Jeremiah 15–17

Chapter 15

Judgment Must Come

¹Then the Lord said to me, “Even ^athough ^bMoses and ^cSamuel were to ^dstand before Me, My ¹heart would not be ²with this people; ^esend them away from My presence and let them go!

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

“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 the Lord: “the sword to slay, the ^bdogs to drag off, and the ^cbirds of the sky and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

⁴“I will ^amake them an object of horror 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 have ^apity on you, O Jerusalem,

Or who will ^bmourn for you,

Or who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?

⁶“You who have ^aforsaken Me,” declares the Lord,

“You keep ^bgoing backward.

So I will ^cstretch out My hand against you and destroy you;

I am ^dtired of relenting!

⁷“I will ^awinnow them with a winnowing fork

At the gates of the land;

I will ^bbereave them of children, I will destroy My people;

^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 young man,

A ^bdestroyer at noonday;

I will suddenly bring down on her

Anguish and dismay.

⁹“She who ^abore seven sons pines away;

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 the Lord.

^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.

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

Surely I will cause the ^benemy to make supplication to 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 booty ^bwithout cost,

Even for all your sins

And within all your borders.

¹⁴“Then I will cause your enemies to bring ¹it

Into a ^aland you do not know;

For a ^bfire has been kindled in My anger,

It will burn upon you.”

Jeremiah’s Prayer and God’s Answer

^15aYou who know, O Lord,

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 a joy and the delight of my heart;

For I have been ^ccalled by Your name,

O Lord 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?

¹⁹Therefore, thus says the Lord,

“^aIf you return, then I will restore you—

^bBefore Me you will stand;

And ^cif you extract the precious from the worthless,

You will become ¹My spokesman.

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 though they fight against you,

They will not prevail over you;

For ^bI am with you to save you

And deliver you,” declares the Lord.

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

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

Chapter 16

Distresses Foretold

¹The word of the Lord 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 the Lord 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 the Lord, “Do not enter a house of ^1amourning, or go to lament or to console them; for I have ^bwithdrawn My peace from this people,” declares the Lord, “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 consolation 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 the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I am going to ^1aeliminate from this place, before your eyes and in your time, 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 the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’

¹¹“Then you are to say to them, ‘It is ^abecause your forefathers have forsaken Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and have followed ^bother gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.

¹²‘You too have done evil, even ^amore than your forefathers; 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.’

God Will Restore Them

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

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

¹⁶“Behold, I am going to send for many ^afishermen,” declares the Lord, “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 clefts 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 ^bpolluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their ^cdetestable idols and with their abominations.”

¹⁹O Lord, my ^astrength and my stronghold,

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 ^dfalsehood,

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 the Lord.”

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 booty,

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 the Lord,

“^aCursed is the man who trusts in mankind

And makes ^bflesh his ¹strength,

And whose heart turns away from the Lord.

⁶“For he will be like a ^abush in the desert

And will not see when prosperity comes,

But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,

A ^bland of salt ¹without inhabitant.

⁷“^aBlessed is the man who trusts in the Lord

And whose ^btrust is the Lord.

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

That extends 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 cease to yield fruit.

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

And is desperately ^csick;

Who can understand it?

¹⁰“I, the Lord, ^asearch the heart,

I test the ¹mind,

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

According to the ²results 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 ^bfool.”

^12aA glorious throne on high from the beginning

Is the place of our sanctuary.

¹³O Lord, 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 the Lord.

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

^bSave me and I will be saved,

For You are my ^cpraise.

¹⁵Look, they keep ^asaying to me,

“Where is the word of the Lord?

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 woeful 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 disaster.

¹⁸Let those who persecute me be ^aput to shame, but as for me, ^blet me not be put to shame;

Let them be dismayed, but let me…