Jeremiah 17–19

Chapter 17

¹“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, ²while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree, and on the high hills, ³on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your sin throughout all your territory. ⁴You shall loosen your hand from your heritage which I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled which shall burn for ever.”

⁵Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his arm,

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

⁶He is like a shrub in the desert,

and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in an uninhabited salt land.

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

whose trust is the Lord.

⁸He 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 corrupt;

who can understand it?

¹⁰“I the Lord search the mind

and try the heart,

to give to every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his doings.”

¹¹Like the partridge that gathers a brood which she did not hatch,

so is he who gets riches but not by right;

in the midst of his days they will leave him,

and 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, the hope of Israel,

all who forsake thee shall be put to shame;

those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth,

for they have forsaken the Lord,

the fountain of living water.

¹⁴Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;

save me, and I shall be saved;

for thou art my praise.

¹⁵Behold, they say to me,

“Where is the word of the Lord?

Let it come!”

¹⁶I have not pressed thee to send evil,

nor have I desired the day of disaster,

thou knowest;

that which came out of my lips

was before thy face.

¹⁷Be not a terror to me;

thou art my refuge in the day of evil.

¹⁸Let those be put to shame who persecute me,

but let me not be put to shame;

let them be dismayed,

but let me not be dismayed;

bring upon them the day of evil;

destroy them with double destruction!

¹⁹Thus said the Lord to me: “Go and stand in the Benjamin Gate, by which the 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, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. ²¹Thus says the Lord: Take heed for the sake of your lives, and do 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 or do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. ²³Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, that they might not hear and receive instruction.

²⁴“ ‘But if you listen to me, says the Lord, and bring in no burden by the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but keep the sabbath day holy and do no work on it, ²⁵then there shall enter by the gates of this city kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall be inhabited for ever. ²⁶And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places round about Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Shephelah, from the hill country, and from the Negeb, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, cereal offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of the Lord. ²⁷But if you do not listen to me, to keep the sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.’ ”

Chapter 18

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he 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, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the Lord. Behold, 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 pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. ⁹And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good which 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 evil against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.’

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

¹³“Therefore thus says the Lord:

Ask among the nations,

who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel

has done a very horrible thing.

¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon leave

the crags of Sirion?

Do the mountain waters run dry,

the cold flowing streams?

¹⁵But my people have forgotten me,

they burn incense to false gods;

they have stumbled in their ways,

in the ancient roads,

and have gone into bypaths,

not the highway,

¹⁶making their land a horror,

a thing to be hissed at for ever.

Every one who passes by it is horrified

and shakes his head.

¹⁷Like the east wind I will scatter them

before the enemy.

I will show them my back, not my face,

in the day of their calamity.”

¹⁸Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not heed any of his words.”

¹⁹Give heed to me, O Lord,

and hearken to my plea.

²⁰Is evil a recompense for good?

Yet they have dug a pit for my life.

Remember how I stood before thee

to speak good for them,

to turn away thy wrath from them.

²¹Therefore deliver up their children to famine;

give them over to the power of the sword,

let their wives become childless and widowed.

May their men meet death by pestilence,

their youths be slain by the sword in battle.

²²May a cry be heard from their houses,

when thou bringest the marauder suddenly upon them!

For they have dug a pit to take me,

and laid snares for my feet.

²³Yet, thou, O Lord, knowest

all their plotting to slay me.

Forgive not their iniquity,

nor blot out their sin from thy sight.

Let them be overthrown before thee;

deal with them in the time of thine anger.

Chapter 19

¹Thus said the Lord, “Go, buy a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, ²and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. ³You shall say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle. ⁴Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind; ⁶therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter. ⁷And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. ⁸And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; every one who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. ⁹And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’

¹⁰“Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you, ¹¹and shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. ¹²Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses upon whose roofs incense has been burned to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’ ”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house, and said to all the people: ¹⁵“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon…