Chapter 16

Distresses Foretold

1 The 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.”

3 For 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.”

5 For 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.”

9 For 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,’

15 but, ‘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.”

19 O 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.”

20 Can 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.”