Jeremiah 16–24

Famine, Sword, and Death

16The word of the Lord came to me: ²“You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. ³For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: ^4jThey shall die of deadly diseases. ^kThey shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. ^lThey shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ^mThey shall perish by the sword and by famine, ⁿand their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵“For thus says the Lord: ^oDo not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the Lord. ⁶Both great and small shall die in this land. ^kThey shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or ^pcut himself ^qor make himself bald for them. ⁷No one shall ^rbreak bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. ⁸You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. ⁹For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^sBehold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰“And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ^t‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹then you shall say to them: ^u‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and ^vhave gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹²and because ^wyou have done worse than your fathers, for behold, ^xevery one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³Therefore ^yI will hurl you out of this land into ^za land that neither you nor your fathers have known, ^aand there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

The Lord Will Restore Israel

^14b“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ^c‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ¹⁵but ^c‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel ^dout of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For ^eI will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶“Behold, ^fI am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out ^gof the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷For ^hmy eyes are on all their ways. ⁱThey are not hidden from me, ⁱnor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸But first ^jI will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and ^khave filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

^19lO Lord, my strength and my stronghold,

^mmy refuge in the day of trouble,

ⁿto you shall the nations come

from the ends of the earth and say:

“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,

^oworthless things in which there is no profit.

²⁰Can man make for himself ^pgods?

Such are not gods!”

²¹“Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that ^qmy name is the Lord.”

The Sin of Judah

17“The sin of Judah is written with ^ra pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on ^sthe tablet of their heart, and on ^tthe horns of their altars, ²while ^utheir children remember their altars and their ^vAsherim, ^wbeside every green tree and on the high hills, ^3xon the mountains in the open country. ^yYour wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. ⁴You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, ^zand I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, ^afor in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

⁵Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man ^bwho trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength,¹

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

^6cHe is like a shrub in the desert,

^dand shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in ^ean uninhabited salt land.

^7f“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

^gwhose trust is the Lord.

^8hHe is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

⁹The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

¹⁰ⁱ“I the Lord search the heart

^jand test the mind,²

^kto give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.”

¹¹Like the ^lpartridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch,

so is ^mhe who gets riches but not by justice;

ⁿin the midst of his days they will leave him,

^oand at his end he will be a fool.

¹²A glorious throne set on high from the beginning

is the place of our sanctuary.

¹³O Lord, ^pthe hope of Israel,

^qall who forsake you shall be put to shame;

those who turn away from you^{3 r}shall be written in the earth,

for ^sthey have forsaken ^tthe Lord, the fountain of living water.

Jeremiah Prays for Deliverance

^14uHeal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;

save me, and I shall be saved,

for ^vyou are my praise.

^15wBehold, they say to me,

“Where is the word of the Lord?

Let it come!”

¹⁶I have not run away from being your shepherd,

nor have I desired the day of sickness.

^xYou know ^xwhat came out of my lips;

it was before your face.

¹⁷Be not a terror to me;

^yyou are my refuge in the day of disaster.

^18zLet those be put to shame who persecute me,

but let me not be put to shame;

^zlet them be dismayed,

but let me not be dismayed;

^abring upon them the day of disaster;

destroy them with double destruction!

Keep the Sabbath Holy

¹⁹Thus said the Lord to me: “Go and stand in the People’s Gate, by which ^bthe kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, ²⁰and say: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, ^byou kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. ²¹Thus says the Lord: Take care for the sake of your lives, and ^cdo not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. ²²And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath ^dor do any work, but ^ekeep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. ²³Yet ^fthey did not listen or incline their ear, ^gbut stiffened their neck, that they ^hmight not hear and receive instruction.

²⁴“ ‘But if you listen to me, declares the Lord, and ^cbring in no burden by the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but ^ekeep the Sabbath day holy and do no work on it, ²⁵then ⁱthere shall enter by the gates of this city kings and princes who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city shall be inhabited forever. ²⁶And people shall come from ^jthe cities of Judah ^kand the places around Jerusalem, ^jfrom the land of Benjamin, ^kfrom the Shephelah, from the hill country, ^kand from ^lthe Negeb, bringing ^mburnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and ^mbringing thank offerings to the house of the Lord. ²⁷But if you do not listen to me, to ^ekeep the Sabbath day holy, ^cand not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will ⁿkindle a fire in its gates, and it shall ^odevour the palaces of Jerusalem and ^pshall not be quenched.’ ”

The Potter and the Clay

18The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Arise, and go down to ^qthe potter’s house, and there I will let you hear¹ my words.” ³So I went down to ^rthe potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴And the vessel he was making of clay was ^sspoiled in the potter’s hand, and ^the reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶“O house of Israel, ^ucan I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. ^vBehold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will ^wpluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, ^xturns from its evil, ^yI will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. ⁹And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will ^wbuild and plant it, ¹⁰and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. ¹¹Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. ^zReturn, every one from his evil way, and ^aamend your ways and your deeds.’

¹²“But they say, ^b‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to ^cthe stubbornness of his evil heart.’

¹³“Therefore thus says the Lord:

^dAsk among the nations,

Who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel

has done ^ea very horrible thing.

¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon leave

the crags of Sirion?²

Do the mountain waters run dry,³

the cold flowing streams?

^15fBut my people have forgotten me;

they make offerings to ^gfalse gods;

they made them stumble in their ways,

^hin the ancient roads,

and to walk into side roads,

ⁱnot the highway,

¹⁶making their land ^ja horror,

a thing ^jto be hissed at forever.

^kEveryone who passes by it is horrified

^land shakes his head.

^17mLike the east wind ^n…