³For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and daughters, that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them: and concerning their fathers, of whom they were born in this land:

⁴They shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed with the sword, and with famine: and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor to comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, my mercy and commiserations.

⁶Both the great and the little shall die in this land: they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.

⁷And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them for their father and mother.

⁸And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink:

⁹For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will take away out of this place in your sight, and in your days the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰And when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced against us all this great evil? what is our iniquity? and what is our sin, that we have sinned against the Lord our God?

¹¹Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord: and went after strange gods, and served them, and adored them: and they forsook me, and kept not my law.

¹²And you also have done worse than your fathers: for behold every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.

¹³So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor your fathers: and there you shall serve strange gods day and night, which shall not give you any rest.

¹⁴Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁵But, The Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the north, and out of all the lands to which I cast them out: and I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶Behold I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.

¹⁷For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes.

¹⁸And I will repay first their double iniquities, and their sins: because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

¹⁹O Lord, my might, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them.

²⁰Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods?

²¹Therefore behold I will this once cause them to know, I will shew them my hand and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord.

Chapter 17

The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars.

²When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon the high mountains,

³Sacrificing in the field: I will give thy strength, and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders.

⁴And thou shalt be left stripped of thy inheritance, which I gave thee: and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in my wrath, it shall burn for ever.

⁵Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

⁶For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert in a salt land, and not inhabited.

⁷Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.

⁸And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.

⁹The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?

¹⁰I am the Lord who search the heart, and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices.

¹¹As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool.

¹²A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification.

¹³O Lord, the hope of Israel: all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.

¹⁴Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

¹⁵Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come.

¹⁶And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight.

¹⁷Be not thou a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of affliction.

¹⁸Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them.

¹⁹Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem:

²⁰And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda, and all Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates.

²¹Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls, and carry no burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem.

²²And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

²³But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction.

²⁴And it shall come to pass: if you will hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burdens by the gates of this city on the sabbath day: and if you will sanctify the sabbath day, to do no work therein:

²⁵Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited for ever.

²⁶And they shall come from the cities of Juda, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plains, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing holocausts, and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense, and they shall bring in an offering into the house of the Lord.

²⁷But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to carry burdens, and not to bring them in by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day: I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

Chapter 18

The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

²Arise, and go down into the potter’s house, and there thou shalt hear my words.

³And I went down into the potter’s house, and behold he was doing a work on the wheel.

⁴And the vessel was broken which he was making of clay with his hands: and turning he made another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make it.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

⁶Cannot I do with you, as this potter, O house of Israel, saith the Lord? behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

⁷I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it.

⁸If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them.

⁹And I will suddenly speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build up and plant it.

¹⁰If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it.

¹¹Now therefore tell the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: let every man of you return from his evil way, and make ye your ways and your doings good.

¹²And they said; We have no hopes: for we will go after our own thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his evil heart.

¹³Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who hath heard such horrible things, as the virgin of Israel hath done to excess?

¹⁴Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can the cold waters that gush out and run down, be taken away?

¹⁵Because my people have forgotten me, sacrificing in vain, and stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk by them in a way not trodden:

¹⁶That their…

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