Jeremiah 15–17

CHAPTER 15

Yahweh Appoints Four Kinds of Doom

¹Then Yahweh said to me, “Even ^athough ^bMoses and ^cSamuel were to ^dstand before Me, My soul would not be ¹with this people; ^esend them away from My presence and let them go!

²“And it will be that when they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you are to tell them, ‘Thus says Yahweh:

“Those destined ^afor death, to death;

And those destined for the sword, to the sword;

And those destined for famine, to famine;

And those destined for captivity, to captivity.” ’

³“I will ^aappoint over them four kinds of doom,” declares Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the ^bdogs to drag off, and the ^cbirds of the sky and the beasts of the earth to devour and bring to ruin.

⁴“I will ^agive them over to be an example of terror among all the kingdoms of the earth because of ^bManasseh, the son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.

⁵“Indeed, who will ^aspare you, O Jerusalem,

Or who will ^bconsole you,

Or who will turn aside to ask about your well-being?

⁶“You who have ^aabandoned Me,” declares Yahweh,

“You keep ^bgoing backward.

So I will ^cstretch out My hand against you and bring you to ruin;

I am ^dtired of ¹relenting!

⁷“And I will ^awinnow them with a winnowing fork

At the gates of the land;

I will ^bbereave them of children; I will make My people perish;

^cThey did not ¹repent of their ways.

⁸“Their ^awidows will be more numerous before Me

Than the sand of the seas;

I will bring against them, against the mother of a choice man,

A ^bdestroyer at noonday;

I will suddenly bring down on her

Anguish and terror.

⁹“She who ^abore seven sons languishes;

¹Her breathing is labored.

Her ^bsun has set while it was yet day;

She has been ^cshamed and humiliated.

So I will ^dgive over their survivors to the sword

Before their enemies,” declares Yahweh.

Jeremiah Pleads for Vengeance

^10aWoe to me, my mother, that you have borne me

As a ^bman of strife and a man of contention to all the land!

I have not ^clent, nor have men lent money to me,

Yet everyone curses me.

¹¹Yahweh said, “Surely I will ^aset you free for purposes of good;

Surely I will cause the ^benemy to intercede with you

In a time of disaster and a time of distress.

¹²“Can anyone smash iron,

^aIron from the north, or bronze?

¹³“Your ^awealth and your treasures

I will give for plunder ^bwithout cost,

Even for all your sins

And within all your borders.

¹⁴“Then I will cause your enemies to pass ¹it over

Into a ^aland you do not know,

For a ^bfire has been kindled in My anger;

It will burn upon you.”

^15aYou who know, O Yahweh,

Remember me, take notice of me,

And ^btake vengeance for me on my persecutors.

Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away;

Know that ^cfor Your sake I endure reproach.

¹⁶Your words were found, and I ^aate them,

And Your ^bwords became for me joy and gladness in my heart,

For I have been ^ccalled by Your name,

O Yahweh God of hosts.

¹⁷I ^adid not sit in the circle of merrymakers,

Nor did I exult.

Because of Your hand upon me I sat ^balone,

For You ^cfilled me with indignation.

¹⁸Why has my pain been perpetual

And my ^awound incurable, refusing to be healed?

Will You indeed be to me ^blike a deceptive stream

With water that is unreliable?

Yahweh’s Answer

¹⁹Therefore thus says Yahweh,

“^aIf you return, then I will cause you to return—

^bBefore Me you will stand;

And ^cif you extract the precious from the worthless,

You will become ¹My mouthpiece.

They for their part may turn to you,

But as for you, you must not turn to them.

²⁰“Then I will ^amake you to this people

A fortified wall of bronze;

And they will fight against you,

But they will not prevail against you,

For ^bI am with you to save you

And deliver you,” declares Yahweh.

²¹“So I will ^adeliver you from the hand of the evil ones,

And I will ^bredeem you from the ¹grasp of the ruthless ones.”

CHAPTER 16

Yahweh Withdraws His Favor

¹The word of Yahweh also came to me saying,

²“You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.”

³For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and daughters born in this place and concerning their ^amothers who bear them and their ^bfathers who beget them in this land:

⁴“They will ^adie of deadly diseases; they ^bwill not be lamented or buried; they will be as ^cdung on the surface of the ground and come to an end by sword and famine, and their carcasses will become food for the ^dbirds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth.”

⁵For thus says Yahweh, “Do not enter the house of the ^afuneral meal, or go to lament or to console them; for I have ^bwithdrawn My peace from this people,” declares Yahweh, “My ^clovingkindness and compassion.

⁶“Both ^agreat men and small will die in this land; they will not be buried; they will not be lamented, nor will anyone ^bgash himself or ^cshave his head for them.

⁷“Men will not ^abreak bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of comforting to drink for anyone’s father or mother.

⁸“Moreover you shall ^anot go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.”

⁹For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I am going to ^acause to cease from this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰“Now when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, ‘^aFor what reason has Yahweh declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against Yahweh our God?’

¹¹“Then you are to say to them, ‘It is ^abecause your fathers have forsaken Me,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and have walked after ^bother gods and served them and worshiped them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.

¹²‘You too have done evil, even ^amore than your fathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the ^bstubbornness of his own ^cevil heart, without listening to Me.

¹³‘So I will ^ahurl you out of this land into the ^bland which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will ^cserve other gods day and night, for I will grant you no favor.’

They Shall Know My Name Is Yahweh

¹⁴“^aTherefore behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who ^bbrought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’

¹⁵but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the ^aland of the north and from all the lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶“Behold, I am going to send for many ^afishermen,” declares Yahweh, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will ^bhunt them ^cfrom every mountain and every hill and from the crevices of the rocks.

¹⁷“^aFor My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, ^bnor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes.

¹⁸“I will first ^adoubly repay their iniquity and their sin because they have ^bprofaned My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their ^cdetestable idols and with their abominations.”

¹⁹O Yahweh, my ^astrength and my strong defense,

And my ^brefuge in the day of distress,

To You the ^cnations will come

From the ends of the earth and say,

“Our fathers have inherited nothing but ^dlies,

Futility and ^1ethings of no profit.”

²⁰Can man make gods for himself?

Yet they are ^anot gods!

²¹“Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—

This time I will ^amake them know

My ¹power and My might;

And they shall ^bknow that My name is Yahweh.”

CHAPTER 17

The Deceitful Heart

¹The ^asin of Judah is written down with an ^biron stylus;

With a diamond point it is ^cengraved upon the tablet of their heart

And on the horns of ¹their altars,

²As they remember their ^achildren,

So they remember their altars and their ^1bAsherim

By ^cgreen trees on the high hills.

³O ^amountain of Mine in the countryside,

I will ^bgive over your wealth and all your treasures for plunder,

Your high places for sin throughout your borders.

⁴And you will, even of yourself, ^alet go of your inheritance

That I gave you;

And I will make you serve your ^benemies

In the ^cland which you do not know,

For you have ^dkindled a fire in My anger

Which will burn forever.

⁵Thus says Yahweh,

“^aCursed is the man who trusts in mankind

And makes ^bflesh his ¹strength,

And whose heart turns away from Yahweh.

⁶“And he will be like a ^ajuniper in the desert

And will not see when prosperity comes,

But will dwell in stony wastes in the wilderness,

A ^bland of salt ¹which is not inhabited.

⁷“^aBlessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh

And whose ^btrust is Yahweh.

⁸“And he will be like a ^atree planted by the water,

That sends forth its roots by a stream

And will not fear when the heat comes;

But its leaves will be green,

And it will not be anxious in a year of ^bdrought

Nor refrain from yielding fruit.

⁹“The ^aheart is more ^bdeceitful than all else

And is ¹desperately ^csick;

Who can know it?

¹⁰“I, Yahweh, ^asearch the heart;

I test the ¹inmost being,

Even ^bto give to each man according to his ways,

According to the fruit of his deeds.

¹¹“As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid,

So is he who ^amakes a fortune, but unjustly;

In the midst of his days it will forsake him,

And in ¹the end he will be a ^bwicked fool.”

^12aA glorious throne on high from the beginning

Is the place of our sanctuary.

¹³O Yahweh, the ^ahope of Israel,

All who ^bforsake You will be put to shame.

Those who turn ¹away on earth will be ^cwritten down

Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even Yahweh.

^14aHeal me, O Yahweh, and I will be healed;

^bSave me and I will be saved,

For You are my ^cpraise.

¹⁵Behold, they keep ^asaying to me,

“Where is the word of Yahweh?

Let it come now!”

¹⁶But as for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd after You,

Nor have I longed for the ¹sickening day;

^aYou Yourself know that the utterance of my lips

Was in Your presence.

¹⁷Do not be a ^aterror to me;

You are my ^brefuge in the day of calamity.

¹⁸Let those who pursue me be ^aput to shame, but as for…