Jeremiah 21–52

Chapter 21

The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, when king Sedecias sent unto him Phassur, the son of Melchias, and Sophonias, the son of Maasias the priest, saying:

²Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon maketh war against us: if so be the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful works, that he may depart from us.

³And Jeremias said to them: Thus shall you say to Sedecias:

⁴Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, and with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans, that besiege you round about the walls: and I will gather them together in the midst of this city.

⁵And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, and with a strong arm, and in fury, and in indignation, and in great wrath.

⁶And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, men and beasts shall die of a great pestilence.

⁷And after this, saith the Lord, I will give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his servants, and his people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, and the sword, and the famine, into the hand of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword, and he shall not be moved to pity, nor spare them, nor shew mercy to them.

⁸And to this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.

⁹He that shall abide in this city, shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that shall go out and flee over to the Chaldeans, that besiege you, shall live, and his life shall be to him as a spoil.

¹⁰For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

¹¹And to the house of the king of Juda: Hear ye the word of the Lord,

¹²O house of David, thus saith the Lord: Judge ye judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is oppressed by violence out of the hand of the oppressor: lest my indignation go forth like a fire, and be kindled, and there be none to quench it, because of the evil of your ways.

¹³Behold I come to thee that dwellest in a valley upon a rock above a plain, saith the Lord: and you say: Who shall strike us and who shall enter into our houses?

¹⁴But I will visit upon you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the Lord: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof: and it shall devour all things round about it.

Chapter 22

Thus saith the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Juda, and there thou shalt speak this word,

²And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Juda, that sittest upon the throne of David: thou and thy servants, and thy people, who enter in by these gates.

³Thus saith the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and deliver him that is oppressed out of the hand of the oppressor: and afflict not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly: and shed not innocent blood in this place.

⁴For if you will do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house, kings of the race of David sitting upon his throne, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants, and their people.

⁵But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.

⁶For thus saith the Lord to the house of the king of Juda: Thou art to me Galaad the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities not habitable.

⁷And I will prepare against thee the destroyer and his weapons: and they shall cut down thy chosen cedars, and shall cast them headlong into the fire.

⁸And many nations shall pass by this city: and they shall say every man to his neighbour: Why hath the Lord done so to this great city?

⁹And they shall answer: Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and have adored strange gods, and served them.

¹⁰Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears: lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.

¹¹For thus saith the Lord to Sellum the son of Josias the king of Juda, who reigned instead of his father, who went forth out of this place: He shall return hither no more:

¹²But in the place, to which I have removed him, there shall he die, and he shall not see this land any more.

¹³Woe to him that buildeth up his house by injustice, and his chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages.

¹⁴Who saith: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers: who openeth to himself windows, and maketh roofs of cedar, and painteth them with vermilion.

¹⁵Shalt thou reign, because thou comparest thyself to the cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and it was then well with him?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy for his own good: was it not therefore because he knew me, saith the Lord?

¹⁷But thy eyes and thy heart are set upon covetousness, and upon shedding innocent blood, and upon oppression, and running after evil works.

¹⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda: They shall not mourn for him, Alas, my brother, and, Alas, sister: they shall not lament for him, Alas, my lord, or, Alas, the noble one.

¹⁹He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰Go up to Libanus, and cry: and lift up thy voice in Basan, and cry to them that pass by, for all thy lovers are destroyed.

²¹I spoke to thee in thy prosperity: and thou saidst: I will not hear: this hath been thy way from thy youth, because thou hast not heard my voice.

²²The wind shall feed all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity and then shalt thou be confounded, and ashamed of all thy wickedness.

²³Thou that sittest in Libanus, and makest thy nest in the cedars, how hast thou mourned when sorrows came upon thee, as the pains of a woman in labour?

²⁴As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence.

²⁵And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

²⁶And I will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a strange country, in which you were not born, and there you shall die:

²⁷And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up their mind to return thither.

²⁸Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?

²⁹O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

³⁰Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David, and have power any more in Juda.

Chapter 23

Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord.

²Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.

³And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied.

⁴And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them: they shall fear no more, and they shall not be dismayed: and none shall be wanting of their number, saith the Lord.

⁵Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

⁶In those days shall Juda be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our just one.

⁷Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and they shall say no more: The Lord liveth, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt:

⁸But, The Lord liveth, who hath brought out, and brought hither the seed of the house of Israel from the land of the north, and out of all the lands, to which I had cast them forth: and they shall dwell in their own land.

⁹To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble: I am become as a drunken man, and as a man full of wine, at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of his holy words.

¹⁰Because the land is full of adulterers, because the land hath mourned by reason of cursing, the fields of the desert are dried up: and their course is become evil, and their strength unlike.

¹¹For the prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I have found their wickedness, saith the Lord.

¹²Therefore their way shall be as a slippery way in the dark: for they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evils upon them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

¹³And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied in Baal and deceived my people Israel.

¹⁴And I have seen the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying in the prophets of Jerusalem: and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, that no man should return from his evil doings, they are all become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrha.

¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold I will feed them with wormwood, and will give them gall to drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption is gone forth into all the land.

¹⁶Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hearken not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you, and deceive…