Jeremiah 16–24

Can Mortals Manufacture Gods?

¹16God’s Message to me:

^2–4“Jeremiah, don’t get married. Don’t raise a family here. I have signed the death warrant on all the children born in this country, the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them—an epidemic of death. Death unlamented, the dead unburied, dead bodies decomposing and stinking like dung, all the killed and starved corpses served up as meals for carrion crows and mongrel dogs!”

^5–7God continued: “Don’t enter a house where there’s mourning. Don’t go to the funeral. Don’t sympathize. I’ve quit caring about what happens to this people.” God’s Decree. “No more loyal love on my part, no more compassion. The famous and obscure will die alike here, unlamented and unburied. No funerals will be conducted, no one will give them a second thought, no one will care, no one will say, ‘I’m sorry,’ no one will so much as offer a cup of tea, not even for the mother or father.

⁸“And if there happens to be a feast celebrated, don’t go there either to enjoy the festivities.”

⁹God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Watch this! I’m about to banish smiles and laughter from this place. No more brides and bridegrooms celebrating. And I’m doing it in your lifetime, before your very eyes.

^10–13“When you tell this to the people and they ask, ‘Why is God talking this way, threatening us with all these calamities? We’re not criminals, after all. What have we done to our God to be treated like this?’ tell them this: ‘It’s because your ancestors left me, walked off and never looked back. They took up with the no-gods, worshiped and doted on them, and ignored me and wouldn’t do a thing I told them. And you’re even worse! Take a good look in the mirror—each of you doing whatever you want, whenever you want, refusing to pay attention to me. And for this I’m getting rid of you, throwing you out in the cold, into a far and strange country. You can worship your precious no-gods there to your heart’s content. Rest assured, I won’t bother you anymore.’

^14–15“On the other hand, don’t miss this: The time is coming when no one will say any longer, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who delivered Israel from Egypt.’ What they’ll say is, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who brought Israel back from the land of the north, brought them back from all the places where he’d scattered them.’ That’s right, I’m going to bring them back to the land I first gave to their ancestors.

^16–17“Now, watch for what comes next: I’m going to assemble a bunch of fishermen.” God’s Decree! “They’ll go fishing for my people and pull them in for judgment. Then I’ll send out a party of hunters, and they’ll hunt them out in all the mountains, hills, and caves. I’m watching their every move. I haven’t lost track of a single one of them, neither them nor their sins.

¹⁸“They won’t get by with a thing. They’ll pay double for everything they did wrong. They’ve made a complete mess of things, littering their lives with their obscene no-gods, leaving piles of stinking god-junk all over the place.”

^19–20God, my strength, my stronghold,

my safe retreat when trouble descends:

The godless nations will come

from earth’s four corners, saying,

“Our ancestors lived on lies,

useless illusions, all smoke.”

Can mortals manufacture gods?

Their factories turn out no-gods!

²¹“Watch closely now. I’m going to teach these wrongheaded people.

Starting right now, I’m going to teach them

Who I am and what I do,

teach them the meaning of my name, God—‘I Am.’ ”

The Heart Is Hopelessly Dark and Deceitful

^1–217“Judah’s sin is engraved

with a steel chisel,

A steel chisel with a diamond point—

engraved on their granite hearts,

engraved on the stone corners of their altars.

The evidence against them is plain to see:

sex-and-religion altars and sacred sex shrines

Anywhere there’s a grove of trees,

anywhere there’s an available hill.

^3–4“I’ll use your mountains as roadside stands

for giving away everything you have.

All your ‘things’ will serve as reparations

for your sins all over the country.

You’ll lose your gift of land,

The inheritance I gave you.

I’ll make you slaves of your enemies

in a far-off and strange land.

My anger is hot and blazing and fierce,

and no one will put it out.”

^5–6God’s Message:

“Cursed is the strong one

who depends on mere humans,

Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone

and sets God aside as dead weight.

He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,

out of touch with the good earth.

He lives rootless and aimless

in a land where nothing grows.

^7–8“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,

the woman who sticks with God.

They’re like trees replanted in Eden,

putting down roots near the rivers—

Never a worry through the hottest of summers,

never dropping a leaf,

Serene and calm through droughts,

bearing fresh fruit every season.

^9–10“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,

a puzzle that no one can figure out.

But I, God, search the heart

and examine the mind.

I get to the heart of the human.

I get to the root of things.

I treat them as they really are,

not as they pretend to be.”

¹¹Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs

in another bird’s nest

Is the person who gets rich by cheating.

When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.

What a fool he’ll look like then!

^12–13From early on your Sanctuary was set high,

a throne of glory, exalted!

O God, you’re the hope of Israel.

All who leave you end up as fools,

Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,

who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—

and wind up dead!

^14–18God, pick up the pieces.

Put me back together again.

You are my praise!

Listen to how they talk about me:

“So where’s this ‘Word of God’?

We’d like to see something happen!”

But it wasn’t my idea to call for Doomsday.

I never wanted trouble.

You know what I’ve said.

It’s all out in the open before you.

Don’t add to my troubles.

Give me some relief!

Let those who harass me be harassed, not me.

Let them be disgraced, not me.

Bring down upon them the day of doom.

Lower the boom. Boom!

Keep the Sabbath Day Holy

^19–20God’s Message to me: “Go stand in the People’s Gate, the one used by Judah’s kings as they come and go, and then proceed in turn to all the gates of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘Listen, you kings of Judah, listen to God’s Message—and all you people who go in and out of these gates, you listen!

^21–23“ ‘This is God’s Message. Be careful, if you care about your lives, not to desecrate the Sabbath by turning it into just another workday, lugging stuff here and there. Don’t use the Sabbath to do business as usual. Keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. They never did it, as you know. They paid no attention to what I said and went about their own business, refusing to be guided or instructed by me.

^24–26“ ‘But now, take seriously what I tell you. Quit desecrating the Sabbath by busily going about your own work, and keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing business as usual. Then kings from the time of David and their officials will continue to ride through these gates on horses or in chariots. The people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem will continue to pass through them, too. Jerusalem will always be filled with people. People will stream in from all over Judah, from the province of Ben-jamin, from the Jerusalem suburbs, from foothills and mountains and deserts. They’ll come to worship, bringing all kinds of offerings—animals, grains, incense, expressions of thanks—into the Sanctuary of God.

²⁷“ ‘But if you won’t listen to me, won’t keep the Sabbath holy, won’t quit using the Sabbath for doing your own work, busily going in and out of the city gates on your self-important business, then I’ll burn the gates down. In fact, I’ll burn the whole city down, palaces and all, with a fire nobody will be able to put out!’ ”

To Worship the Big Lie

^1–218God told Jeremiah, “Up on your feet! Go to the potter’s house. When you get there, I’ll tell you what I have to say.”

^3–4So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.

^5–10Then God’s Message came to me: “Can’t I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?” God’s Decree! “Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel. At any moment I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them. But if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them. At another time I might decide to plant a people or country, but if they don’t cooperate and won’t listen to me, I will think again and give up on the plans I had for them.

¹¹“So, tell the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem my Message: ‘Danger! I’m shaping doom against you, laying plans against you. Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives.’

¹²“But they’ll just say, ‘Why should we? What’s the point? We’ll live just the way we’ve always lived, doom or no doom.’ ”

^13–17God’s Message:

“Ask around.

Survey the godless nations.

Has anyone heard the likes of this?

Virgin Israel has become a slut!

Does snow disappear from the Lebanon peaks?

Do alpine streams run dry?

But my people have left me

to worship the Big Lie.

They’ve gotten off the track,

the old, well-worn trail,

And now bushwhack through underbrush

in a tangle of roots and vines.

Their land’s going to end up a mess—

a fool’s memorial to be spit on.

Travelers passing through

will shake their heads in disbelief.

I’ll scatter my people before their enemies,

like autumn leaves in a high wind.

On their day of doom, they’ll stare at my back as I walk away,

catching not so much as a glimpse of my face.”

¹⁸Some of the people said, “Come on, let’s cook up a plot against Jeremiah. We’ll still have the priests to teach us the law, wise counselors to give us advice, and prophets to tell us what God has to say. Come on, let’s discredit him so we don’t have to put up with him any…