They are clever in doing evil, but they do not know how to do good.
{4:23} I gazed upon the earth, and behold, it was empty and brought to nothing. And I gazed upon the heavens, but there was no light in them.
{4:24} I watched the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills were shaken.
{4:25} I looked, and there was no man. And all the flying things of the air had gone away.
{4:26} I gazed, and behold, Carmel was a desert, and all its cities were destroyed before the face of the Lord, and before the face of the wrath of his fury.”
{4:27} For thus says the Lord: “All the earth will be desolate, but I will not yet bring about its consummation.
{4:28} The earth will mourn, and the heavens will lament from above. For I have spoken, I have decided, and I have not regretted. Neither will I be turned away from it.
{4:29} Before the voice of the horsemen and of those who send forth arrows, the entire city has fled. They have entered steep places, and they have ascended the cliffs. All of the cities have been abandoned, and no man lives within them.
{4:30} So then, when you have been devastated, what will you do? Though you will clothe yourself with scarlet, though you will adorn yourself with a gold necklace and tint your eyes with cosmetics, you will be dressing yourself up in vain. Your lovers have spurned you; they will be seeking your life.
{4:31} For I have heard a voice, like that of a woman giving birth, during the difficulties of labor. It is the voice of the daughter of Zion, dying, extending her hands: ‘Woe to me! For my soul is failing because of those who have been slain!’ ”
[Jeremiah 5]
{5:1} “Travel the streets of Jerusalem; and gaze, and consider, and seek, in its wide streets. If you can find a man exercising judgment and seeking faith, then I will be forgiving to them.
{5:2} For even though they say, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in this, too, they swear falsely.”
{5:3} O Lord, your eyes look with favor upon faith. You have struck them, and they have not grieved. You have bruised them, and they have refused to accept discipline. They have hardened their faces more than rock, and they are not willing to return.
{5:4} But I said: Perhaps these are the poor and the senseless, who are ignorant of the way of the Lord, of the judgment of their God.
{5:5} Therefore, I will go to great men, and I will speak with them. For they have known the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. And behold, these ones have broken the yoke all the more; they have torn apart the bonds.
{5:6} For this reason, a lion from the forest has struck them down, a wolf toward evening has laid waste to them, a leopard lies in wait over their cities. All who go out from there will be taken. For their transgressions have been multiplied; their rebellions have been strengthened.
{5:7} “Over which things am I able to be merciful to you? Your sons have forsaken me, and they swear by those who are not gods. I gave them everything, and they committed adultery, and they indulged themselves in the house of the harlot.
{5:8} They have become like wild horses in heat; each one was neighing after his neighbor’s wife.
{5:9} Shall I not visit against these things, says the Lord? And shall my soul not take vengeance on a nation such as this?
{5:10} Scale its walls and tear them down. But do not be willing to bring about its very end. Take away its plantings, for they are not the Lord’s.
{5:11} For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have greatly transgressed against me, says the Lord.
{5:12} They have denied the Lord, and they have said, ‘It is not him,’ and, ‘Evil will not overwhelm us. We will not see famine and the sword.’
{5:13} The prophets have spoken into the wind, and there was no answer with them. Therefore, these things will happen to them.”
{5:14} Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: “Since you have spoken this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth like fire and this people like wood, and it will devour them.
{5:15} Behold, O house of Israel, I will lead over you a far away nation, says the Lord, a robust nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you will not know, nor will you understand what they are saying.
{5:16} Their quiver is like an open sepulcher. They are all strong.
{5:17} And they will consume your grain fields and your bread. They will devour your sons and your daughters. They will consume your flocks and your herds. They will consume your vineyards and your figs. And with the sword, they will crush your fortified cities, in which you have placed your trust.
{5:18} Yet truly, in those days, says the Lord, I will not bring the consummation over you.
{5:19} And if they say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You shall say to them: ‘Just as you have abandoned me and have served a strange god in your own land, so will you serve strangers in a land not your own.’
{5:20} Announce this to the house of Jacob, and make it known in Judah, saying:
{5:21} Listen, O foolish people who have no heart! You have eyes, but you do not see, and ears, but you do not hear.
{5:22} So then, will you not fear me, says the Lord. And will you not have sorrow before my face? I have placed the shore as a limit for the sea, as an everlasting precept that it will not transgress. And its waves will crash, but they will not prevail; and its waves will swell, but they will not go across.
{5:23} But the heart of this people has become incredulous and provocative; they have turned away and departed.
{5:24} And they have not said in their heart: ‘Let us dread the Lord our God, who gives us the timely and the late rains, in their proper time, who guards the full measure of the yearly harvest for us.’
{5:25} Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have held back good things from you.
{5:26} For the impious are found among my people; they lie in ambush like fowlers setting snares, for they set traps to catch men.
{5:27} Just as a snare is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. As a result, they have become exalted and enriched.
{5:28} They have grown stout and fat. And they have transgressed my words most wickedly. They have not judged the case of the widow; they have not given guidance to the case of the orphan; and they have not judged a judgment for the poor.
{5:29} Shall I not visit against these things, says the Lord? Or shall my soul not take vengeance on a nation of this kind?
{5:30} Astonishing and wondrous things have been done upon the earth.
{5:31} The prophets have prophesied lies, and the priests have applauded with their hands, and my people have loved these things. So then, what shall be done at the very end?”
[Jeremiah 6]
{6:1} “O sons of Benjamin, be strengthened in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Tekoa, and lift up a banner over the house of Haccherem. For an evil has been seen from the north, with great destruction.
{6:2} I have compared the daughter of Zion to a beautiful and delicate woman.
{6:3} The pastors will come to her with their flocks. They have pitched their tents against her all around. Each one will feed those who are under his hand.
{6:4} ‘Sanctify a war against her! Rise up together, and let us ascend at midday.’ ‘Woe to us! For the day has declined; for the shadows of the evening have grown longer.’
{6:5} ‘Rise up, and let us ascend in the night, and let us destroy her houses.’ ”
{6:6} For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Cut down her trees, and build a rampart around Jerusalem. This is the city of visitation! Every kind of false claim is in her midst.
{6:7} Just as a cistern makes its water cold, so has she made her wickedness cold. Iniquity and devastation will be heard in her; sickness and wounds will be ever before me.
{6:8} O Jerusalem, accept instruction, lest perhaps my soul may withdraw from you; lest perhaps I may set you in a desert, in an uninhabitable land.”
{6:9} Thus says the Lord of hosts: “They will gather the remnant of Israel, even as a single cluster of grapes is gathered from a vine. Direct your hand, as a grape-gatherer directs his hand to the basket.
{6:10} To whom should I speak, and to whom should I testify, so as to be heard? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and so they are unable to hear. Behold, for them, the word of the Lord has become a disgrace. And so they will not accept it.
{6:11} For this reason, I have been filled with the fury of the Lord. I labor to bear it. Let it be poured out upon the child outside, or upon a group of young men meeting together. For a man will be taken captive with a woman, an elder will be taken captive with one who is full of days.
{6:12} And their houses will be given over to others, with both their lands and their wives. For I will extend my hand over the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord.
{6:13} Certainly, from the least of them even to the greatest, all of them practice greed. And from the prophet even to the priest, all of them act with deceit.
{6:14} And they healed the destruction of the daughter of my people with disgrace, by saying: ‘Peace, peace.’ And there was no peace.
{6:15} They were confounded, because they committed an abomination. Or rather, they were not confounded with shame, because they did not know how to blush. For this reason, they will fall among those who are being destroyed. In the time of their visitation, they will fall, says the Lord.”
{6:16} Thus says the Lord: “Stand above the ways, and see and ask, about the ancient paths, as to which is the good way, and then walk in it. And you will find refreshment for your souls. But they said: ‘We will not walk.’
{6:17} And I appointed watchers over you, saying: ‘Listen for the sound of the trumpet.’ And they said: ‘We will not listen.’
{6:18} For this reason, hear, O Gentiles, and know, O congregation, how much I will do to them.
{6:19} Hear, O earth! Behold, I will lead evils over this people, as the fruits of their own thoughts. For they have not listened to my words, and they have cast aside my law.
{6:20} For what reason are you bringing me frankincense from Sheba, and sweet smelling reeds from a far away land? Your holocausts are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.”
{6:21} Therefore, thus says the Lord: “Behold I will bring this people to utter ruin, and they will fall, with their fathers and sons; neighbor and relative will perish together.”
{6:22} Thus says the Lord: “Behold, a people is coming from the land of the north, and a great nation will rise up from the ends of the earth.
{6:23} They will take hold of arrow and shield. They are cruel, and they will not take pity. Their voice will roar like the ocean. And they will climb upon horses, for they have been prepared like men for battle, against you, O daughter of Zion.
{6:24} ‘We have heard of their fame. Our hands have become weakened. Tribulation has overtaken us, like the pains of a woman giving birth.’
{6:25} Do not choose to go out into the fields, and you should not walk along the roadway. For the sword and the terror of the enemy is on every side.
{6:26} Wrap yourself in haircloth, O daughter of my people. And sprinkle yourself with ashes. Make a mourning for yourself, as for an only son, a bitter lamentation: ‘for the destroyer will overwhelm us suddenly.’
{6:27} I have presented you as a strong tester among my people. And you will test and know their way.
{6:28} All these leaders who are turning away and walking deceitfully, they are brass and iron; they have all been corrupted.
{6:29} The bellows has failed; the lead has been consumed by fire; the molten metal was melted to no purpose. For their wickedness has not been consumed.
{6:30} Call them: ‘Rejected silver.’ For the Lord has cast them aside.”
[Jeremiah 7]
{7:1} The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
{7:2} “Stand at the gate to the house of the Lord, and preach this word there, and say: Listen to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter through these gates to adore the Lord.
{7:3} Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Make your ways and your intentions good, and I will live with you in this place.
{7:4} Do not choose to trust in lying words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!’
{7:5} For if you direct your ways and your intentions well, if you exercise judgment between a man and his neighbor,
{7:6} if you do not act with deceit toward the new arrival, the orphan, and the widow, and if you do not pour out innocent blood in this place, and if you do not walk after strange gods, which is to your own harm,
{7:7} then I will live with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers from the beginning and even forever.
{7:8} Behold, you trust in false words, which will not benefit you,
{7:9} so as to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer libations to Baal, and to go after strange gods, which you do not know.
{7:10} And you arrived and stood before me in this house, where my name is invoked, and you said: ‘We have been freed because we carried out all these abominations.’
{7:11} So then, has this house, where my name has been invoked, become a den of robbers in your eyes? It is I, I am, I have seen, says the Lord.
{7:12} Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name has lived from the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
{7:13} And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and because I have spoken to you from your morning rising, and because I was speaking, but you were not listening, and because I have called you, but you have not responded:
{7:14} I will do to this house, in which my name is invoked, and in which you have confidence, even to this place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I have done to Shiloh.
{7:15} And I will cast you away from my face, just as I have cast away all your brothers, the entire offspring of Ephraim.
{7:16} Therefore, you should not pray for this people, nor take up praise and supplication on their behalf. And you should not stand in opposition to me. For then I will not heed you.
{7:17} Have you not seen what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
{7:18} The sons gather the wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the wives spread the grease, so as to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to offer libations to strange gods, and so as to provoke me to anger.
{7:19} But are they provoking me to anger, says the Lord? Are they not provoking themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”
{7:20} Therefore, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, my fury and my indignation is kindled against this place, over men and over beasts, and over the trees of the countryside and over the fruits of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.”
{7:21} Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your holocausts to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
{7:22} For concerning the matter of holocausts and sacrifices, I did not speak with your fathers, and I did not instruct them, in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt.
{7:23} But on this matter I did instruct them, saying: Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. And walk in the entire way that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.
{7:24} But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, they walked by their own will and in the depravity of their own wicked heart. And so, they went backward, and not forward,
{7:25} from the day when their fathers went forth from the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent all my servants, the prophets, to you, throughout the day, rising at first light and sending them.
{7:26} But they have not listened to me, nor have they inclined their ear. Instead, they have stiffened their neck, and they have behaved worse than their fathers did.
{7:27} And so, you will speak to them all these words, but they will not listen to you. And you will call to them, but they will not respond to you.
{7:28} And you will say to them: This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor accepted discipline. Faith has perished and been taken away from their mouth.
{7:29} Cut off your hair, and cast it away. And take up a lamentation on high. For the Lord has cast aside and abandoned this generation of his fury.
{7:30} For the sons of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the Lord. They have stationed their abominations in the house where my name is invoked, so that they may defile it.
{7:31} And they have built the exalted places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, so that they may burn their sons and their daughters with fire, something I neither instructed, nor thought in my heart.
{7:32} For this reason, behold, the days will arrive, says the Lord, when it will no longer be called Topheth, nor the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but instead the Valley of Slaughter. Yet they will bury in Topheth, because there will be no other place.
{7:33} And the corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the wild beasts of the land, and there will be no one to drive them away.
{7:34} And from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, I will cause the cessation of the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride. For the land will be in utter desolation.”
[Jeremiah 8]
{8:1} “In that time, says the Lord, they will cast out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its leaders, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of those who were living in Jerusalem, from their graves.
{8:2} And they will spread them out before the sun and the moon and the entire army of the heavens, which they have loved, and served, and followed, and which they have sought and adored. They will not be collected, and they will not be buried. They will be like manure upon the face of the earth.
{8:3} And they will greatly prefer death to life: all those who will have been left from this wicked kindred, in all the forsaken places to which I will cast them out, says the Lord of hosts.
{8:4} And you will say to them: Thus says the Lord: He who falls, will he not rise again? And he who has been turned away, will he not return?
{8:5} Then why have this people in Jerusalem turned away with a contentious loathing? They have taken hold of what is false, and they are not willing to return.
{8:6} I paid close attention and I listened carefully. No one is speaking what is good. There is no one who does penance for his sin, saying: ‘What have I done?’ They have all turned to their own course, like a horse rushing with fury into battle.
{8:7} The hawk in the heavens has known her time. The turtledove, and the swallow, and the stork have kept the time of their arrival. But my people have not known the judgment of the Lord.
{8:8} How can you say: ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?’ Truly, the lying pen of the scribes has wrought falsehood.
{8:9} The wise men have been confounded; they were terrified and captured. For they cast aside the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.
{8:10} Because of this, I will give their wives to outsiders and their fields to others as an inheritance. For from the least, even to the greatest, they all pursue avarice; from the prophet, even to the priest, they all act with deceit.
{8:11} And they healed the destruction of the daughter of my people with disgrace, by saying: ‘Peace, peace,’ though there was no peace.
{8:12} They have been confounded because they committed abomination. Or rather, they have not been confounded with shame, for they do not know how to blush. For this reason, they will fall among the fallen. In the time of their visitation, they will fall, says the Lord.
{8:13} When gathering, I will gather them together, says the Lord. There are no grapes on the vine, and there are no figs on the fig tree. The leaves have fallen. And I have given them the things that have passed away.”
{8:14} “Why are we sitting still? Assemble, and let us enter the fortified city, and let us remain silent there. For the Lord our God has brought us to silence, and he has given us the water of gall as a drink. For we have sinned against the Lord.
{8:15} We expected peace, but there was nothing good. We expected a time of health, and behold, dread.”
{8:16} “From Dan, the snorting of his horses was heard; the entire land was shaken by the voice of the neighing of his fighters. And they arrived and devoured the land and its plenitude, the city and its inhabitants.
{8:17} For behold, I will send among you serpents, king snakes, against which there is no charm, and they will bite you, says the Lord.
{8:18} My sorrow is beyond sorrow; my heart mourns within me.
{8:19} Behold, the voice of the daughter of my people from a far away land. Is the Lord not with Zion, and is her king not within her? Then why have they provoked me to wrath by their graven images, and by their strange vanities?
{8:20} The harvest has passed by, the summer is at an end, and we have not been saved.
{8:21} Over the destruction of the daughter of my people, I am contrite and saddened; astonishment has taken hold of me.
{8:22} Is there no balm in Gilead? Or is there no physician there? Then why has the wound of the daughter of my people not been closed?”
[Jeremiah 9]
{9:1} “Who will provide water for my head, and a fount of tears for my eyes? And then I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
{9:2} Who will provide me, in the wilderness, with a lodging place along the road? And then I will forsake my people, and withdraw from them. For they are all adulterers, a union of transgressors.
{9:3} And they have bent their tongue, like a bow, to send forth lies and not the truth. They have been strengthened upon the earth. And they have gone from one evil to another. But they have not known me, says the Lord.
{9:4} Let each one guard himself against his neighbor, and let him have no trust in any brother of his. For every brother will utterly overthrow, and every friend will advance deceitfully.
{9:5} And a man will deride his brother, and they will not speak the truth. For they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they have labored to commit iniquity.
{9:6} Your habitation is in the midst of deceit. In their deceitfulness, they have refused to know me, says the Lord.”
{9:7} Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them, and I will test them. For what else can I do before the face of the daughter of my people?
{9:8} Their tongue is a wounding arrow; it has spoken deceit. With his mouth, he speaks peace with his friend, and then he secretly lies in ambush for him.
{9:9} Shall I not visit upon them concerning these things, says the Lord? Or shall my soul not take vengeance on a nation of this kind?
{9:10} I will take up weeping and lamentation over the mountains, and mourning over the beautiful places in the desert. For they have been scorched because no man is passing through them. And they have not heard the voice of any occupant. From the birds of the air, even to the cattle, they have migrated and withdrawn.
{9:11} And I will make Jerusalem into piles of sand and into a lair for serpents. And I will make the cities of Judah desolate, so much so that there will be no inhabitant.
{9:12} Who is the wise man who understands this, and to whom a word from the mouth of the Lord may be given, so that he may announce this: why the land has perished, and has been scorched like a desert, so much so that no one passes through it?”
{9:13} And the Lord said: “It is because they have abandoned my law, which I gave to them, and they have not listened to my voice, and they have not walked by it.
{9:14} And they have gone after the depravity of their own heart, and after Baal, which they learned from their fathers.”
{9:15} For this reason, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will feed this people with absinthe, and I will give them the water of gall to drink.
{9:16} And I will disperse them among nations, which they and their fathers have not known. And I will send the sword after them, until they are consumed.”
{9:17} Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Consider and call upon the women mourners, and let them approach. And send to those women who are wise, and let them hurry.
{9:18} ‘Let them hasten to take up a lamentation over us. Let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run with water.’
{9:19} For a voice of lamentation has been heard from Zion: ‘How is it that we have been devastated and greatly confounded? Our tabernacles have been thrown down because we have forsaken the land.’ ”
{9:20} “Therefore, listen, O women, to the word of the Lord! And let your ears take up the word of his mouth. And teach your daughters to lament. And let each one teach her neighbor to mourn:
{9:21} ‘For death has climbed through our windows. It has entered our houses to perish the little children from the outdoors, the youths from the streets.’ ”
{9:22} “Speak: Thus says the Lord: And the corpses of men will fall like manure over the face of the countryside, and like hay behind the back of the reaper, and there will be no one to gather it.”
{9:23} Thus says the Lord: “The wise man should not glory in his wisdom, and the strong man should not glory in his strength, and the rich man should not glory in his riches.
{9:24} But he who glories should glory in this: to know me and to know me well. For I am the Lord, who accomplishes mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth. For these things are pleasing to me, says the Lord.
{9:25} Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will visit upon all who are uncircumcised:
{9:26} upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the sons of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who have shaved off their hair, living in the desert. For all the nations are uncircumcised in body, but all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
[Jeremiah 10]
{10:1} Listen to the word that the Lord has spoken concerning you, O house of Israel.
{10:2} Thus says the Lord: “Do not choose to learn according to the ways of the Gentiles. And do not be willing to dread the signs of heaven, which the Gentiles fear.
{10:3} For the laws of the people are empty. For the work of the hand of the craftsman has cut a tree from the forest with an axe.
{10:4} He has adorned it with silver and gold. He has put it together with nail and hammer, so that it will not fall apart.
{10:5} They have been fabricated in the likeness of a palm tree, and they will not speak. They must be carried to be moved, because they do not have the ability to walk. Therefore, do not be willing to fear them, for they can do neither evil nor good.”
{10:6} O Lord, there is nothing similar to you. You are great, and your name is great in strength.
{10:7} Who will not fear you, O King of the nations? For honor is yours. Among all the wise of the nations, and within all their kingdoms, there is nothing similar to you.
{10:8} Together, they will all be proven to be unwise and foolish. The doctrine of their vanity is made of wood.
{10:9} Rolled silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. It is the work of a craftsman, and of the hand of a coppersmith. Hyacinth and purple is their clothing. All these things are the work of artists.
{10:10} But the Lord is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. Before his indignation, the earth will shake. And the Gentiles will not be able to withstand his threats.
{10:11} “And so, you shall speak to them in this way: The gods that have not made heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth and from among those places which are under heaven.
{10:12} He made the earth by his power, he prepared the world in his wisdom, and he stretched out the heavens with his understanding.
{10:13} At his voice, he grants a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he lifts up the clouds from the ends of the earth. He causes the lightning with the rain, and he leads forth the wind from his storehouses.
{10:14} Every man has become a fool concerning knowledge; every artist has been confounded by his graven image. For what he has formed is false, and there is no spirit in these things.
{10:15} These things are empty, and they are a work deserving of ridicule. In the time of their visitation, they will perish.
{10:16} Jacob’s portion is not like their portion. For his portion is from the One who formed all things. And Israel is the staff of his inheritance. The Lord of hosts is his name.
{10:17} Gather your shame from the earth, you who are living under siege.”
{10:18} For thus says the Lord: “Behold, in this turn, I will cast the inhabitants of the land far away. And I will afflict them no matter where they may be found.”
{10:19} Woe to me, concerning my destruction! My wound is very grievous. And yet I said: Clearly, this infirmity is mine, and I will carry it.
{10:20} My tent has been destroyed. All my cords have been broken. My sons have gone away from me; they did not remain. There is no one to stretch out my tent any more, nor to set up my curtains.
{10:21} For the pastors have acted foolishly, and they have not sought the Lord. Because of this, they have not understood, and all their flock has been dispersed.
{10:22} Behold, the sound of a voice approaches, a great commotion from the land of the north: so that he may make the cities of Judah into a wilderness and into a dwelling place for serpents.
{10:23} I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not his own. Neither is it given to man to walk and to direct his own steps.
{10:24} Correct me, O Lord, yet truly, do so with judgment, and not in your fury. Otherwise, you will reduce me to nothing.
{10:25} Pour out your indignation upon the nations that have not known you, and upon the provinces that have not invoked your name. For they have fed upon Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and they have utterly destroyed his honor.
[Jeremiah 11]
{11:1} The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah, saying:
{11:2} “Listen to the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
{11:3} And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who will not listen to the words of this covenant,
{11:4} which I commanded to your fathers in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt, away from the iron furnace, saying: Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you, and then you will be my people and I will be your God.
{11:5} So shall I uphold the oath which I swore to your fathers, that I would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, just as it is this day.” And I answered by saying: “Amen, O Lord.”
{11:6} And the Lord said to me: “Shout all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Listen to the words of the covenant, and do them.
{11:7} For when testing, I tested your fathers in the day when I led them away from the land of Egypt, even until this day. Rising early, I tested them, and I said: Listen to my voice.
{11:8} But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, each one of them walked in the depravity of his own evil heart. And so, I brought over them all the words of this covenant, which I instructed them to do. But they would not do them.”
{11:9} And the Lord said to me: “A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
{11:10} They have returned to the former iniquities of their fathers, who refused to listen to my words. And likewise, they have gone after strange gods, so that they may serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have treated as void my covenant, which I made with their fathers.
{11:11} For this reason, thus says the Lord: Behold, I will lead evils over them, from which they will not be able to escape. And they will cry out to me, and I will not heed them.
{11:12} And the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go forth, and they will cry out to the gods, to whom they offer libations, and they will not save them in the time of their affliction.
{11:13} For according to the number of your cities, so were your gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem, so did you establish altars of confusion, altars to offer libations to Baal.
{11:14} Therefore, you should not choose to pray for this people, and you should not take up praise and petitioning on their behalf. For I will not heed them in the time of their outcry to me, in the time of their affliction.
{11:15} Why has my beloved wrought great wickedness in my house? How can the holy flesh take away from you your wickedness, in which you have gloried?
{11:16} The Lord has called your name: a beautiful, fruitful, splendid, and productive olive tree. At the voice of a word, a great fire was kindled in it, and its greenery was burned up.
{11:17} And the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced an evil against you, concerning the evils of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves so as to provoke me, by offering libations to Baal.”
{11:18} But you, O Lord, have revealed this to me, and I have understood. Then you displayed their efforts to me.
{11:19} And I was like a meek lamb, who is being carried to be a victim. And I did not realize that they had devised plans against me, saying: “Let us place wood upon his bread, and let us eradicate him from the land of the living, and let his name no longer be remembered.”
{11:20} But you, O Lord of hosts, who judges justly, and who tests the temperament and the heart, let me see your vengeance against them. For I have revealed my case to you.
{11:21} “Because of this, thus says the Lord to the men of Anathoth, who are seeking your life, and who are saying: ‘You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord, and you shall not die by our hands.’
{11:22} Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will visit upon them. Their young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine.
{11:23} And there will be nothing left of them. For I will lead an evil over the men of Anathoth: the year of their visitation.”
[Jeremiah 12]
{12:1} Certainly, O Lord, you are just. But if I may contend with you, while still speaking what is just to you: Why does the way of the impious prosper? Why is it well with all those who transgress and act unfairly?
{12:2} You planted them, and they took root. They are prospering and bearing fruit. You are near to their mouths, but far from their hearts.
{12:3} And you, O Lord, have known me well. You have seen me, and you have tested my heart with you. Gather them together like a flock for the sacrifice and sanctify them for the day of slaughter.
{12:4} How long shall the earth mourn? And how long shall the plants of every field whither because of the wickedness of the inhabitants within them? It has consumed the wild animals and the birds. For they said: “He will not see our very end.”
{12:5} “If you have struggled to run on foot, how will you be able to compete with horses? And if you have been secure in a land of peace, what will you do about the arrogance of the Jordan?
{12:6} For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even these have fought against you. And they have cried out after you with loud voice: ‘You should not believe them, when they speak good things to you.’ ”
{12:7} “I have abandoned my house. I have disowned my inheritance. I have given my beloved soul into the hand of its enemies.
{12:8} My inheritance has become for me like a lion in the forest. It has uttered a voice against me, therefore, I have hated it.
{12:9} Is my inheritance to me like a discolored bird? Is it like a bird that has entirely changed color? Approach and assemble, all beasts of the earth! Hurry, so that you may devour!
{12:10} Many pastors have demolished my vineyard. They have trampled my portion. They have made my desirable portion into a desert of solitude.
{12:11} They have squandered it, and it has grieved concerning me. The entire earth has become utterly desolate, because there is no one who understands with the heart.”
{12:12} The devastators have arrived, over all the ways of the wilderness. For the sword of the Lord will devour, from one end of the earth even to its furthest limits. There is no peace for all that is flesh.
{12:13} They sowed wheat, but they reaped thorns. They received an inheritance, but it will not benefit them. You will be confounded by your own fruits, because of the wrath of the fury of the Lord.
{12:14} Thus says the Lord against all my wicked neighbors, who touch the inheritance that I have distributed to my people Israel: “Behold, I will root them out of their own land, and I will root the house of Judah out of their midst.
{12:15} And when I have rooted them out, I will turn back and take pity on them. And I will lead them back, one man to his inheritance, and another man to his land.
{12:16} And this shall be: if they are taught and they learn the ways of my people, so that they swear by my name, ‘As the Lord lives,’ just as they had taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.
{12:17} But if they will not listen, I will uproot that nation unto utter destruction and perdition, says the Lord.”
[Jeremiah 13]
{13:1} Thus says the Lord to me: “Go, and obtain for yourself a linen waistcloth. And you shall place it over your loins, and you shall not put it into water.”
{13:2} And so I obtained a waistcloth, according to the word of the Lord, and I placed it around my loins.
{13:3} And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying:
{13:4} “Take the waistcloth, which you obtained, which is around your loins, and, rising up, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in an opening of the rock.”
{13:5} And so I went, and I hid it by the Euphrates, just as the Lord had instructed me.
{13:6} And it happened that, after many days, the Lord said to me: “Rise up, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the waistcloth, which I instructed you to hide there.”
{13:7} And so I went to the Euphrates, and I dug up and took the waistcloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the waistcloth had rotted, so that it was not fit for any use.
{13:8} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{13:9} “Thus says the Lord: In the same way, I will cause the arrogance of Judah and the arrogance of Jerusalem to rot.
{13:10} This most wicked people, they are not willing to listen to my words, for they walk in the depravity of their own heart, and they have gone after strange gods, so as to serve them and to adore them. And so, they will become like this waistcloth, which is not fit for any use.
{13:11} For just as the waistcloth clings to the loins of a man, so have I brought close to me the entire house of Israel and the entire house of Judah, says the Lord, so that they would be to me: a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory. But they did not listen.
{13:12} Therefore, you shall speak to them this word: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Every bottle will be filled with wine.’ And they will say to you: ‘Are we ignorant that every bottle will be filled with wine?’
{13:13} And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings from the stock of David who sit upon his throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, unto inebriation.
{13:14} And I will scatter them, a man from his brother, and fathers and sons similarly, says the Lord. I will not spare them, and I will not pardon them, and I will not take pity, so as not to destroy them.”
{13:15} Hear and pay close attention. Do not choose to lift yourself up, for the Lord has spoken.
{13:16} Give glory to the Lord your God, before darkness falls, and before your feet stumble on the darkened mountains. You will expect light, but he will turn it into the shadow of death and into utter darkness.
{13:17} But if you will not listen to this, then my soul will weep in secret before the face of your pride. It will weep bitterly, and my eyes will flow with tears, because the flock of the Lord has been taken captive.
{13:18} “Say to the king and to the female ruler: Humble yourselves, sit down. For the crown of your glory has gone down from your head.
{13:19} The cities of the south have been closed, and there is no one who may open them. All of Judah has been taken away into complete captivity.
{13:20} Lift up your eyes and see, you who are arriving from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your famous cattle?
{13:21} What will you say when he visits upon you? For you have taught them against you, and you have instructed them with your own head. Will not pains take hold of you, as with a woman in labor?
{13:22} But if you say in your heart, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ it is because of the greatness of your iniquity that your shame has been uncovered and the soles of your feet have been defiled.
{13:23} If the Ethiopian is able to change his skin, or the leopard is able to change his spots, then you also may be able to do well, though you have learned evil.
{13:24} And I will scatter them like chaff, which is carried away by the wind in the desert.
{13:25} This is your lot, and this is the portion of your measure from me, says the Lord, because you have forgotten me, and you have had confidence in what is false.
{13:26} Therefore, I have even bared your thighs before your face, and your shame has been seen.
{13:27} For I have seen your adulteries, and your neighing for the wickedness of your fornication, and your abominations upon the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! How much longer before you will be made clean after me?”
[Jeremiah 14]
{14:1} The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the words of the drought.
{14:2} “Judea has mourned. And its gates have fallen and become hard to discern on the ground. And the outcry of Jerusalem has ascended.
{14:3} The greater ones have sent their lesser ones to the water. They went to draw water; they did not find water; they carried their vessels back empty. They were confounded and afflicted, and so they covered their heads.
{14:4} Because of the devastation of the earth, because rain did not fall upon the earth, the farmers were confounded; they covered their heads.
{14:5} For even the doe has given birth in the field, and then left it behind. For there was no grass.
{14:6} And the wild donkeys stood upon the rocks; like dragons, they drew in the wind, but their eyes failed. For there was no grass.”
{14:7} “O Lord, if our iniquities have responded against us, let it be for the sake of your name. For our rebellions are many; we have sinned against you.
{14:8} O Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of tribulation, why would you be like a sojourner in the land, and like a traveler turning aside for lodging?
{14:9} Why would you be like a wandering man, like a strong man who is unable to save? But you, O Lord, are with us, and your name is invoked over us, so do not abandon us!”
{14:10} Thus says the Lord to this people, who have loved to move their feet, and who have not rested, but who have not pleased the Lord: “Now he will remember their iniquities, and now he will visit against their sins.”
{14:11} And the Lord said to me: “Do not choose to pray for this people for good.
{14:12} When they will fast, I will not heed their petitions. And if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not accept them. For I will consume them by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence.”
{14:13} And I said: “Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! The prophets are saying to them: ‘You will not see the sword, and there will be no famine among you. Instead, he will give you true peace in this place.’ ”
{14:14} And the Lord said to me: “The prophets prophesy falsely in my name. I did not send them, and I did not instruct them, and I have not spoken to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, and a divination, and a fraud, and a seduction from their own heart.
{14:15} For this reason, thus says the Lord about the prophets who prophesy in my name, whom I have not sent, who say: ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ By sword and famine those prophets will be consumed.
{14:16} And the people, to whom they prophesy, will be cast into the streets of Jerusalem, due to famine and the sword, and there will be no one who may bury them, they and their wives, their sons and daughters, and I will pour out their own evil upon them.
{14:17} And you shall speak this word to them: Let my eyes shed tears throughout the night and day, and let them not cease. For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed by a great affliction, by a very grievous wound.”
{14:18} “If I go out into the fields: behold, those slain by the sword. And if I enter into the city: behold, those weakened by famine. Likewise, the prophet, too, and the priest, have gone into a land that they did not know.
{14:19} Could you have utterly cast out Judah? Or has your soul abhorred Zion? Then why have you struck us, so much so that there is no health for us? We have waited for peace, but there is nothing good, and for the time of healing, and behold, trouble.
{14:20} O Lord, we acknowledge our impieties, the iniquities of our fathers, that we have sinned against you.
{14:21} For the sake of your name, do not give us over into disgrace. And do not dishonor in us the throne of your glory. Remember, do not make void, your covenant with us.
{14:22} Could any of the graven images of the Gentiles send rain? Or are the heavens able to give showers? Have we not hoped in you, the Lord our God? For you have made all these things.”
[Jeremiah 15]
{15:1} And the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my soul would not be toward this people. Cast them away from my face, and let them depart!
{15:2} And if they say to you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Those who go to death, shall go to death. And those who go to the sword, shall go to the sword, and those go to famine, shall go to famine, and those who go to captivity, shall go to captivity.
{15:3} And I will visit against them in four ways, says the Lord: by the sword, to kill; and by dogs, to tear apart; and by the birds of the air and by the beasts of the earth, to devour and to scatter.
{15:4} And I will give them over to the fervor of all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, because of all that he did in Jerusalem.
{15:5} For who will take pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who will feel sorrow for you? Or who will go to prayer for the sake of your peace?
{15:6} You have abandoned me, says the Lord. You have gone backwards. And so, I will extend my hand over you, and I will destroy you. I have labored to plead with you.
{15:7} And I will scatter them with a winnowing fan at the gates of the land. I have killed and dispersed my people, and yet they have not turned back from their ways.
{15:8} Their widows have been multiplied by me, more so than the sand of the sea. I have led them against the mother of a youth like an attacker at midday. I have sent a terror suddenly against the cities.
{15:9} She who gave birth to seven has become weak. Her life has faded away. Her sun has set while it was still daytime. She has been confounded and shamed. And the remainder of them I will give over to the sword in the sight of their enemies, says the Lord.”
{15:10} “O my mother, woe to me! Why did you conceive me, a man of strife, a man of discord to all the earth? I have not lent money at interest, nor has anyone lent money at interest to me. Yet everyone is cursing me.”
{15:11} The Lord says: “Certainly, it will be well with your remnant. Certainly, I will run to meet you, in the time of affliction and in the time of tribulation, against the enemy.
{15:12} But how can iron be joined with the iron from the north or with brass?
{15:13} Your riches and your treasures I will give over to be freely despoiled, because of all your sins, even throughout all your borders.
{15:14} And I will lead in your enemies from a land that you do not know. For a fire has been kindled in my fury; it will burn upon you.”
{15:15} “You know me, O Lord. Remember me, and visit me, and watch over me, because of those who persecute me. In your patience, do not choose to let me endure. You know I have suffered reproach because of you.
{15:16} I discovered your words and I consumed them. And your word became to me as the gladness and joy of my heart. For your name has been invoked over me, O Lord, the God of hosts.
{15:17} I did not sit in the company of mockers, nor did I glorify myself before the presence of your hand. I sat alone, because you filled me with threats.
{15:18} Why has my sorrow become never-ending, and why has my wound become so dire that it refuses to be cured? It has become for me like the deception of untrustworthy waters.”
{15:19} Because of this, thus says the Lord: “If you will be converted, I will convert you. And you will stand before my face. And you will separate what is precious from what is vile. You will be my mouthpiece. They will be converted to you, but you will not be converted to them.
{15:20} And I will present you to this people as a strong wall of brass. And they will fight against you, and they will not prevail. For I am with you, so as to save you and to rescue you, says the Lord.
{15:21} And I will free you from hand of those who are most wicked, and I will redeem you from the hand of the powerful.”
[Jeremiah 16]
{16:1} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{16:2} “You shall not take a wife, and there shall be no sons or daughters for you in this place.
{16:3} For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are conceived in this place, and concerning their mothers who give birth to them, and concerning their fathers, from whose stock they have been born in this land:
{16:4} They will die from grievous mortal illnesses. They will not be mourned, and they will not be buried. They will be like manure on the face of the earth. And they will be consumed by sword and by famine. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the land.”
{16:5} For thus says the Lord: “You shall not enter the house of feasting, and you shall not go to mourn or to console them. For I have taken away from this people, says the Lord, my peace, my mercy, and my pity.
{16:6} Both the great and the small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and they will not be mourned. And no one will cut themselves or make themselves bald on their behalf.
{16:7} And they will not break bread among themselves for the sake of him who mourns, so as to console him over the dead. And they will not give them a chalice to drink, so as to console them over their father and mother.
{16:8} And so, you shall not enter the house of feasting, so as to sit with them, and to eat and drink.”
{16:9} For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will take away from this place, in your sight and in your days, the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.
{16:10} And when you announce all these words to this people, they will say to you: ‘Why would the Lord pronounce all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity and what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’
{16:11} And you shall say to them: It is because your fathers abandoned me, says the Lord. And they went after strange gods, and they served them and adored them. And they abandoned me, and they did not keep my law.
{16:12} But you have acted even worse than your fathers. For behold, each one walks after the depravity of his own evil heart, so that he does not listen to me.
{16:13} And so, I will cast you out of this land, into a land that you do not know, and that your fathers did not know. And in that place, you will serve, day and night, strange gods who will not give you rest.
{16:14} Therefore, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of Egypt,’
{16:15} but instead, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of the north,’ and from all the lands to which I have cast them out. And I will lead them back into their own land, which I gave to their fathers.
{16:16} Behold, I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they will fish for them. And after this, I will send many hunters to them, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, and on every hilltop, and in the caverns of the rocks.
{16:17} For my eyes are upon all their ways. They have not been hidden from my face, and their iniquity has not been concealed from my eyes.
{16:18} But first, I will repay their double iniquities and their sins. For they have defiled my land with the dead bodies of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
{16:19} “O Lord, my strength, and my health, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: the Gentiles will approach you from the ends of the earth, and they will say: ‘Truly, our fathers possessed a lie, an emptiness that has not benefited them.’
{16:20} How can man make gods for himself, though these are not gods?”
{16:21} “Concerning this, behold: I will make it clear to them, in this turn. I will reveal to them my hand and my virtue. And they will know that the Lord is my name.”
[Jeremiah 17]
{17:1} “The sin of Judah has been written with a pen of iron and a point of diamond. It has been engraved upon the breadth of their heart and upon the horns of their shrines.
{17:2} And their sons make a remembrance of their shrines, and their sacred groves, and their leafy trees on high mountains,
{17:3} by sacrificing in the field. And so, I will give over your strength and all your treasures to be despoiled, along with your exalted places of sin, within all your borders.
{17:4} And you will be left behind without your inheritance, which I gave to you. And I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land that you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in my fury; it shall burn, even unto eternity.”
{17:5} Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is a man who trusts in man, and who establishes what is flesh as his right arm, and whose heart withdraws from the Lord.
{17:6} For he will be like a saltcedar tree in the desert. And he will not perceive it, when what is good has arrived. Instead, he will live in dryness, in a desert, in a land of salt, which is uninhabitable.
{17:7} Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, for the Lord will be his confidence.
{17:8} And he will be like a tree planted beside waters, which sends out its roots to moist soil. And it will not fear when the heat arrives. And its leaves will be green. And in the time of drought, it will not be anxious, nor will it cease at any time to bear fruit.
{17:9} The heart is depraved above all things, and it is unsearchable, who can know it?
{17:10} I am the Lord, who examines the heart and tests the temperament, who gives to each one according to his way and according to the fruit of his own decisions.
{17:11} A partridge has hatched eggs that she did not lay; a man has gathered riches, but without judgment. In the midst of his days, he will leave it all behind, and he will be foolish concerning his very end.”
{17:12} “A high and glorious throne is the place of our sanctification from the beginning.
{17:13} O Lord, Hope of Israel: all who forsake you will be confounded. Those who withdraw from you will be written into the earth. For they have abandoned the Lord, the Source of living waters.
{17:14} Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved. For you are my praise.
{17:15} Behold, they themselves are saying to me: ‘Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come.’
{17:16} But I am not troubled; I am following you as my shepherd. And I have not desired the day of man, as you know. That which has gone forth from my lips has been right in your sight.
{17:17} May you not be a dread to me. You are my hope in the day of affliction.
{17:18} May those who persecute me be confounded, but may I not be confounded. May they be fearful, and may I not be fearful. Lead over them the day of affliction, and crush them with a double destruction.”
{17:19} Thus says the Lord to me: “Go, and stand at the gate of the sons of the people, through which the kings of Judah enter and depart, and at all the gates of Jerusalem.
{17:20} And you shall say to them: Listen to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and all of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter through these gates.”
{17:21} Thus says the Lord: “Guard your souls, and do not choose to carry heavy things on the day of the Sabbath, nor should you carry these things through the gates of Jerusalem.
{17:22} And do not be willing to cast burdens out of your houses on the day of the Sabbath, nor should you do any work. Sanctify the day of the Sabbath, just as I instructed your fathers.
{17:23} But they did not listen, nor did they incline their ear. Instead, they hardened their neck, lest they listen to me and receive discipline.
{17:24} And this shall be: If you listen to me, says the Lord, so that you do not carry in burdens through the gates of this city on the day of the Sabbath, and if you sanctify the day of the Sabbath, so that you do not do work in it,
{17:25} then there will enter through the gates of this city: kings and princes, sitting on the throne of David, and riding on chariots and horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city will be inhabited forever.
{17:26} And they will arrive from the cities of Judah and from all around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plains, and from the mountainous regions, and from the south, carrying holocausts, and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense. And they will carry an oblation into the house of the Lord.
{17:27} But if you will not listen to me, to sanctify the day of the Sabbath, and not to carry burdens, and not to bring these things through the gates of Jerusalem on the day of the Sabbath, then I will kindle a fire at its gates, and it will devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it will not be extinguished.”
[Jeremiah 18]
{18:1} The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
{18:2} “Rise up and descend into the house of the potter, and there you will hear my words.”
{18:3} And I descended into the house of the potter, and behold, he was making a work on the wheel.
{18:4} And the vessel, which he was making with his hands out of clay, broke. And turning away, he made another vessel, for it had been pleasing in his eyes to make it.
{18:5} Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{18:6} “Am I not able to do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done, says the Lord? Behold, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
{18:7} Suddenly, I will speak against a nation and against a kingdom, so that I may uproot, and destroy, and scatter it.
{18:8} If that nation, against which I have spoken, will repent from their evil, I too will repent from the evil that I have decided I would do to them.
{18:9} And soon, I will speak about a nation and about a kingdom, so that I may build and plant it.
{18:10} If it does evil in my sight, so as not to listen to my voice, I will repent of the good that I have said I would do to it.
{18:11} Now, therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am forming an evil against you, and I am considering a plan against you. Let each one of you return from his evil way, and direct your ways and your intentions well.”
{18:12} And they said: “We have lost hope. And so we will follow our own thoughts, and each of us will act according to the depravity of his own evil heart.”
{18:13} For this reason, thus says the Lord: “Inquire among the Gentiles. Who has heard of such horrible things as the virgin of Israel has done to excess?
{18:14} Do the snows of Lebanon fail to fall on the rocks of the field? Or are the cold waters, which burst forth and flow down, able to be rooted out?
{18:15} Yet my people have forgotten me, offering useless libations, and stumbling in their ways, in the paths of the world, so that they walk by these on an unmarked route.
{18:16} And so their land has been given over to desolation and to perpetual hissing. Each one who passes by will be astonished and will shake his head.
{18:17} Like a burning wind, I will disperse them in the sight the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their perdition.”
{18:18} And they said: “Come, and let us devise a plan against Jeremiah. For the law will not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor a sermon from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us pay no attention to any of his words.”
{18:19} Attend to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries.
{18:20} Should evil be rendered for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul! Remember that I have stood in your sight, so as to speak on their behalf for good, and to avert your indignation from them.
{18:21} Because of this, give their sons over to famine, and bring them to the hand of the sword. Let their wives be widows without children. And let their husbands be slain by death. Let their youths be stabbed with the sword in battle.
{18:22} Let an outcry be heard from their houses. For you will lead the robber upon them suddenly. For they have dug a pit, so that they may seize me, and they have hidden snares for my feet.
{18:23} But you, O Lord, know all their plans against me unto death. May you not forgive their iniquity, and do not allow their sin be taken away from your face. Let them be thrown down in your sight, in the time of your fury, so that you may destroy them.
[Jeremiah 19]
{19:1} Thus says the Lord: “Go, and take a potter’s earthen bottle from the elders of the people and from the elders of the priests.
{19:2} And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is near the entrance to the earthen gate, and there you shall proclaim the words that I will speak to you.
{19:3} And you shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will lead an affliction over this place, so much so that it will ring in the ears of all who hear about it.
{19:4} For they have abandoned me, and they have made this place foreign, and they have offered libations in it to foreign gods, whom neither they, nor their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known. And they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent.
{19:5} And they have built the exalted places of Baal, in order to burn their children with fire as a holocaust to Baal, something that I did not instruct or speak of, nor did it enter into my heart.
{19:6} Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
{19:7} And I will scatter the counsel of Judah and of Jerusalem in this place. And I will overthrow them with the sword, in the sight of their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their lives. And I will give their carcasses to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the land as food.
{19:8} And I will set this city amid stupor and hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be stupefied, and they will hiss over all its wounds.
{19:9} And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons and with the flesh of their daughters. And each one of them will eat the flesh of his friend during the blockade and the embargo by which their enemies, and those who seek their lives, will enclose them.
{19:10} And you shall crush the bottle in the sight of the men who will go with you.
{19:11} And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: In the same way, I will crush this people and this city, just as the potter’s vessel was crushed and cannot be made whole again. And they will be buried at Topheth, because there will be no other place for burial.
{19:12} So will I do to this place and to its inhabitants, says the Lord. And I will make this city to be like Topheth.
{19:13} And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be unclean, just like the place of Topheth: all the houses on whose roofs they sacrificed to all the armies of heaven and poured out libations to strange gods.”
{19:14} Then Jeremiah arrived from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the atrium of the house of the Lord, and he said to all the people:
{19:15} “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will lead over this community, and over all its cities, all the evils that I have spoken against it. For they have hardened their necks, so that they would not heed my words.”
[Jeremiah 20]
{20:1} And Pashhur, the son of Immer, the priest who had been appointed leader in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these words.
{20:2} And Pashhur struck the prophet Jeremiah, and he sent him to the stocks, which were at the upper gate of Benjamin at the house of the Lord.
{20:3} And when it had become light on the next day, Pashhur led Jeremiah from the stocks. And Jeremiah said to him: “The Lord has not called your name: ‘Pashhur,’ but instead: ‘Fear all around.’ ”
{20:4} For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will give you over to fear, you and all your friends, and they will fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes will see it. And I will give all of Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. And he will lead them away to Babylon, and he will strike them with the sword.
{20:5} And I will give away the entire substance of this city, and all its labor, and every precious thing. And I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hands of their enemies. And they will plunder them, and take them away, and lead them into Babylon.
{20:6} But you, Pashhur, and all the inhabitants of your house, will go into captivity. And you will go to Babylon. And there you shall die. And there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied a lie.”
{20:7} “You have led me away, O Lord, and I have been led away. You have been stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a derision all day long; everyone mocks me.
{20:8} For I speak now as I have long spoken: crying out against iniquity and proclaiming devastation. And the word of the Lord has been made into a reproach against me and a derision, all day long.
{20:9} Then I said: I will not call him to mind, nor will I speak any longer in his name. And my heart became like a raging fire, enclosed within my bones. And I became weary of continuing to bear it.
{20:10} For I heard the insults of many, and terror all around: ‘Persecute him!’ and, ‘Let us persecute him!’ from all the men who had been at peace with me and who had kept watch by my side. ‘If only there were some way that he might be deceived, and we might prevail against him and obtain vengeance from him!’
{20:11} But the Lord is with me, like a strong warrior. For this reason, those who persecute me will fall, and they will be ineffective. They will be greatly confounded. For they have not understood the everlasting disgrace that will never be wiped away.
{20:12} And you, O Lord of hosts, the Tester of the just, who sees the temperament and the heart: I beg you to let me see your vengeance upon them. For I have revealed my case to you.
{20:13} Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For he has freed the soul of the poor from the hand of the wicked.
{20:14} Cursed is the day on which I was born! The day on which my mother gave birth to me: let it not be blessed!
{20:15} Cursed is the man who announced it to my father, saying, ‘A male child has been born to you,’ causing him to rejoice with gladness.
{20:16} Let that man be like the cities that the Lord has overthrown without regret. Let him hear an outcry in the morning, and wailing at the time of midday!
{20:17} So let him be, who did not put me to death from the womb, so that my mother would have been my sepulcher, and her womb would have been my eternal resting place!
{20:18} Why did I depart from the womb, so that I would see hardship and sorrow, and so that my days would be consumed by trouble?”
[Jeremiah 21]
{21:1} The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when king Zedekiah sent Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to him, saying:
{21:2} “Question the Lord on our behalf, for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is fighting against us. Perhaps it may be that the Lord will act toward us according to all his wonders, and he may withdraw from us.”
{21:3} And Jeremiah said to them: “This is what you shall say to Zedekiah:
{21:4} Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, who besiege you at the surrounding walls. And I will gather these things together in the midst of this city.
{21:5} And I myself will make war against you: with an outstretched hand, and with a strong arm, and in fury, and in indignation, and in great wrath.
{21:6} And I will strike the inhabitants of this city; men and beasts will die from a great pestilence.
{21:7} And afterward, thus says the Lord: I will give Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his servants, and his people, and those who have been left behind in this city after pestilence and the sword and famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their lives. And he will strike them with the edge of the sword. And he will not waver, and he will not be lenient, and he will not take pity.
{21:8} And to this people, you shall say: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
{21:9} Whoever lives in this city will die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence. But whoever will have departed and fled away to the Chaldeans, who besiege you, will live, and his life will be to him like a spoil.
{21:10} For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, says the Lord. It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.
{21:11} And to the house of the king of Judah, you shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord,
{21:12} O house of David! Thus says the Lord: Judge with judgment from early morning, and rescue anyone who is oppressed by violence from the hand of a false accuser. Otherwise, my indignation may go forth like a fire, and may flare up, and there will be no one who can extinguish it, because of the evil of your intentions.
{21:13} Behold, I am against you, O inhabitants of a valley with firm and level ground, says the Lord. And you say: ‘Who can strike us? And who can enter into our houses?’
{21:14} But I will visit against you according to the fruit of your intentions, says the Lord. And I will kindle a fire in its forest. And it shall devour everything around it.”
[Jeremiah 22]
{22:1} Thus says the Lord: “Descend to the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word.
{22:2} And you shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, who sits upon the throne of David: you and your servants, and your people, who enter through these gates.
{22:3} Thus says the Lord: Exercise judgment and justice, and free anyone who is oppressed by violence from the hand of a false accuser. And do not be willing to sadden the new arrival, or the orphan, or the widow, nor should you burden them unfairly. And you shall not shed innocent blood in this place.
{22:4} For if you will indeed accomplish this word, then there will enter through the gates of this house kings from the stock of David, sitting on his throne, and riding on chariots and on horses: they, and their servants, and their people.
{22:5} But if you will not listen to these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house will be in desolation.
{22:6} For thus says the Lord about the house of the king of Judah: You are to me like Gilead, the head of Lebanon. Certainly, I will make you desolate, with uninhabitable cities.
{22:7} And I will sanctify over you the destroying man and his weapons. And they will cut down your select cedars and throw them violently into the fire.
{22:8} And many nations will pass through this city. And each one will say to his neighbor: ‘Why has the Lord acted in this way toward this great city?’
{22:9} And they will answer: ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, and they adored strange gods and served them.’
{22:10} You should not choose to weep for the dead, nor should you mourn over them with tears. Lament for him who is departing, for he will return no more, nor will he see his native land again.
{22:11} For thus says the Lord to Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned in place of his father, who has departed from this place: He will not return here again.
{22:12} Instead, he will die in the place to which I have transferred him, and he will not see this land anymore.
{22:13} Woe to one who builds his house with injustice and his upper rooms without judgment, who oppresses his friend without cause and does not pay him his wages.
{22:14} And he says: ‘I will build a broad house for myself, with spacious upper rooms.’ He makes windows for himself, and he builds the roof out of cedar, and he paints it with red ocher.
{22:15} Will you reign because you compare yourself to the cedar? Did your father not eat and drink, and act with judgment and justice, so that it would be well with him?
{22:16} He judged the case of the poor and the indigent for their good. Was this not because he knew me, says the Lord?
{22:17} Yet truly, your eyes and your heart are toward avarice and the shedding of innocent blood, and toward false accusations and the pursuit of evil deeds.
{22:18} Because of this, thus says the Lord toward Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will not mourn for him by saying, ‘Alas,’ to a brother, or, ‘Alas,’ to a sister. They will not make a noise for him and say, ‘Alas,’ to a master, or, ‘Alas,’ to a nobleman.
{22:19} He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, having rotted and been thrown out of the gates of Jerusalem.
{22:20} Ascend to Lebanon and cry out! And utter your voice in Bashan, and cry out to those passing by. For all your lovers have been crushed.
{22:21} I spoke to you in your abundance, and you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, for you have not listened to my voice.
{22:22} The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. And then you will be confounded, and you will be ashamed of all your wickedness.
{22:23} You who sit in Lebanon, and who nest in the cedars, in what way did you mourn when suffering came to you, like the suffering of a woman giving birth?
{22:24} As I live, says the Lord, if Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a ring on my right hand, I would remove him from there.
{22:25} And I will deliver you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you dread, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
{22:26} And I will send you, and your mother who conceived you, into a foreign land, in which you were not born, and there you shall die.
{22:27} And to the land about which they lift up their mind, thinking to return there, they shall not return.
{22:28} Is this man, Jeconiah, a broken earthenware vessel? Is he a vessel which is entirely unpleasing? Why have they been cast out, he and his offspring, cast out even into a land that they have not known?
{22:29} O earth, O earth, O earth! Listen to the word of the Lord!
{22:30} Thus says the Lord: Write: this man is barren; he is a man who will not prosper in his days. For there will not be a man from among his offspring who will sit upon the throne of David, or have authority in Judah, anymore.”
[Jeremiah 23]
{23:1} “Woe to the shepherds who scatter and tear apart the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord.
{23:2} Because of this, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to the shepherds who pasture my people: You have scattered my flock, and you have driven them away, and you have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you because of your evil pursuits, says the Lord.
{23:3} And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from the entire earth, from the places to which I had cast them out. And I will return them to their own fields. And they will increase and be multiplied.
{23:4} And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they will pasture them. They will no longer dread, and they will no longer fear. And no one among their number will be seeking more, says the Lord.
{23:5} Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch. And a king will reign, and he will be wise. And he will exercise judgment and justice upon the earth.
{23:6} In those days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in confidence. And this is the name that they will call him: ‘The Lord, our Just One.’
{23:7} Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of Egypt,’
{23:8} but instead, ‘As the Lord lives, who led away and brought back the offspring of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from the entire earth,’ from the places to which I had cast them out. And they will live in their own land.”
{23:9} To the prophets: “My heart is crushed within me. All my bones are trembling. I have become like an inebriated man, and like a man maddened by wine, before the face of the Lord, and before the face of his holy words.
{23:10} For the earth is full of adulterers! And the earth has mourned before the face of evil talk. The plains of the desert have dried up, and their course has become hazardous, and their firmness has become uneven.”
{23:11} “For both the prophet and the priest have become polluted, and I have found their wickedness within my own house, says the Lord.
{23:12} For this reason, their way will be like a slippery path in the dark. For they will be impelled forward, and they will fall in it. For I will bring evils over them, in the year of their visitation, says the Lord.
{23:13} And I have seen the foolishness of the prophets of Samaria. They have prophesied in Baal, and they have deceived my people Israel.
{23:14} And in the prophets of Jerusalem, I have seen the likeness of adulterers and the path of falsehood. And they have strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that each one would not convert from his malice. They have all become to me like Sodom, and its inhabitants have become like Gomorrah.”
{23:15} Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts to the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them absinthe, and I will give them gall to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption has gone forth over the entire earth.”
{23:16} Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not choose to listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you. They speak a vision from their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord.
{23:17} To those who blaspheme me, they say: ‘The Lord has said: You shall have peace.’ And to every one who walks in the depravity of his own heart, they have said: ‘No evil will overwhelm you.’ ”
{23:18} For who has been present in the counsel of the Lord, and who has seen and heard his word? Who has considered his word and heard it?
{23:19} Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord’s indignation will go forth, and a tempest will break out; it will overwhelm the head of the impious.
{23:20} The fury of the Lord will not return until it succeeds, and until it completes the plan of his heart. In the last days, you will understand this counsel.
{23:21} “I did not send these prophets, yet they hurry forward. I was not speaking to them, yet they were prophesying.
{23:22} If they had stood in my counsel, and if I had made my words known to my people, certainly I would have turned them away from their evil ways and from their most wicked plans.
{23:23} Do you not realize that I am a God close by, says the Lord, and not a God far away?
{23:24} If a man is hidden in concealed places, do I not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill up heaven and earth, says the Lord?
{23:25} I have heard what the prophets have said, prophesying falsehoods in my name, and also saying: ‘I have dreamed! I have dreamed!’
{23:26} How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who predict what is false, and who prophesy deceptions from their own heart?
{23:27} They want to cause my people to forget my name, by means of their dreams, which each of them describes to his neighbor, just as their fathers forgot my name for the sake of Baal.
{23:28} The prophet who has had a dream, let him describe the dream. And he who receives my word, let him speak my word in truth. For what has the chaff to do with the wheat, says the Lord?
{23:29} Are not my words like a fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer crushing rock?
{23:30} Therefore, behold: I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words, each one from his neighbor.
{23:31} Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who take up their tongues and say: ‘The Lord says it.’
{23:32} Behold, I am against the prophets, who dream what is false, says the Lord; who explain and so seduce my people with their falsehoods and with their miracles, though I did not send them, nor did I command them. They have offer nothing beneficial to this people, says the Lord.
{23:33} Therefore, if this people, or a prophet, or a priest questions you, saying, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden. And certainly I will cast you away, says the Lord.’
{23:34} And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ I will visit upon that man and upon his house.
{23:35} And then you will speak in this way, each one to his neighbor and to his brother: ‘What has the Lord answered? And what has the Lord said?’
{23:36} And the burden of the Lord will be no longer be called to mind. For each one’s own word will be a burden. For you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts, our God.
{23:37} And then you will speak in this way to the prophet: ‘What has the Lord answered you? And what has the Lord spoken?’
{23:38} But if you say, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ then because of this, thus says the Lord: Since you have spoken this word, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ though I sent to you telling you not to say: ‘The burden of the Lord,’
{23:39} because of this, behold, I will take you away, like a burden, and I will forsake you, as well as the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, before my face.
{23:40} And I will give you over to an everlasting reproach and an eternal disgrace, which shall never be wiped away into oblivion.”
[Jeremiah 24]
{24:1} The Lord revealed to me, and behold, two baskets full of figs were set before the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, carried away Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and his leaders, and the craftsmen and engravers of Jerusalem, and led them into Babylon.
{24:2} One basket had exceedingly good figs, like the figs usually found early in the season, and the other basket had exceedingly bad figs, which could not be eaten because they were so bad.
{24:3} And the Lord said to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said: “Figs: the good figs are very good, and the bad figs are very bad and cannot be eaten because they are so bad.”
{24:4} And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
{24:5} “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Just like these good figs, so will I regard as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent from this place into the land of the Chaldeans.
{24:6} And I will set my eyes upon them, so as to be pleased. And I will lead them back into this land. And I will build them up, and I will not tear them down. And I will plant them, and I will not uproot them.
{24:7} And I will give them a heart, so that they may know me, that I am the Lord. And they will be my people, and I will be their God. For they shall return to me with their whole heart.
{24:8} And just like the very bad figs, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad, thus says the Lord: so will I regard Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his leaders, and the rest of Jerusalem, those who have remained in this city, and those who are living in the land of Egypt.
{24:9} And I will give them over, with upheaval and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a disgrace, and a parable, and a proverb, and a curse in all the places to which I have cast them out.
{24:10} And I will send among them the sword, and famine, and pestilence: until they have been worn away from the land, which I gave to them and to their fathers.”
[Jeremiah 25]
{25:1} The word that came to Jeremiah about all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah. The same is the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.
{25:2} And the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:
{25:3} “From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, the king of Judah, even until this day, which is the twenty-third year, the word of the Lord has been given to me, and I have spoken to you, rising while it was still night, and speaking, and yet you have not listened.
{25:4} And the Lord has sent to you all his servants, the prophets, rising at first light, and sending, and yet you have not listened, and you have not inclined your ears, so that you would hear,
{25:5} when he said: Return, each one from his evil way, and from your wicked thoughts. And you shall dwell in the land, which the Lord has given to you and to your fathers, from ancient times and even forever.
{25:6} And do not choose to go after strange gods, so that you would serve them and adore them. And do not provoke me to wrath by the works of your hands. And then I will not afflict you.
{25:7} And yet you have not listened to me, says the Lord, and so you have provoked me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own harm.”
{25:8} Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Since you have not listened to my words,
{25:9} behold, I will send for and take all the associates of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will lead them over this land, and over its inhabitants, and over all the nations that are around it. And I will destroy them, and I will set them in the midst of stupor and hissing, and continual desolations.
{25:10} And I will perish from them the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstone and the light of the lamp.
{25:11} And this entire land will be in desolation and in stupor. And all these nations will serve the king of Babylon, for seventy years.
{25:12} And when the seventy years have been completed, I will visit their iniquity upon the king of Babylon, and upon that nation, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, says the Lord. And I will set it in continual desolations.
{25:13} And I will lead over that land all my words, which I have spoken against it, all that has been written in this book, everything whatsoever that Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
{25:14} For they have served them, though these were populous nations and great kings. And I will repay them according to their works and according to the deeds of their hands.”
{25:15} For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Take the chalice of the wine of this fury from my hand. And you shall cause all the nations, to which I will send you, to drink from it.
{25:16} And they will drink, and be stirred up, and become maddened, before the face of the sword that I will send among them.”
{25:17} And I received the chalice from the hand of the Lord, and I caused all the nations, to which the Lord has sent me, to drink from it:
{25:18} Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and its kings, and its leaders, so that I gave them over to desolation, and stupor, and hissing, and a curse, just as it is this day.
{25:19} “But as for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and his servants, and his leaders, and all his people,
{25:20} and the entire populace in general: all the kings of the land of the south, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod,
{25:21} and Idumea, and Moab, and the sons of Ammon,
{25:22} and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the land of the islands that are across the sea,
{25:23} and Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all those who have shaved off their hair,
{25:24} and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the west, who live in the desert,
{25:25} and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media,
{25:26} and likewise, all the kings of the north from near to far, each one facing his brother, and all the kingdoms upon the face of the earth, and the king of Sesac: all these shall drink after them.
{25:27} And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, and be inebriated, and vomit, and fall down. And you shall not rise up before the face the sword that I will send among you.
{25:28} And if they refuse to receive the cup from your hand and to drink, you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Certainly, you shall drink!
{25:29} For behold, I am beginning to afflict the city in which my name has been invoked, and will you be innocent and immune? You will not be immune! For I will call the sword over all the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord of hosts.
{25:30} And you shall prophesy to them all these words, and you shall say to them: The Lord will roar from on high, and he will utter his voice from his holy habitation. When roaring, he will roar over the place of his beauty. He will call out, like those who chant in rhythm as they trample the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.
{25:31} The sound of it will penetrate even to the ends of the earth. For the Lord is entering into judgment with the nations. He himself is entering into judgment with all flesh. I have delivered the impious to the sword, says the Lord.”
{25:32} Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, an affliction will go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind will go forth from the ends of the earth.
{25:33} And the slain of the Lord will be, on that day, from one end of the earth, even to the other end. They will not be mourned, and they will not be gathered, and they will not be buried. They will lie upon the face of the earth like dung.
{25:34} Wail, O shepherds, and cry out! And sprinkle yourselves with ashes, O nobles of the flock! For the days have been completed that lead to your slaughter and your destruction. And you will fall like precious vessels.
{25:35} And escape will flee from the shepherds, and safety will flee from the nobility of the flock.”
{25:36} There is a voice of outcry from the shepherds, and a wailing among the nobles among the flock! For the Lord has laid waste to their pastures.
{25:37} And the fields of peace have been silenced before the face of the fury of the Lord.
{25:38} He has abandoned those he sheltered like a lion. For the earth has become a desolation before the face of the anger of the dove, and before the face of the fury of the Lord.
[Jeremiah 26]
{26:1} In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying:
{26:2} “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the atrium of the house of the Lord, and speak to all the cities of Judah, from which they come to adore in the house of the Lord, all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not choose to subtract any word.
{26:3} So may they hear and be converted, each one from his evil way. And then I may repent of the evil that I plan to do to them because of the wickedness of their pursuits.
{26:4} And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, so that you walk in my law, which I have given to you,
{26:5} so that you listen to the words of my servants, the prophets, whom I have sent to you, who arise while it is still night, and though they give guidance, you do not listen,
{26:6} then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city into a curse for all the nations of the earth.”
{26:7} And the priests, and the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord.
{26:8} And when Jeremiah had completed speaking all that the Lord had instructed him to speak to all the people, then the priests, and the prophets, and all the people apprehended him, saying: “You shall be put to death.”
{26:9} “Why has he prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying: ‘Like Shiloh, so shall this house be,’ and, ‘This city shall be made desolate, even without an inhabitant?’ ” And all the people were gathered together against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
{26:10} And the leaders of Judah heard these words. And they ascended from the house of the king to the house of the Lord, and they sat at the entrance by the new gate of the house of the Lord.
{26:11} And the priests and the prophets spoke to the leaders and to all the people, saying: “A judgment of death is for this man. For he has prophesied against this city, just as you have heard with your own ears.”
{26:12} And Jeremiah spoke to all the leaders and to the entire people, saying: “The Lord has sent me to prophesy, about this house and about this city, all the words that you have heard.
{26:13} Now, therefore, make your ways and your intentions good, and heed the voice of the Lord your God. And then the Lord will repent of the evil that he has spoken against you.
{26:14} But as for me, behold, I am in your hands. Do to me what is good and right in your eyes.
{26:15} Yet truly, know and understand this: if you kill me, you will be bringing innocent blood against yourselves, and against this city and its inhabitants. For in truth, the Lord sent me to you, so as to speak all these words in your hearing.”
{26:16} And then the leaders and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets: “There is no judgment of death against this man. For he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”
{26:17} Then some of the elders of the land rose up. And they spoke to the entire assembly of the people, saying:
{26:18} “Micah from Moresheth was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: Zion will be ploughed like a field. And Jerusalem will be a pile of stones. And the mountain of the house will be like the forests of high places.’
{26:19} Did the king of Judah, Hezekiah, with all of Judah, condemn him to death? Did they not fear the Lord, and petition the face of the Lord? And so the Lord repented of the evil that he had spoken against them. Therefore, we are committing a great evil against our own souls.
{26:20} Likewise, there was a man prophesying in the name of the Lord: Uriah, the son of Shemaiah, of Kiriath-jearim. And he prophesied against this city and against this land, in accord with all the words of Jeremiah.
{26:21} And king Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and leaders, heard these words. And so the king sought to put him to death. And Uriah heard, and was afraid, and fled, and he entered into Egypt.
{26:22} And king Jehoiakim sent men into Egypt: Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and the men who went with him into Egypt.
{26:23} And they led Uriah out of Egypt. And they brought him to king Jehoiakim, and he struck him down with the sword. And he cast his dead body among the graves of the common people.”
{26:24} But the hand of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, was with Jeremiah, so that he would not be delivered into the hands of the people, and so that they would not put him to death.
[Jeremiah 27]
{27:1} In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
{27:2} “Thus says the Lord to me: Make bands and chains for yourself. And you shall place them on your neck.
{27:3} And you shall send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the sons of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who came to Jerusalem, to Zedekiah, the king of Judah.
{27:4} And you shall instruct them to say to their masters: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You shall say these things to your masters:
{27:5} I made the earth, and the men and beasts which are upon the face of the earth, by my great strength and by my outstretched arm. And I have given it to whomever it was pleasing in my eyes.
{27:6} And now, therefore, I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant. Moreover, I have given to him also the beasts of the field, so that they may serve him.
{27:7} And all the nations will serve him, and his son, and his son’s son. Many nations and great kings will serve him, until the time arrives for him and his land.
{27:8} But the nation or kingdom that will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and whoever will not bend his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will visit upon that nation with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, says the Lord, until I consume them by his hand.
{27:9} Therefore, you should not choose to listen to your own prophets, and diviners, and dreamers, and soothsayers, and sorcerers, who say to you: ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon.’
{27:10} For they prophesy lies to you, so that they may cause you to be far from your own country, and may cast you out, and may cause you to perish.
{27:11} Furthermore, the nation which will bend its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and which will serve him, I will permit them to remain in their own land, says the Lord. And they will cultivate it, and they will live in it.”
{27:12} And I spoke to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, according to all these words, saying: “Subject your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and you will live.
{27:13} Why should you suffer death, you and your people, by the sword, and famine, and pestilence, just as the Lord has spoken against any nation that refuses to serve the king of Babylon?
{27:14} Do not choose to listen to the words of the prophets, saying to you: ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ For they are speaking a lie to you.
{27:15} For I have not sent them, says the Lord. And they prophesy falsely in my name, so that they may cast you out, and so that you may perish, both you and the prophets who make predictions for you.”
{27:16} I spoke also to the priests and to this people, saying: “Thus says the Lord: Do not choose to listen to the words of your prophets, who prophesy to you, saying: ‘Behold, the vessels of the Lord will now quickly be returned from Babylon.’ For they are prophesying to you a lie.
{27:17} Therefore, do not choose to listen to them, but instead, serve the king of Babylon, so that you may live. Why should this city be given over into desolation?
{27:18} But if they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord is in them, then let them intercede before the Lord of hosts, so that the vessels that were left behind in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.
{27:19} For thus says the Lord of hosts to the pillars, and to the sea of brass, and to the bases, and to the remainder of the vessels that have been left behind in this city,
{27:20} which Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, did not take when he carried away Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, from Jerusalem into Babylon, with all the nobility of Judah and Jerusalem:
{27:21} For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to the vessels that were left behind in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and Jerusalem:
{27:22} They shall be carried away to Babylon, and there they shall be, until the day of their visitation, says the Lord. And then I will cause them to be carried back, and to be restored to this place.
[Jeremiah 28]
{28:1} And it happened in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me, in the house of the Lord, in the sight of the priests and all the people, saying:
{28:2} “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
{28:3} There are still two years of days, and then I will cause to be carried back to this place all the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, took from this place and carried away to Babylon.
{28:4} And I will return to this place: Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and all those taken captive from Judah, who were brought into Babylon, says the Lord. For I will crush the yoke of the king of Babylon.”
{28:5} And Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Hananiah the prophet, before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes of all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord.
{28:6} And Jeremiah the prophet said: “Amen, may the Lord accomplish this; may the Lord act upon your words, which you have prophesied, so that the vessels may be carried back to the house of the Lord, and so that all those taken captive may return from Babylon to this place.
{28:7} Yet truly, listen to this word, which I am speaking to your ears and to the ears of all the people.
{28:8} The prophets, who were before me and before you, from the beginning, have prophesied over many lands and over great kingdoms, about war, and about affliction, and about famine.
{28:9} The prophet who has predicted peace, if his word will occur, then the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has sent in truth.”
{28:10} And Hananiah the prophet took the chain from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, and he broke it.
{28:11} And Hananiah spoke in the sight of all the people, saying: “Thus says the Lord: So shall I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, after two years of days, from the neck of all the people.”
{28:12} And Jeremiah the prophet went his own way. And after Hananiah the prophet had broken the chain from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:
{28:13} “Go, and you shall say to Hananiah: Thus says the Lord: You have broken chains of wood, and so you will make for them chains of iron.
{28:14} For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have placed a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, so that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. And they shall serve him. Moreover, I have given to him even the beasts of the earth.”
{28:15} And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet: “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, and so you have caused this people to trust in a lie.
{28:16} For this reason, thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send you away from the face of the earth. This year, you shall die. For you have spoken against the Lord.”
{28:17} And Hananiah the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month.
[Jeremiah 29]
{29:1} And these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah, the prophet, sent from Jerusalem to the remnant of the elders of the transmigration, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had led away from Jerusalem to Babylon,
{29:2} after king Jeconiah, with the queen, and the eunuchs, and the leaders of Judah and of Jerusalem, and the craftsmen and engravers, had departed from Jerusalem.
{29:3} It was sent by the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and by Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, the king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, saying:
{29:4} “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who have been taken away, whom I have caused to be transferred from Jerusalem to Babylon:
{29:5} Build houses and live in them. And plant gardens, and eat from their fruit.
{29:6} Take wives, and conceive sons and daughters. And give wives to your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, and let them bear sons and daughters. And be multiplied there, and do not choose to be few in number.
{29:7} And seek the peace of the city, to which I have caused you to be taken away, and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For your peace will be in its peace.
{29:8} For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: