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Jeremiah 1
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The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who
were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:
to whom the word of Yahweh came in the days of
Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of
his reign.
It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of
Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive
in the fifth month.
Now the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you. Before you came
forth out of the womb, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a
prophet to the nations.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, I don’t
know how to speak; for I am a child.”
But Yahweh said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for to
whoever I shall send you, you shall go, and whatever I shall
command you, you shall speak.
Don’t be afraid because of them; for I am with you to deliver
you,” says Yahweh.
Then Yahweh put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and Yahweh
said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the
kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to
overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what
do you see?”
I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
Then Yahweh said to me, “You have seen well; for I watch over my
word to perform it.”
The word of Yahweh came to me the second time, saying, “What do
you see?”
I said, “I see a boiling caldron; and it is tipping away from
the north.”
Then Yahweh said to me, “Out of the north evil will break out on
all the inhabitants of the land.
For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the
north,” says Yahweh; “and they shall come, and they shall each
set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and
against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of
Judah.
I will utter my judgments against them touching all their
wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have burned
incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own
hands.
“You therefore put your belt on your waist, arise, and speak to
them all that I command you. Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I
dismay you before them.
For, behold, I have made you this day a fortified city, and an
iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against
the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests,
and against the people of the land.
They will fight against you; but they will not prevail against
you; for I am with you,” says Yahweh, “to deliver you.”
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1:2 “Yahweh” is God’s proper
Name, sometimes rendered “LORD” (all caps) in other
translations.
1:6 The word translated
“Lord” is “Adonai.”
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Jeremiah 2 |
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The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
“Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says
Yahweh, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the
love of your weddings; how you went after me in the
wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
Israel was holiness to Yahweh, the first fruits of
his increase. All who devour him shall be held guilty. Evil
shall come on them,”’ says Yahweh.”
Hear the word of Yahweh, O house of Jacob, and all the
families of the house of Israel!
Thus says Yahweh, “What unrighteousness have your fathers
found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have
walked after vanity, and are become vain?
Neither did they say, ‘Where is Yahweh who brought us up out
of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness,
through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of
drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none
passed through, and where no man lived?’
I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat its fruit and
its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and
made my heritage an abomination.
The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who
handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed
against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked
after things that do not profit.
“Therefore I will yet contend with you,” says Yahweh, “and I
will contend with your children’s children.
For pass over to the islands of Kittim, and see; and send to
Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if there has been
such a thing.
Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no
gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which
does not profit.
“Be astonished, you heavens, at this, and be horribly
afraid. Be very desolate,” says Yahweh.
“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken
me, the spring of living waters, and cut them out cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
Is Israel a servant? Is he a native-born slave? Why
has he become a prey?
The young lions have roared at him, and yelled. They have
made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without
inhabitant.
The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the
crown of your head.
“Haven’t you procured this to yourself, in that you have
forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you
by the way?
Now what have you to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the
waters of the Shihor? Or what have you to do in the way to
Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
“Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backsliding
shall reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil
thing and a bitter, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God,
and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of
Armies.
“For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your
bonds; and you said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high
hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing
the prostitute.
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How
then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a
foreign vine to me?
For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap,
yet your iniquity is marked before me,” says the Lord
Yahweh.
“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after
the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have
done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that snuffs up the
wind in her desire. When she is in heat, who can turn her
away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves. In
her month, they will find her.
“Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from
thirst. But you said, ‘It is in vain. No, for I have loved
strangers, and I will go after them.’
As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of
Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their
priests, and their prophets;
who tell wood, ‘You are my father;’ and a stone, ‘You have
brought me out:’ for they have turned their back to me, and
not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will
say, ‘Arise, and save us.’
“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves?
Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your
trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your
gods, Judah.
“Why will you contend with me? You all have transgressed
against me,” says Yahweh.
“I have struck your children in vain. They received no
correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like
a destroying lion.
Generation, consider the word of Yahweh. Have I been a
wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my
people say, ‘We have broken loose. We will come to you no
more?’
“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.
How well you prepare your way to seek love! Therefore you
have taught even the wicked women your ways.
Also the blood of the souls of the innocent poor is found in
your skirts. You did not find them breaking in; but it is
because of all these things.
“Yet you said, ‘I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned
away from me.’
“Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not
sinned.’
Why do you go about so much to change your way? You will be
ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.
From there also you shall go forth, with your hands on your
head; for Yahweh has rejected those in whom you trust, and
you shall not prosper with them.
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2:17 The
Hebrew word rendered “God” is “Elohim.”
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Jeremiah 3 |
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“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from
him, and become another man’s, will he return to her again?’
Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played
the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says
Yahweh.
“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have
you not been lain with? You have sat for them by the ways, as
an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with
your prostitution and with your wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been
no latter rain; yet you have a prostitute’s forehead, you
refused to be ashamed.
Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the
guide of my youth?’
“‘Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to
the end?’ Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things,
and have had your way.”
Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king,
“Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has
gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and
there has played the prostitute.
I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return
to me;’ but she didn’t return; and her treacherous sister
Judah saw it.
I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had
committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of
divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, didn’t fear; but
she also went and played the prostitute.
It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that
the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones
and with stocks.
Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not
returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,”
says Yahweh.
Yahweh said to me, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more
righteous than treacherous Judah.
Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say,
‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says Yahweh; ‘I will not
look in anger on you; for I am merciful,’ says Yahweh. ‘I will
not keep anger forever.
Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed
against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the
strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my
voice,’ says Yahweh.”
“Return, backsliding children,” says Yahweh; “for I am a
husband to you. I will take you one of a city, and two of a
family, and I will bring you to Zion.
I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who shall
feed you with knowledge and understanding.
It shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased
in the land, in those days,” says Yahweh, “they shall say no
more, ‘The ark of the covenant of Yahweh!’ neither shall it
come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall
they miss it; neither shall it be made any more.
At that time they shall call Jerusalem ‘The throne of Yahweh;’
and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of
Yahweh, to Jerusalem. Neither shall they walk any more after
the stubbornness of their evil heart.
In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of
Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the
north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your
fathers.
“But I said, ‘How I would put you among the children, and give
you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the
nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father,” and
shall not turn away from following me.’
“Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so
you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel,” says
Yahweh.
A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and
the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have
perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.
Return, you backsliding children, I will heal your
backsliding.
“Behold, we have come to you; for you are Yahweh our God.
Truly in vain is the help that is looked for from the
hills, the tumult on the mountains. Truly the salvation of
Israel is in Yahweh our God.
But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers
from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and
their daughters.
Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us;
for we have sinned against Yahweh our God, we and our fathers,
from our youth even to this day. We have not obeyed the voice
of Yahweh our God.”
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Jeremiah 4 |
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“If you will return, Israel,” says Yahweh, “if you will return
to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my
sight; then you shall not be removed;
and you shall swear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ in truth, in justice,
and in righteousness. The nations shall bless themselves in
him, and in him shall they glory.”
For thus says Yahweh to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,
“Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins
of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;
lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can
quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the
trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves!
Let us go into the fortified cities!’
Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait;
for I will bring evil from the north, and a great
destruction.”
A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of
nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to
make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste,
without inhabitant.
For this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for
the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us.
“It shall happen at that day,” says Yahweh, “that the heart of
the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the
priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely you have greatly
deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall have
peace;’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart.”
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem,
“A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the
daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;
a full wind from these shall come for me. Now I will also
utter judgments against them.”
Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall
be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us! For we are ruined.
Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be
saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes evil from the
hills of Ephraim:
“Tell the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem,
‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice
against the cities of Judah.
As keepers of a field, they are against her all around,
because she has been rebellious against me,’” says Yahweh.
“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you.
This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to
your heart.”
My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart
is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have
heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
Destruction on destruction is cried; for the whole land is
laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my
curtains in a moment.
How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the
trumpet?
“For my people are foolish, they don’t know me. They are
foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are
skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no
knowledge.”
I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the
heavens, and they had no light.
I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the
hills moved back and forth.
I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the
sky had fled.
I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and
all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh,
and before his fierce anger.
For thus says Yahweh, “The whole land shall be a desolation;
yet will I not make a full end.
For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black;
because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not
repented, neither will I turn back from it.”
Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers;
they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every
city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.
You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you
clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with
ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in
vain do you make yourself beautiful; your lovers
despise you, they seek your life.
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish
as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the
daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands,
saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the
murderers.”
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Jeremiah 5 |
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“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see
now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can
find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth;
and I will pardon her.
Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives;’ surely they swear falsely.”
O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them,
but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have
refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder
than a rock. They have refused to return.
Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they
don’t know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God.
I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they
know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these
with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of
the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against
their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in
pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their
backsliding is increased.
“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn
by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they
committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the
prostitutes’ houses.
They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after
his neighbor’s wife.
Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says Yahweh; “and
shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
“Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end.
Take away her branches; for they are not Yahweh’s.
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very
treacherously against me,” says Yahweh.
They have denied Yahweh, and said, “It is not he; neither shall
evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine.
The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them.
Thus shall it be done to them.”
Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Armies, “Because you
speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth
fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Israel,”
says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a
nation whose language you don’t know, neither understand what
they say.
Their quiver is an open tomb, they are all mighty men.
They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which
your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your
flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig
trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you
trust, with the sword.
“But even in those days,” says Yahweh, “I will not make a full
end with you.
It will happen, when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all
these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just like you
have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you
shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
“Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah,
saying,
‘Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who
have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear:
Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at my
presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by
a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves
toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet
they can’t pass over it.’
“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they
have revolted and gone.
Neither do they say in their heart, ‘Let us now fear Yahweh our
God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its
season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’
“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins
have withheld good from you.
For among my people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers
lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men.
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit.
Therefore they have become great, and grew rich.
They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of
wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the
fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t judge the
right of the needy.
“Shall I not punish for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shall not
my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own
authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in
the end of it?
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Jeremiah 6 |
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“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the midst
of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a
signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks forth from the north,
and a great destruction.
The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I cut
off.
Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall
pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed
everyone in his place.”
“Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe
to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening
are stretched out.
Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her
palaces.”
For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a
mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she
is wholly oppression in the midst of her.
As a well casts forth its waters, so she casts forth her
wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before
me continually is sickness and wounds.
Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you;
lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.”
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, “They shall thoroughly glean the
remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape
gatherer into the baskets.”
To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold,
their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, the
word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them. They have no
delight in it.
Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahweh. I am weary with
holding in.
“Pour it out on the children in the street,
and on the assembly of young men together;
for even the husband with the wife shall be taken,
the aged with him who is full of days.
Their houses shall be turned to others,
their fields and their wives together;
for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the
land, says Yahweh.”
“For from the least of them even to the greatest of them,
everyone is given to covetousness;
and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals
falsely.
They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially,
saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they
blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down,”
says Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the
old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you
will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not
walk in it.’
I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the
trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’
Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is
among them.
Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even
the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to
my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.
To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and
the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are
not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.”
Therefore thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I will lay stumbling
blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together
shall stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend shall
perish.”
Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, a people comes from the north
country. A great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost
parts of the earth.
They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no
mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on
horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against
you, daughter of Zion.”
We have heard its report; our hands wax feeble: anguish has
taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman in travail.
Don’t go forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the
sword of the enemy, and terror, are on every side.
Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and
wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter
lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
“I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress
among my people; that you may know and try their way.
They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they
are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly.
The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire:
in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked
away.
Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has
rejected them.”
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Jeremiah 7 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim there this
word, and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who
enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways
and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
Don’t trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, the
temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these.
For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you
thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the
widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, neither
walk after other gods to your own hurt:
then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that
I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.
Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t profit.
Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods
that you have not known,
and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by
my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these
abominations?
Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of
robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says
Yahweh.
But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my
name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the
wickedness of my people Israel.
Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I
spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t
hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer:
therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name,
in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and
to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your
brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up a cry
nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I
will not hear you.
Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the
streets of Jerusalem?
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and
the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the
sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they
may provoke me to anger.
Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; do they not
provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own
faces?
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my
wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on
animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the
ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt
offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
For I didn’t speak to your fathers, nor command them in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt offerings or sacrifices:
but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice,
and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk
in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with
you.
But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in
their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their
evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of
Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the
prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
yet they didn’t listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made
their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.
You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not
listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not
answer you.
You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened
to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction:
truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
Cut off your hair, Jerusalem, and cast it away, and
take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has
rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my
sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the
house which is called by my name, to defile it.
They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the
valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their
daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come
into my mind.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall
no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of
Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in
Topheth, until there be no place to bury.
The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of
the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall
frighten them away.
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from
the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the
bride; for the land shall become a waste.
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Jeremiah 8 |
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At that time, says Yahweh, they shall bring out the bones
of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the
bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the
bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;
and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and
all the army of the sky, which they have loved, and which they
have served, and after which they have walked, and which they
have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be
gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface
of the earth.
Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that
remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places
where I have driven them, says Yahweh of Armies.
Moreover you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Shall men
fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not
return?
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a
perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to
return.
I listened and heard, but they didn’t speak aright: no man
repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?
everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong
in the battle.
Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the
turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of
their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.
How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us?
But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely.
The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken:
behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what kind
of wisdom is in them?
Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields
to those who shall possess them: for everyone from the least
even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the
prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely.
They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay,
they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush:
therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of
their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahweh.
I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh: no grapes shall be
on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall
fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass
away from them.
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter
into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for
Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of
gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.
We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time
of healing, and behold, dismay!
The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of
the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for
they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in
it; the city and those who dwell therein.
For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which
will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says Yahweh.
Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is
faint within me.
Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from
a land that is very far off: isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her
King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their
engraved images, and with foreign vanities?
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not
saved.
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn;
dismay has taken hold on me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why
then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered? |
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Jeremiah 9 |
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Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears,
that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter
of my people!
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring
men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they
are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
They bend their tongue, as it were their bow, for
falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for
truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know
me, says Yahweh.
Take heed everyone of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any
brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every
neighbor will go about with slanders.
They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak
the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they
weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they
refuse to know me, says Yahweh.
Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will melt
them, and try them; for how else should I do, because
of the daughter of my people?
Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks
peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he
lays wait for him.
Shall I not visit them for these things? says Yahweh; shall
not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and
for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they
are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men
hear the voice of the livestock; both the birds of the sky and
the animals are fled, they are gone.
I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and
I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without
inhabitant.
Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is
he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare
it? why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness,
so that none passes through?
Yahweh says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set
before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked
therein,
but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and
after the Baals, which their fathers taught them;
therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and
give them water of gall to drink.
I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they
nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after
them, until I have consumed them.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Consider, and call for the
mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful
women, that they may come:
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that
our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out
with waters.
For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we
ruined! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken
the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.
Yet hear the word of Yahweh, you women, and let your ear
receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters
wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.
For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our
palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the
young men from the streets.
Speak, Thus says Yahweh, The dead bodies of men shall fall as
dung on the open field, and as the handful after the
harvester; and none shall gather them.
Thus says Yahweh, Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom,
neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don’t let the
rich man glory in his riches;
but let him who glories glory in this, that he has
understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises
loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for
in these things I delight, says Yahweh.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all
those who are circumcised in their uncircumcision:
Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and
Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut
off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are
uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised
in heart. |
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Jeremiah 10 |
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Hear the word which Yahweh speaks to you, house of Israel!
Thus says Yahweh, “Don’t learn the way of the nations, and
don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are
dismayed at them.
For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree
out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with
the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with
nails and with hammers, that it not move.
They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak:
they must be carried, because they can’t go. Don’t be afraid
of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do
good.”
There is none like you, Yahweh; you are great, and your name
is great in might.
Who should not fear you, King of the nations? For it
appertains to you; because among all the wise men of the
nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like
you.
But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of
idols! it is but a stock.
There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from
Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and
of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their
clothing; they are all the work of skillful men.
But Yahweh is the true God; he is the living God, and an
everlasting King: at his wrath the earth trembles, and the
nations are not able to withstand his indignation.
You shall say this to them: The gods that have not made the
heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and
from under the heavens.
He has made the earth by his power, he has established the
world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched
out the heavens:
when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the
heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of
the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth
the wind out of his treasuries.
Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge;
every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his
molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their
visitation they shall perish.
The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former
of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance:
Yahweh of Armies is his name.
Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under
siege.
For thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants
of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they
may feel it.
Woe is me because of my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I
said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.
My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my children
are gone forth from me, and they are no more: there is none to
spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of
Yahweh: therefore they have not prospered, and all their
flocks are scattered.
The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out
of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a
desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.
Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is
not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Yahweh, correct me, but in measure: not in your anger, lest
you bring me to nothing.
Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on
the families that don’t call on your name: for they have
devoured Jacob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him,
and have laid waste his habitation.
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Jeremiah 11 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah,
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
and say to them, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Cursed is
the man who doesn’t hear the words of this covenant,
which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them
forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying,
Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command
you: so you shall be my people, and I will be your God;
that I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to
give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.
Then answered I, and said, Amen, Yahweh.
Yahweh said to me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of
Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear the words
of this covenant, and do them.
For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I
brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day,
rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.
Yet they didn’t obey, nor turn their ear, but walked everyone in
the stubbornness of their evil heart: therefore I brought on
them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to
do, but they didn’t do them.
Yahweh said to me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah,
and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who
refused to hear my words; and they are gone after other gods to
serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have
broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.
Therefore thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will bring evil on them,
which they shall not be able to escape; and they shall cry to
me, but I will not listen to them.
Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense: but they
will not save them at all in the time of their trouble.
For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah;
and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you
set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense
to Baal.
Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up cry nor
prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they
cry to me because of their trouble.
What has my beloved to do in my house, since she has worked
lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from
you? when you do evil, then you rejoice.
Yahweh called your name, A green olive tree, beautiful with
goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he has kindled
fire on it, and its branches are broken.
For Yahweh of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil
against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of
the house of Judah, which they have worked for themselves in
provoking me to anger by offering incense to Baal.
Yahweh gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then you showed
me their doings.
But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter; and I
didn’t know that they had devised devices against me, saying,
Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off
from the land of the living, that his name may be no more
remembered.
But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously, who tests the
heart and the mind, I shall see your vengeance on them; for to
you have I revealed my cause.
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the men of Anathoth, who
seek your life, saying, You shall not prophesy in the name of
Yahweh, that you not die by our hand;
therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will punish
them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their
daughters shall die by famine;
and there shall be no remnant to them: for I will bring evil on
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Jeremiah 12 |
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You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I
would reason the cause with you: why does the way of the wicked
prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?
You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow,
yes, they bring forth fruit: you are near in their mouth, and
far from their heart.
But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and try my heart toward
you: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare
them for the day of slaughter.
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole
country wither? for the wickedness of those who dwell therein,
the animals are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He
shall not see our latter end.
If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
then how can you contend with horses? and though in a land of
peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the
Jordan?
For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they
have dealt treacherously with you; even they have cried aloud
after you: don’t believe them, though they speak beautiful words
to you.
I have forsaken my house, I have cast off my heritage; I have
given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her
enemies.
My heritage is become to me as a lion in the forest: she has
uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her.
Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds
of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the animals of
the field, bring them to devour.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my
portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a
desolate wilderness.
They have made it a desolation; it mourns to me, being desolate;
the whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to
heart.
Destroyers are come on all the bare heights in the wilderness;
for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land
even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.
They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put
themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and you shall be ashamed
of your fruits, because of the fierce anger of Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh against all my evil neighbors, who touch the
inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit:
behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck
up the house of Judah from among them.
It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will
return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again,
every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
It shall happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my
people, to swear by my name, As Yahweh lives; even as they
taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up
in the midst of my people.
But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation,
plucking up and destroying it, says Yahweh. |
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Jeremiah 13 |
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Thus says Yahweh to me, Go, and buy yourself a linen belt,
and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water.
So I bought a belt according to the word of Yahweh, and put it
on my waist.
The word of Yahweh came to me the second time, saying,
Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist,
and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft
of the rock.
So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded
me.
It happened after many days, that Yahweh said to me, Arise, go
to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I
commanded you to hide there.
Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from
the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was
marred, it was profitable for nothing.
Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
Thus says Yahweh, In this way I will mar the pride of Judah,
and the great pride of Jerusalem.
This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the
stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to
serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this belt,
which is profitable for nothing.
For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so have I caused
to cling to me the whole house of Israel and the whole house
of Judah, says Yahweh; that they may be to me for a people,
and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they
would not hear.
Therefore you shall speak to them this word: Thus says Yahweh,
the God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and
they shall tell you, Do we not certainly know that every
bottle shall be filled with wine?
Then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will
fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit
on David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the
sons together, says Yahweh: I will not pity, nor spare, nor
have compassion, that I should not destroy them.
Hear, and give ear; don’t be proud; for Yahweh has spoken.
Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and
before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and, while you
look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and
makes it gross darkness.
But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for
your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run
down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock is taken captive.
Say to the king and to the queen mother, Humble yourselves,
sit down; for your headdresses have come down, even the crown
of your glory.
The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open
them: Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly
carried away captive.
Lift up your eyes, and see those who come from the north:
where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock?
What will you say, when he shall set over you as head those
whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? shall not
sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?
If you say in your heart, Why are these things come on me? for
the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and
your heels suffer violence.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.
Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passes
away, by the wind of the wilderness.
This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me, says
Yahweh; because you have forgotten me, and trusted in
falsehood.
Therefore will I also uncover your skirts on your face, and
your shame shall appear.
I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your
neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in
the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean;
how long shall it yet be?
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Jeremiah 14
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The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.
Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the
ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.
Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to
the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels
empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their
heads.
Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been
in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their
heads.
Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her
young, because there is no grass.
The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air
like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.
Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s
sake, Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned
against you.
You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why
should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man
who turns aside to stay for a night?
Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t
save? Yet you, Yahweh, are in the midst of us, and we are called
by your name; don’t leave us.
Thus says Yahweh to this people, Even so have they loved to
wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahweh
does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity, and
visit their sins.
Yahweh said to me, Don’t pray for this people for their
good.
When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer
burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I
will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the
pestilence.
Then I said, Ah, Lord Yahweh! behold, the prophets tell them,
You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but
I will give you assured peace in this place.
Then Yahweh said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I
didn’t send them, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I
to them: they prophesy to you a lying vision, and divination,
and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart.
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who prophesy
in my name, and I didn’t send them, yet they say, Sword and
famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall
those prophets be consumed.
The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the
streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and
they shall have none to bury them—them, their wives, nor their
sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on
them.
You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears
night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter
of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous
wound.
If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the
sword! and if I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are
sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about
in the land, and have no knowledge.
Have you utterly rejected Judah? has your soul loathed Zion? why
have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked
for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and
behold, dismay!
We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our
fathers; for we have sinned against you.
Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake; do not disgrace
the throne of your glory: remember, don’t break your covenant
with us.
Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause
rain? or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our
God? therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these
things. |
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Jeremiah 15 |
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Then Yahweh said to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before
me, yet my mind would not be toward this people: cast them out
of my sight, and let them go forth.
It shall happen, when they tell you, Where shall we go forth?
Then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Such as are for
death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword;
and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are
for captivity, to captivity.
I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahweh: the sword to
kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the
animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the
kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of
Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? or who will bemoan
you? or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare?
You have rejected me, says Yahweh, you have gone backward:
therefore have I stretched out my hand against you, and
destroyed you; I am weary with repenting.
I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I
have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my
people; they didn’t return from their ways.
Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I
have brought on them against the mother of the young men a
destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to
fall on her suddenly.
She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the
spirit; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she has
been disappointed and confounded: and the residue of them will
I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says Yahweh.
Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me a man of strife
and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent,
neither have men lent to me; yet everyone of them does
curse me.
Yahweh said, Most certainly I will strengthen you for good;
most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to
you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?
Your substance and your treasures will I give for a spoil
without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your
borders.
I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land
which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which
shall burn on you.
Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of
my persecutors; don’t take me away in your longsuffering: know
that for your sake I have suffered reproach.
Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to
me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by
your name, Yahweh, God of Armies.
I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry, nor
rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand; for you have
filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which
refuses to be healed? will you indeed be to me as a deceitful
brook, as waters that fail?
Therefore thus says Yahweh, If you return, then will I bring
you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take forth
the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth: they
shall return to you, but you shall not return to them.
I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and
they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail
against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you,
says Yahweh.
I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will
redeem you out of the hand of the terrible. |
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Jeremiah 16 |
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The word of Yahweh came also to me, saying,
You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or
daughters, in this place.
For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and concerning the
daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their
mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became
the father of them in this land:
They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented,
neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the
surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the
sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for
the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.
For thus says Yahweh, Don’t enter into the house of mourning,
neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken
away my peace from this people, says Yahweh, even loving
kindness and tender mercies.
Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be
buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves,
nor make themselves bald for them;
neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to
comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup
of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them,
to eat and to drink.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I
will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in
your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the
voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these
words, and they shall tell you, Why has Yahweh pronounced all
this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what
is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?
Then you shall tell them, Because your fathers have forsaken
me, says Yahweh, and have walked after other gods, and have
served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me,
and have not kept my law;
and you have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold,
you walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart,
so that you don’t listen to me:
therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land
that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and
there you shall serve other gods day and night; for I will
show you no favor.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall
no more be said, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children
of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
but, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel
from the land of the north, and from all the countries where
he had driven them. I will bring them again into their land
that I gave to their fathers.
Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says Yahweh, and they
shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many
hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and
from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my
face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double,
because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their
detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their
abominations.
Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the
day of affliction, to you shall the nations come from the ends
of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inherited
nothing but lies, even vanity and things in which there
is no profit.
Shall a man make to himself gods, which yet are no gods?
Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I
cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know
that my name is Yahweh. |
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Jeremiah 17 |
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The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and
with the point of a diamond: it is engraved on the tablet of
their heart, and on the horns of your altars;
while their children remember their altars and their Asherim
by the green trees on the high hills.
My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all
your treasures for a spoil, and your high places,
because of sin, throughout all your borders.
You, even of yourself, shall discontinue from your heritage
that I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in
the land which you don’t know: for you have kindled a fire in
my anger which shall burn forever.
Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and
makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not
see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in
the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.
Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust
Yahweh is.
For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads
out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat
comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful
in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding
fruit.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly
corrupt: who can know it?
I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give
every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his
doings.
As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not
laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst
of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a
fool.
A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is
the place of our sanctuary.
Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be
disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the
earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living
waters.
Heal me, O Yahweh, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall
be saved: for you are my praise.
Behold, they tell me, Where is the word of Yahweh? let it come
now.
As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you;
neither have I desired the woeful day; you know: that which
came out of my lips was before your face.
Don’t be a terror to me: you are my refuge in the day of evil.
Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be
disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be
dismayed; bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with
double destruction.
Thus said Yahweh to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the
children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come
in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of
Jerusalem;
and tell them, Hear the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah,
and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that
enter in by these gates:
Thus says Yahweh, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden
on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath
day holy, neither do any work: but make the Sabbath day, as I
commanded your fathers.
But they didn’t listen, neither turn their ear, but made their
neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive
instruction.
It shall happen, if you diligently listen to me, says Yahweh,
to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the
Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work
therein;
then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and
princes sitting 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 remain forever.
They shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places
around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the
lowland, and from the hill country, and from the South,
bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meal offerings,
and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of
thanksgiving, to the house of Yahweh.
But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy,
and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of
Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in its
gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it
shall not be quenched. |
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Jeremiah 18 |
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The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause
you to hear my words.
Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was
making a work on the wheels.
When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand
of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good
to the potter to make it.
Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter? says
Yahweh. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in
my hand, house of Israel.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to
destroy it;
if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their
evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and
concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they not obey my
voice, then I will repent of the good, with which I said I would
benefit them.
Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I frame evil
against you, and devise a device against you: return you now
everyone from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
But they say, It is in vain; for we will walk after our own
devices, and we will do everyone after the stubbornness of his
evil heart.
Therefore thus says Yahweh: Ask now among the nations, who has
heard such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very horrible
thing.
Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or
shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?
For my people have forgotten me, they have burned incense to
false gods; and they have been made to stumble in their
ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not
built up;
to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing;
everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his
head.
I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I
will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their
calamity.
Then they said, Come, and let us devise devices against
Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor
counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and
let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to
any of his words.
Give heed to me, Yahweh, and listen to the voice of those who
contend with me.
Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have dug a pit for
my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them
over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become
childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death,
and their young men struck of the sword in battle.
Let a cry be heard from their houses, when you shall bring a
troop suddenly on them; for they have dug a pit to take me, and
hid snares for my feet.
Yet, Yahweh, you know all their counsel against me to kill me;
don’t forgive their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from
your sight; but let them be overthrown before you; deal you with
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Jeremiah 19 |
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Thus said Yahweh, Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and
take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of
the priests;
and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by
the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words
that I shall tell you;
and say, Hear the word of Yahweh, kings of Judah, and
inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God
of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which
whoever hears, his ears shall tingle.
Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place,
and have burned incense in it to other gods, that they didn’t
know, they and their fathers and the kings of Judah; and have
filled this place with the blood of innocents,
and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in
the fire for burnt offerings to Baal; which I didn’t command,
nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind:
therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that this place
shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of
Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter.
I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this
place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their
enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life: and
their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the
sky, and for the animals of the earth.
I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone
who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all
its plagues.
I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh
of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of
his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their
enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them.
Then you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who go
with you,
and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Even so will
I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s
vessel, that can’t be made whole again; and they shall bury in
Topheth, until there be no place to bury.
Thus will I do to this place, says Yahweh, and to its
inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth:
and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of
Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth,
even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to
all the army of the sky, and have poured out drink offerings
to other gods.
Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to
prophesy; and he stood in the court of Yahweh’s house, and
said to all the people:
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Behold, I will
bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I
have pronounced against it; because they have made their neck
stiff, that they may not hear my words. |
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Jeremiah 20 |
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Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief
officer in the house of Yahweh, heard Jeremiah prophesying
these things.
Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the
stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in
the house of Yahweh.
It happened on the next day, that Pashhur brought forth
Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, Yahweh
has not called your name Pashhur, but Magormissabib.
For thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will make you a terror to
yourself, and to all your friends; and they shall fall by the
sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it; and I will
give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he
shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall kill them with
the sword.
Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its
gains, and all the precious things of it, yes, all the
treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of
their enemies; and they shall make them a prey, and take them,
and carry them to Babylon.
You, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house shall go into
captivity; and you shall come to Babylon, and there you shall
die, and there you shall be buried, you, and all your friends,
to whom you have prophesied falsely.
Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded; you are
stronger than I, and have prevailed: I am become a
laughing-stock all the day, every one mocks me.
For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and
destruction! because the word of Yahweh is made a reproach to
me, and a derision, all the day.
If I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more
in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning
fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and
I can’t contain.
For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side.
Denounce, and we will denounce him, say all my familiar
friends, those who watch for my fall; perhaps he will be
persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take
our revenge on him.
But Yahweh is with me as an awesome mighty one: therefore my
persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they
shall be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt
wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which shall never be
forgotten.
But, Yahweh of Armies, who tests the righteous, who sees the
heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them; for to
you have I revealed my cause.
Sing to Yahweh, praise Yahweh; for he has delivered the soul
of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Cursed is the day in which I was born: don’t let the day in
which my mother bore me be blessed.
Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, A boy
is born to you; making him very glad.
Let that man be as the cities which Yahweh overthrew, and
didn’t repent: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and
shouting at noontime;
because he didn’t kill me from the womb; and so my mother
would have been my grave, and her womb always great.
Why came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that
my days should be consumed with shame?
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Jeremiah 21 |
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The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when king
Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and
Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,
Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon makes war against us: perhaps Yahweh will deal with us
according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from
us.
Then Jeremiah said to them, You shall tell Zedekiah:
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back
the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you
fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans
who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them
into the midst of this city.
I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and
with a strong arm, even in anger, and in wrath, and in great
indignation.
I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and
animal: they shall die of a great pestilence.
Afterward, says Yahweh, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah,
and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in
this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the
famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and
into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who
seek their life: and he shall strike them with the edge of the
sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have
mercy.
To this people you shall say, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I set
before you the way of life and the way of death.
He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the
famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out, and passes
over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his
life shall be to him for a prey.
For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for
good, says Yahweh: it shall be given into the hand of the king
of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
Touching the house of the king of Judah, hear the word of
Yahweh:
House of David, thus says Yahweh, Execute justice in the
morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the
oppressor, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that
none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and
of the rock of the plain, says Yahweh; you that say, Who shall
come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations?
I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says
Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall
devour all that is around her. |
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Jeremiah 22 |
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Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the king of
Judah, and speak there this word,
Say, Hear the word of Yahweh, king of Judah, who sits on the
throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who
enter in by these gates.
Thus says Yahweh: Execute justice and righteousness, and
deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor:
and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the
fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this
place.
For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by
the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David,
riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and
his people.
But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says
Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation.
For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of
Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon;
yet surely I will make you a wilderness, and
cities which are not inhabited.
I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his
weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast
them into the fire.
Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every
man to his neighbor, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great
city?
Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of
Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
Don’t weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly
for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see
his native country.
For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king
of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and
who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there
any more.
But in the place where they have led him captive, there shall
he die, and he shall see this land no more.
Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his
rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without
wages, and doesn’t give him his hire;
who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious rooms, and
cuts him out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and
painted with vermilion.
Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t
your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness?
then it was well with him.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well.
Wasn’t this to know me? says Yahweh.
But your eyes and your heart are not but for your
covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for
oppression, and for violence, to do it.
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him,
saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not
lament for him, saying Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!
He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast
forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan,
and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed.
I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not
hear. This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t
obey my voice.
The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall
go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and
confounded for all your wickedness.
Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how
greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the
pain as of a woman in travail!
As I live, says Yahweh, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim
king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I
pluck you there;
and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life,
and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into
the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand
of the Chaldeans.
I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into
another country, where you were not born; and there you will
die.
But to the land whereunto their soul longs to return, there
shall they not return.
Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in
which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed,
and are cast into the land which they don’t know?
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man childless, a man who
shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his
seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in
Judah. |
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Jeremiah 23 |
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Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of
my pasture! says Yahweh.
Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, against the
shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and
driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will
visit on you the evil of your doings, says Yahweh.
I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries
where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their
folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and
they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be
lacking, says Yahweh.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will raise to David
a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal
wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the
land.
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely; and this is his name by which he shall be called:
Yahweh our righteousness.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that they shall
no more say, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of
Israel out of the land of Egypt;
but, As Yahweh lives, who brought up and who led the seed of
the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the
countries where I had driven them. They shall dwell in their
own land.
Concerning the prophets. My heart within me is broken, all my
bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine
has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy
words.
For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing
the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil, and their might is not right;
for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have
I found their wickedness, says Yahweh.
Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the
darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I
will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,
says Yahweh.
I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied
by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.
In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible
thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they
strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return
from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as
Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.
Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies concerning the prophets:
Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink
the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is
ungodliness gone forth into all the land.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Don’t listen to the words of the
prophets who prophesy to you: they teach you vanity; they
speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of
Yahweh.
They say continually to those who despise me, Yahweh has said,
You shall have peace; and to everyone who walks in the
stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come on
you.
For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should
perceive and hear his word? who has marked my word, and heard
it?
Behold, the storm of Yahweh, even his wrath, is gone
forth, yes, a whirling storm: it shall burst on the head of
the wicked.
The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until he has executed,
and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the
latter days you shall understand it perfectly.
I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I didn’t speak to
them, yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my
people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil
way, and from the evil of their doings.
Am I a God at hand, says Yahweh, and not a God afar off?
Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see
him? says Yahweh. Don’t I fill heaven and earth? says Yahweh.
I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in
my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who
prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own
heart?
who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams
which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers
forgot my name for Baal.
The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who
has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the
straw to the wheat? says Yahweh.
Isn’t my word like fire? says Yahweh; and like a hammer that
breaks the rock in pieces?
Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who
steal my words everyone from his neighbor.
Behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who use their
tongues, and say, He says.
Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says
Yahweh, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their
lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I didn’t send them, nor
commanded them; neither do they profit this people at all,
says Yahweh.
When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you,
saying, What is the burden of Yahweh? Then you shall tell
them, What burden! I will cast you off, says Yahweh.
As for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall
say, The burden of Yahweh, I will even punish that man and his
house.
You shall say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his
brother, What has Yahweh answered? and, What has Yahweh
spoken?
You shall mention the burden of Yahweh no more: for every
man’s own word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the
words of the living God, of Yahweh of Armies our God.
You shall say to the prophet, What has Yahweh answered you?
and, What has Yahweh spoken?
But if you say, The burden of Yahweh; therefore thus says
Yahweh: Because you say this word, The burden of Yahweh, and I
have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of
Yahweh;
therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast
you off, and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers,
away from my presence:
and I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a
perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.
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Jeremiah 24 |
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Yahweh showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs set before the
temple of Yahweh, after that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had
carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of
Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths,
from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.
One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are
first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could
not be eaten, they were so bad.
Then Yahweh said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? I said, Figs;
the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, that can’t be
eaten, they are so bad.
The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so
will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of
this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good.
For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them
again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them
down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh: and they
shall be my people, and I will be their God; for they shall
return to me with their whole heart.
As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad, surely
thus says Yahweh, So will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah,
and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, who remain in
this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt,
I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all
the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a
proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive
them.
I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among
them, until they be consumed from off the land that I gave to
them and to their fathers. |
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Jeremiah 25 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of
Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king
of Judah (the same was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon),
which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and
to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:
From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of
Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the word of
Yahweh has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early
and speaking; but you have not listened.
Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up
early and sending them (but you have not listened, nor inclined
your ear to hear)
saying, Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil
of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahweh has given to
you and to your fathers, from of old and even forevermore;
and don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and
don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; and I
will do you no harm.
Yet you have not listened to me, says Yahweh; that you may
provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own
hurt.
Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies: Because you have not heard
my words,
behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says
Yahweh, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of
Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and
against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around;
and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment,
and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice
of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the
bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.
This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and
these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
It shall happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I
will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahweh,
for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will
make it desolate forever.
I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced
against it, even all that is written in this book, which
Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
For many nations and great kings shall make bondservants of
them, even of them; and I will recompense them according to
their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.
For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to me: take this cup of
the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom
I send you, to drink it.
They shall drink, and reel back and forth, and be mad, because
of the sword that I will send among them.
Then took I the cup at Yahweh’s hand, and made all the nations
to drink, to whom Yahweh had sent me:
to wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and its
kings, and its princes, to make them a desolation, an
astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;
Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and
all his people;
and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of the
Uz, and all the kings of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and
Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;
Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon;
and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the
kings of the isle which is beyond the sea;
Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all who have the corners of
their hair cut off;
and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed
people who dwell in the wilderness;
and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all
the kings of the Medes;
and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another;
and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of
the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.
You shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of
Israel: Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more,
because of the sword which I will send among you.
It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to
drink, then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies: You
shall surely drink.
For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by
my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be
unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants
of the earth, says Yahweh of Armies.
Therefore prophesy you against them all these words, and tell
them, Yahweh will roar from on high, and utter his voice from
his holy habitation; he will mightily roar against his fold; he
will give a shout, as those who tread the grapes, against
all the inhabitants of the earth.
A noise shall come even to the end of the earth; for Yahweh has
a controversy with the nations; he will enter into judgment with
all flesh: as for the wicked, he will give them to the sword,
says Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, evil shall go forth from
nation to nation, and a great storm shall be raised up from the
uttermost parts of the earth.
The slain of Yahweh shall be at that day from one end of the
earth even to the other end of the earth: they shall not be
lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung on
the surface of the ground.
Wail, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow in ashes, you
principal of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of
your dispersions are fully come, and you shall fall like a
goodly vessel.
The shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of
the flock to escape.
A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the
principal of the flock! for Yahweh lays waste their pasture.
The peaceable folds are brought to silence because of the fierce
anger of Yahweh.
He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land is become an
astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppressing
sword, and because of his fierce anger. |
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Jeremiah 26 |
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In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from Yahweh, saying,
Thus says Yahweh: Stand in the court of Yahweh’s house, and
speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in
Yahweh’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to
them; don’t diminish a word.
It may be they will listen, and turn every man from his evil
way; that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do to
them because of the evil of their doings.
You shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: If you will not listen
to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you,
to listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I
send to you, even rising up early and sending them, but you
have not listened;
then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this
city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah
speaking these words in the house of Yahweh.
It happened, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all
that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, that
the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold on
him, saying, You shall surely die.
Why have you prophesied in the name of Yahweh, saying, This
house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate,
without inhabitant? All the people were gathered to Jeremiah
in the house of Yahweh.
When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up
from the king’s house to the house of Yahweh; and they sat in
the entry of the new gate of Yahweh’s house.
Then spoke the priests and the prophets to the princes and to
all the people, saying, This man is worthy of death; for he
has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your
ears.
Then spoke Jeremiah to all the princes and to all the people,
saying, Yahweh sent me to prophesy against this house and
against this city all the words that you have heard.
Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the
voice of Yahweh your God; and Yahweh will repent him of the
evil that he has pronounced against you.
But as for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as is
good and right in your eyes.
Only know for certain that, if you put me to death, you will
bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city, and on
its inhabitants; for of a truth Yahweh has sent me to you to
speak all these words in your ears.
Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and to
the prophets: This man is not worthy of death; for he has
spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God.
Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spoke to
all the assembly of the people, saying,
Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king
of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Zion shall be plowed as a field,
and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the
house as the high places of a forest.
Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death?
Didn’t he fear Yahweh, and entreat the favor of Yahweh, and
Yahweh relented of the disaster which he had pronounced
against them? Thus should we commit great evil against our own
souls.
There was also a man who prophesied in the name of Yahweh,
Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath Jearim; and he prophesied
against this city and against this land according to all the
words of Jeremiah:
and when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all
the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to
death; but when Uriah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and
went into Egypt:
and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely,
Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him, into
Egypt;
and they fetched forth Uriah out of Egypt, and brought him to
Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword, and cast
his dead body into the graves of the common people.
But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah,
that they should not give him into the hand of the people to
put him to death.
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Jeremiah 27
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In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah,
king of Judah, came this word to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
Thus says Yahweh to me: Make bonds and bars, and put them on
your neck;
and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and
to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre,
and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come
to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah;
and give them a command to their masters, saying, Thus says
Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, You shall tell your
masters:
I have made the earth, the men and the animals that are on the
surface of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched
arm; and I give it to whom it seems right to me.
Now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar
the king of Babylon, my servant; and the animals of the field
also have I given him to serve him.
All the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son,
until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and
great kings shall make him their bondservant.
It shall happen, that the nation and the kingdom which will not
serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not
put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that
nation will I punish, says Yahweh, with the sword, and with the
famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by
his hand.
But as for you, don’t you listen to your prophets, nor to your
diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to
your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve
the king of Babylon:
for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your
land, and that I should drive you out, and you should perish.
But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the
king of Babylon, and serve him, that nation will I let
remain in their own land, says Yahweh; and they shall till it,
and dwell therein.
I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words,
saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon,
and serve him and his people, and live.
Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the
famine, and by the pestilence, as Yahweh has spoken concerning
the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you,
saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon; for they
prophesy a lie to you.
For I have not sent them, says Yahweh, but they prophesy falsely
in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish,
you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.
Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus
says Yahweh: Don’t listen to the words of your prophets who
prophesy to you, saying, Behold, the vessels of Yahweh’s house
shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon; for they
prophesy a lie to you.
Don’t listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live: why
should this city become a desolation?
But if they be prophets, and if the word of Yahweh be with them,
let them now make intercession to Yahweh of Armies, that the
vessels which are left in the house of Yahweh, and in the house
of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, don’t go to Babylon.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies concerning the pillars, and
concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the
residue of the vessels that are left in this city,
which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn’t take, when he
carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of
Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah
and Jerusalem;
yes, thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, concerning
the vessels that are left in the house of Yahweh, and in the
house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem:
They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until
the day that I visit them, says Yahweh; then will I bring them
up, and restore them to this place. |
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Jeremiah 28 |
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It happened the same year, in the beginning of the reign of
Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth
month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet, who was of
Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of Yahweh, in the presence of
the priests and of all the people, saying,
Thus speaks Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, saying, I
have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
Within two full years will I bring again into this place all
the vessels of Yahweh’s house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon took away from this place, and carried to Babylon:
and I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of
Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, who
went to Babylon, says Yahweh; for I will break the yoke of the
king of Babylon.
Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah in the
presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people
who stood in the house of Yahweh,
even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: Yahweh do so; Yahweh
perform your words which you have prophesied, to bring again
the vessels of Yahweh’s house, and all them of the captivity,
from Babylon to this place.
Nevertheless hear you now this word that I speak in your ears,
and in the ears of all the people:
The prophets who have been before me and before you of old
prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms,
of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.
The prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the
prophet shall happen, then shall the prophet be known, that
Yahweh has truly sent him.
Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet
Jeremiah’s neck, and broke it.
Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus
says Yahweh: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon within two full years from off the neck of all
the nations. The prophet Jeremiah went his way.
Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, after that Hananiah
the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the
prophet Jeremiah, saying,
Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus says Yahweh: You have
broken the bars of wood; but you have made in their place bars
of iron.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: I have put
a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may
serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve
him: and I have given him the animals of the field also.
Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear
now, Hananiah: Yahweh has not sent you; but you make this
people to trust in a lie.
Therefore thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will send you away from
off the surface of the earth: this year you shall die, because
you have spoken rebellion against Yahweh.
So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh
month. |
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Jeremiah 29 |
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Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the
prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of
the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to
all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive
from Jerusalem to Babylon,
(after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen mother, and the
eunuchs, and the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and
the craftsmen, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem),
by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son
of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, to all the
captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from
Jerusalem to Babylon:
Build houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat
the fruit of them.
Take wives, and father sons and daughters; and take wives for
your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may
bear sons and daughters; and multiply there, and don’t be
diminished.
Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be
carried away captive, and pray to Yahweh for it; for in its
peace you shall have peace.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Don’t let
your prophets who are in the midst of you, and your diviners,
deceive you; neither listen to your dreams which you cause to
be dreamed.
For they prophesy falsely to you in my name: I have not sent
them, says Yahweh.
For thus says Yahweh, After seventy years are accomplished for
Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward
you, in causing you to return to this place.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Yahweh,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a
future.
You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I
will listen to you.
You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me
with all your heart.
I will be found by you, says Yahweh, and I will turn again
your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations,
and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh;
and I will bring you again to the place from where I caused
you to be carried away captive.
Because you have said, Yahweh has raised us up prophets in
Babylon;
thus says Yahweh concerning the king who sits on the throne of
David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city,
your brothers who haven’t gone forth with you into captivity;
thus says Yahweh of Armies; Behold, I will send on them the
sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like
vile figs, that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.
I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and
with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back
and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object
of horror, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach,
among all the nations where I have driven them;
because they have not listened to my words, says Yahweh, with
which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early
and sending them; but you would not hear, says Yahweh.
Hear therefore the word of Yahweh, all you of the captivity,
whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab
the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of
Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will
deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon;
and he shall kill them before your eyes;
and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captives of
Judah who are in Babylon, saying, Yahweh make you like
Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in
the fire;
because they have worked folly in Israel, and have committed
adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in
my name falsely, which I didn’t command them; and I am he who
knows, and am witness, says Yahweh.
Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying,
Thus speaks Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, saying,
Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the
people who are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of
Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying,
Yahweh has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the
priest, that there may be officers in the house of Yahweh, for
every man who is mad, and makes himself a prophet, that you
should put him in the stocks and in shackles.
Now therefore, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth,
who makes himself a prophet to you,
because he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The captivity
is long: build houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens,
and eat the fruit of them?
Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah
the prophet.
Then came the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, saying,
Send to all them of the captivity, saying, Thus says Yahweh
concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has
prophesied to you, and I didn’t send him, and he has caused
you to trust in a lie;
therefore thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the
Nehelamite, and his seed; he shall not have a man to dwell
among this people, neither shall he see the good that I will
do to my people, says Yahweh, because he has spoken rebellion
against Yahweh. |
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Jeremiah 30 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
Thus speaks Yahweh, the God of Israel, saying, Write all the
words that I have spoken to you in a book.
For, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will turn
again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, says
Yahweh; and I will cause them to return to the land that I
gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
These are the words that Yahweh spoke concerning Israel and
concerning Judah.
For thus says Yahweh: We have heard a voice of trembling, of
fear, and not of peace.
Ask now, and see whether a man does travail with child: why do
I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in
travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is
even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of
it.
It shall come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that
I will break his yoke from off your neck, and will burst your
bonds; and strangers shall no more make him their bondservant;
but they shall serve Yahweh their God, and David their king,
whom I will raise up to them.
Therefore don’t you be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says
Yahweh; neither be dismayed, Israel: for, behold, I will save
you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity;
and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and
none shall make him afraid.
For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you: for I will make a
full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I
will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in
measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.
For thus says Yahweh, Your hurt is incurable, and your wound
grievous.
There is none to plead your cause, that you may be bound up:
you have no healing medicines.
All your lovers have forgotten you; they don’t seek you: for I
have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the
chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your
iniquity, because your sins were increased.
Why do you cry for your hurt? Your pain is incurable: for the
greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased,
I have done these things to you.
Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured; and all
your adversaries, everyone of them, shall go into captivity;
and those who despoil you shall be a spoil, and all who prey
on you will I give for a prey.
For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your
wounds, says Yahweh; because they have called you an outcast,
saying, It is Zion, whom no man seeks after.
Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will turn again the captivity of
Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places; and
the city shall be built on its own hill, and the palace shall
be inhabited in its own way.
Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those
who make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not
be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
Their children also shall be as before, and their congregation
shall be established before me; and I will punish all who
oppress them.
Their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall
proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw
near, and he shall approach to me: for who is he who has had
boldness to approach to me? says Yahweh.
You shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Behold, the storm of Yahweh, even his wrath, is gone
forth, a sweeping storm: it shall burst on the head of the
wicked.
The fierce anger of Yahweh will not return, until he has
executed, and until he has performed the intentions of his
heart. In the latter days you will understand it.
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Jeremiah 31 |
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At that time, says Yahweh, will I be the God of all the
families of Israel, and they shall be my people.
Thus says Yahweh, The people who were left of the sword found
favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him
to rest.
Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved
you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn you.
Again will I build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of
Israel: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines, and
shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry.
Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the
planters shall plant, and shall enjoy its fruit.
For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of
Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion to Yahweh our
God.
For thus says Yahweh, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout
for the chief of the nations: publish, praise, and say, Yahweh,
save your people, the remnant of Israel.
Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather
them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and with them
the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who
travails with child together: a great company shall they return
here.
They shall come with weeping; and with petitions will I lead
them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a
straight way in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father
to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the
islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather
him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock.
For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of
him who was stronger than he.
They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow
to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, and to the new wine,
and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd:
and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not
sorrow any more at all.
Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men
and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy,
and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my
people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and
bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to
be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
Thus says Yahweh: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes
from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh; and
they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your latter end, says Yahweh; and your
children shall come again to their own border.
I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, You
have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed
to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are
Yahweh my God.
Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was
instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even
confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.
Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I
speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore
my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says
Yahweh.
Set up road signs, make guideposts; set your heart toward the
highway, even the way by which you went: turn again, virgin of
Israel, turn again to these your cities.
How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter?
for Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall
encompass a man.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Yet again shall
they use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities,
when I shall bring again their captivity: Yahweh bless you,
habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.
Judah and all its cities shall dwell therein together, the
farmers, and those who go about with flocks.
For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul
have I replenished.
On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will sow the house of
Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the
seed of animal.
It shall happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck
up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to
afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, says
Yahweh.
In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten
sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats
the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in
the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a
husband to them, says Yahweh.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their
inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be
their God, and they shall be my people:
and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh; for they shall all know
me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh:
for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember
no more.
Thus says Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the
ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night,
who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahweh of Armies
is his name:
If these ordinances depart from before me, says Yahweh, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me
forever.
Thus says Yahweh: If heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also
cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done,
says Yahweh.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that the city shall be built
to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.
The measuring line shall go out further straight onward to the
hill Gareb, and shall turn about to Goah.
The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all
the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate
toward the east, shall be holy to Yahweh; it shall not be
plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever. |
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Jeremiah 32 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth
year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth
year of Nebuchadnezzar.
Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging
Jerusalem; and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court
of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.
For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Why do
you prophesy, and say, Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will give
this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall
take it;
and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand
of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the
hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth
to mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes;
and he shall bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he shall be
there until I visit him, says Yahweh: though you fight with
the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper?
Jeremiah said, The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle shall come to
you, saying, Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right
of redemption is yours to buy it.
So Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the
guard according to the word of Yahweh, and said to me,
Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the
land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and
the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew
that this was the word of Yahweh.
I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my
uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen
shekels of silver.
I subscribed the deed, and sealed it, and called witnesses,
and weighed him the money in the balances.
So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was
sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which
was open;
and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son
of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel
my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the witnesses who
subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who
sat in the court of the guard.
I commanded Baruch before them, saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Take these
deeds, this deed of the purchase which is sealed, and this
deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel; that
they may continue many days.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Houses
and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this
land.
Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch
the son of Neriah, I prayed to Yahweh, saying,
Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the
earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm;
there is nothing too hard for you,
who show loving kindness to thousands, and recompense the
iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children
after them; the great, the mighty God, Yahweh of Armies is
his name;
great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open on
all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according
to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:
who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even
to this day, both in Israel and among other men; and
made yourself a name, as in this day;
and brought forth your people Israel out of the land of
Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand,
and with an outstretched arm, and with great terror;
and gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to
give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;
and they came in, and possessed it, but they didn’t obey
your voice, neither walked in your law; they have done
nothing of all that you commanded them to do: therefore you
have caused all this evil to come on them.
Behold, the mounds, they are come to the city to take it;
and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who
fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine,
and of the pestilence; and what you have spoken has
happened; and behold, you see it.
You have said to me, Lord Yahweh, Buy the field for money,
and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand
of the Chaldeans.
Then came the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, saying,
Behold, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh: is there anything
too hard for me?
Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will give this city
into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it:
and the Chaldeans, who fight against this city, shall come
and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses, on
whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal, and poured
out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.
For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have
done only that which was evil in my sight from their youth;
for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger
with the work of their hands, says Yahweh.
For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and
of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this
day; that I should remove it from before my face,
because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the
children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to
anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and
their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem.
They have turned to me the back, and not the face: and
though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet
they have not listened to receive instruction.
But they set their abominations in the house which is called
by my name, to defile it.
They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley
of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their
daughters to pass through the fire to Molech; which I
didn’t command them, neither did it come into my mind, that
they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
Now therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel,
concerning this city, about which you say, It is given into
the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the
famine, and by the pestilence:
Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, where I
have driven them in my anger, and in my wrath, and in great
indignation; and I will bring them again to this place, and
I will cause them to dwell safely:
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:
and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may
fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children
after them:
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I
will not turn away from following them, to do them good; and
I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart
from me.
Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will
plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and
with my whole soul.
For thus says Yahweh: Like as I have brought all this great
evil on this people, so will I bring on them all the good
that I have promised them.
Fields shall be bought in this land, about which you say, It
is desolate, without man or animal; it is given into the
hand of the Chaldeans.
Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and
seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and
in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah,
and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of
the lowland, and in the cities of the South: for I will
cause their captivity to return, says Yahweh.
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Jeremiah 33 |
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Moreover the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the second
time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard,
saying,
Thus says Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish
it; Yahweh is his name:
Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great
things, and difficult, which you don’t know.
For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning the houses
of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah,
which are broken down to make a defense against the
mounds and against the sword;
while men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill
them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my
anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have
hidden my face from this city:
Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them;
and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth.
I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of
Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.
I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, by which they
have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their
iniquities, by which they have sinned against me, and by which
they have transgressed against me.
This city shall be to me for a name of joy, for a
praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth,
which shall hear all the good that I do to them, and shall
fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I
procure to it.
Thus says Yahweh: Yet again there shall be heard in this
place, about which you say, It is waste, without man and
without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the
streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and
without inhabitant and without animal,
the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who
say, Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for
his loving kindness endures forever; and of them who
bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of
Yahweh. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return
as at the first, says Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Yet again shall there be in this
place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in
all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks
to lie down.
In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the
lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of
Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities
of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him
who numbers them, says Yahweh.
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will perform that
good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel
and concerning the house of Judah.
In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of
righteousness to grow up to David; and he shall execute
justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell
safely; and this is the name by which she shall be
called: Yahweh our righteousness.
For thus says Yahweh: David shall never want a man to sit on
the throne of the house of Israel;
neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to
offer burnt offerings, and to burn meal offerings, and to do
sacrifice continually.
The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh: If you can break my covenant of the day, and
my covenant of the night, so that there shall not be day and
night in their season;
then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant,
that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne; and with
the Levites the priests, my ministers.
As the army of the sky can’t be numbered, neither the sand of
the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my
servant, and the Levites who minister to me.
The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying,
Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, The two
families which Yahweh did choose, he has cast them off? thus
do they despise my people, that they should be no more a
nation before them.
Thus says Yahweh: If my covenant of day and night fails, if I
have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;
then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my
servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over
the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their
captivity to return, and will have mercy on them.
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Jeremiah 34 |
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The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the
kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all
the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem, and against all
the cities of it, saying:
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Go, and speak to Zedekiah
king of Judah, and tell him, Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will
give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he
shall burn it with fire:
and you shall not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be
taken, and delivered into his hand; and your eyes shall see
the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with you
mouth to mouth, and you shall go to Babylon.
Yet hear the word of Yahweh, O Zedekiah king of Judah: thus
says Yahweh concerning you, You shall not die by the sword;
you shall die in peace; and with the burnings of your fathers,
the former kings who were before you, so shall they make a
burning for you; and they shall lament you, saying, Ah
Lord! for I have spoken the word, says Yahweh.
Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah
king of Judah in Jerusalem,
when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against
Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left,
against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone
remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities.
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after that the
king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were
at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them;
that every man should let his male servant, and every man his
female servant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free; that
none should make bondservants of them, to wit, of a Jew
his brother.
All the princes and all the people obeyed, who had entered
into the covenant, that everyone should let his male servant,
and everyone his female servant, go free, that none should
make bondservants of them any more; they obeyed, and let them
go:
but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the
handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought
them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.
Therefore the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah from Yahweh,
saying,
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with
your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying,
At the end of seven years you shall let go every man his
brother who is a Hebrew, who has been sold to you, and has
served you six years, you shall let him go free from you: but
your fathers didn’t listen to me, neither inclined their ear.
You had now turned, and had done that which is right in my
eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor; and
you had made a covenant before me in the house which is called
by my name:
but you turned and profaned my name, and caused every man his
servant, and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free
at their pleasure, to return; and you brought them into
subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids.
Therefore thus says Yahweh: you have not listened to me, to
proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to
his neighbor: behold, I proclaim to you a liberty, says
Yahweh, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine;
and I will make you to be tossed back and forth among all the
kingdoms of the earth.
I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who
have not performed the words of the covenant which they made
before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between
its parts;
the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the
eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, who
passed between the parts of the calf;
I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into
the hand of those who seek their life; and their dead bodies
shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the animals
of the earth.
Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the
hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek
their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army,
who have gone away from you.
Behold, I will command, says Yahweh, and cause them to return
to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it,
and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a
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Jeremiah 35 |
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The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the days
of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
Go to the house of the Rechabites, and speak to them, and
bring them into the house of Yahweh, into one of the rooms,
and give them wine to drink.
Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of
Habazziniah, and his brothers, and all his sons, and the
whole house of the Rechabites;
and I brought them into the house of Yahweh, into the room
of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God,
which was by the room of the princes, which was above the
room of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the
threshold.
I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls
full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, Drink wine!
But they said, We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of
Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, You shall drink no
wine, neither you, nor your sons, forever:
neither shall you build house, nor sow seed, nor plant
vineyard, nor have any; but all your days you shall dwell in
tents; that you may live many days in the land in which you
live.
We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our
father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all
our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters;
nor to build houses for us to dwell in; neither have we
vineyard, nor field, nor seed:
but we have lived in tents, and have obeyed, and done
according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.
But it happened, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up
into the land, that we said, Come, and let us go to
Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for
fear of the army of the Syrians; so we dwell at Jerusalem.
Then came the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Go, and tell
the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you
not receive instruction to listen to my words? says Yahweh.
The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded
his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; and to this day
they drink none, for they obey their father’s commandment:
but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; and
you have not listened to me.
I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising
up early and sending them, saying, Return now every man from
his evil way, and amend your doings, and don’t go after
other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land
which I have given to you and to your fathers: but you have
not inclined your ear, nor listened to me.
Because the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed
the commandment of their father which he commanded them, but
this people has not listened to me;
therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of
Israel: Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced
against them; because I have spoken to them, but they have
not heard; and I have called to them, but they have not
answered.
Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, Thus says
Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed
the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his
precepts, and done according to all that he commanded you;
therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel:
Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand
before me forever.
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Jeremiah 36 |
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It happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from
Yahweh, saying,
Take a scroll of a book, and write therein all the words that
I have spoken to you against Israel, and against Judah, and
against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the
days of Josiah, even to this day.
It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which
I purpose to do to them; that they may return every man from
his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch
wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of Yahweh,
which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book.
Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I can’t go
into the house of Yahweh:
therefore you go, and read in the scroll, which you have
written from my mouth, the words of Yahweh in the ears of the
people in Yahweh’s house on the fast day; and also you shall
read them in the ears of all Judah who come out of their
cities.
It may be they will present their supplication before Yahweh,
and will return everyone from his evil way; for great is the
anger and the wrath that Yahweh has pronounced against this
people.
Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah
the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of
Yahweh in Yahweh’s house.
Now it happened in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that all the people
in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the cities of
Judah to Jerusalem, proclaimed a fast before Yahweh.
Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the
house of Yahweh, in the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan,
the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate
of Yahweh’s house, in the ears of all the people.
When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had
heard out of the book all the words of Yahweh,
he went down into the king’s house, into the scribe’s room:
and behold, all the princes were sitting there, to wit,
Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and
Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan,
and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes.
Then Micaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard,
when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.
Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah,
the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying,
Take in your hand the scroll in which you have read in the
ears of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took
the scroll in his hand, and came to them.
They said to him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So
Baruch read it in their ears.
Now it happened, when they had heard all the words, they
turned in fear one toward another, and said to Baruch, We will
surely tell the king of all these words.
They asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How did you write all
these words at his mouth?
Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words to me
with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.
Then the princes said to Baruch, Go, hide, you and Jeremiah;
and let no man know where you are.
They went in to the king into the court; but they had laid up
the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe; and they told
all the words in the ears of the king.
So the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll; and he took it out
of the room of Elishama the scribe. Jehudi read it in the ears
of the king, and in the ears of all the princes who stood
beside the king.
Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth
month: and there was a fire in the brazier burning
before him.
It happened, when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, that
the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the
fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was
consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.
They were not afraid, nor tore their garments, neither the
king, nor any of his servants who heard all these words.
Moreover Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made
intercession to the king that he would not burn the scroll;
but he would not hear them.
The king commanded Jerahmeel the king’s son, and Seraiah the
son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch
the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but Yahweh hid them.
Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, after that the king
had burned the scroll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the
mouth of Jeremiah, saying,
Take again another scroll, and write in it all the former
words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king
of Judah has burned.
Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, Thus says
Yahweh: You have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you
written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly
come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from
there man and animal?
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah:
He shall have none to sit on the throne of David; and his dead
body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the
night to the frost.
I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their
iniquity; and I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the evil that I have
pronounced against them, but they didn’t listen.
Then took Jeremiah another scroll, and gave it to Baruch the
scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of
Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of
Judah had burned in the fire; and there were added besides to
them many like words.
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Jeremiah 37 |
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Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah
the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made
king in the land of Judah.
But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land,
did listen to the words of Yahweh, which he spoke by the prophet
Jeremiah.
Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and
Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet
Jeremiah, saying, Pray now to Yahweh our God for us.
Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people; for they had
not put him into prison.
Pharaoh’s army was come forth out of Egypt; and when the
Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they
broke up from Jerusalem.
Then came the word of Yahweh to the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, You shall tell the king of
Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: Behold, Pharaoh’s
army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt
into their own land.
The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and
they shall take it, and burn it with fire.
Thus says Yahweh, Don’t deceive yourselves, saying, The
Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not
depart.
For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who
fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among
them, yes would they rise up every man in his tent, and burn
this city with fire.
It happened that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up
from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army,
then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of
Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the
people.
When he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard was
there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of
Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You
are falling away to the Chaldeans.
Then Jeremiah said, It is false; I am not falling away to the
Chaldeans. But he didn’t listen to him; so Irijah laid hold on
Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.
The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put
him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had
made that the prison.
When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon house, and into the
cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days;
Then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked
him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from
Yahweh? Jeremiah said, There is. He said also, You shall be
delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.
Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, Wherein have I sinned
against you, or against your servants, or against this people,
that you have put me in prison?
Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The
king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this
land?
Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be
presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the
house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.
Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah
into the court of the guard; and they gave him daily a loaf of
bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city
was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard. |
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Jeremiah 38 |
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Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of
Pashhur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son
of Malchijah, heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the
people, saying,
Thus says Yahweh, He who remains in this city shall die by the
sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes
forth to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be to
him for a prey, and he shall live.
Thus says Yahweh, This city shall surely be given into the
hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.
Then the princes said to the king, “Please let this man be put
to death; because he weakens the hands of the men of war who
remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in
speaking such words to them: for this man doesn’t seek the
welfare of this people, but the hurt.”
Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the
king is not he who can do anything against you.
Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of
Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard:
and they let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there
was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.
Now when Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the
king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon
(the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin),
Ebedmelech went forth out of the king’s house, and spoke to
the king, saying,
My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they
have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into
the dungeon; and he is likely to die in the place where he is,
because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.
Then the king commanded Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, Take
from here thirty men with you, and take up Jeremiah the
prophet out of the dungeon, before he dies.
So Ebedmelech took the men with him, and went into the house
of the king under the treasury, and took there rags and
worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon
to Jeremiah.
Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put now these rags
and worn-out garments under your armpits under the cords.
Jeremiah did so.
So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out
of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the
guard.
Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet to
him into the third entry that is in the house of Yahweh: and
the king said to Jeremiah, I will ask you something. Hide
nothing from me.
Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, If I declare it to you, will
you not surely put me to death? and if I give you counsel, you
will not listen to me.
So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, As
Yahweh lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to
death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who
seek your life.
Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, Thus says Yahweh, the God of
Armies, the God of Israel: If you will go forth to the king of
Babylon’s princes, then your soul shall live, and this city
shall not be burned with fire; and you shall live, and your
house.
But if you will not go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes,
then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans,
and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape out
of their hand.
Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews
who are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me
into their hand, and they mock me.
But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver you. Obey, I beg
you, the voice of Yahweh, in that which I speak to you: so it
shall be well with you, and your soul shall live.
But if you refuse to go forth, this is the word that Yahweh
has shown me:
behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah’s
house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon’s princes,
and those women shall say, Your familiar friends have set you
on, and have prevailed over you: now that your feet are
sunk in the mire, they are turned away back.
They shall bring out all your wives and your children to the
Chaldeans; and you shall not escape out of their hand, but
shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and you
shall cause this city to be burned with fire.
Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, Let no man know of these
words, and you shall not die.
But if the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they
come to you, and tell you, Declare to us now what you have
said to the king; don’t hide it from us, and we will not put
you to death; also what the king said to you:
then you shall tell them, I presented my supplication before
the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan’s
house, to die there.
Then came all the princes to Jeremiah, and asked him; and he
told them according to all these words that the king had
commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter
was not perceived.
So Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard until the day
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Jeremiah 39 |
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It happened when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year
of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against
Jerusalem, and besieged it;
in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the
ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city),
that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat
in the middle gate, to wit, Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo,
Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, with all the
rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.
It happened that, when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the
men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the
city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the
gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.
But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook
Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken
him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to
Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment on him.
Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah
before his eyes: also the king of Babylon killed all the
nobles of Judah.
Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him in fetters,
to carry him to Babylon.
The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the
people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.
Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive
into Babylon the residue of the people who remained in the
city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the residue
of the people who remained.
But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of
the people, who had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave
them vineyards and fields at the same time.
Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon commanded Nebuzaradan the
captain of the guard concerning Jeremiah, saying,
Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do to
him even as he shall tell you.
So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushazban,
Rabsaris, and Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, and all the chief
officers of the king of Babylon;
they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard,
and committed him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he lived among the
people.
Now the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, while he was shut up
in the court of the guard, saying,
Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus says
Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring my
words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall
be accomplished before you in that day.
But I will deliver you in that day, says Yahweh; and you shall
not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.
For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the
sword, but your life shall be for a prey to you; because you
have put your trust in me, says Yahweh.
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Jeremiah 40
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The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after that
Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah,
when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the
captives of Jerusalem and Judah, who were carried away captive
to Babylon.
The captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said to him, Yahweh
your God pronounced this evil on this place;
and Yahweh has brought it, and done according as he spoke:
because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed his
voice, therefore this thing has come on you.
Now, behold, I release you this day from the chains which are on
your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon,
come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to
come with me into Babylon, don’t: behold, all the land is before
you; where it seems good and right to you to go, there go.
Now while he was not yet gone back, Go back then, said he,
to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king
of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell
with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you
to go. So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present,
and let him go.
Then went Jeremiah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and
lived with him among the people who were left in the land.
Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields,
even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had
committed to him men, and women, and children, and of the
poorest of the land, of those who were not carried away captive
to Babylon;
then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, to wit, Ishmael the
son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah,
and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the
Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and
their men.
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore to them and
to their men, saying, Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans:
dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall
be well with you.
As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the
Chaldeans who shall come to us: but you, gather wine and summer
fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your
cities that you have taken.
Likewise when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the
children of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the
countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of
Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam,
the son of Shaphan;
then all the Jews returned out of all places where they were
driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah,
and gathered wine and summer fruits very much.
Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces who were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah,
and said to him, Do you know that Baalis the king of the
children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take
your life? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam didn’t believe them.
Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah
secretly, saying, Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the
son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it: why should he take
your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be
scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?
But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah,
You shall not do this thing; for you speak falsely of Ishmael. |
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Jeremiah 41 |
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Now it happened in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal and one of
the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedaliah
the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they ate bread together in
Mizpah.
Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men who were with
him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the
sword, and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over
the land.
Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with him, to wit,
with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the
men of war.
It happened the second day after he had killed Gedaliah, and no man
knew it,
that there came men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even
eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and
having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their
hand, to bring them to the house of Yahweh.
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them,
weeping all along as he went: and it happened, as he met them, he said
to them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
It was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the
son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the midst of
the pit, he, and the men who were with him.
But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, Don’t kill us;
for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and
of oil, and of honey. So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their
brothers.
Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom
he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (the same was who which Asa the
king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed.
Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people who
were in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who
remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had
committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; Ishmael the son of Nethaniah
carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of
Ammon.
But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces
who were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah had done,
then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon.
Now it happened that, when all the people who were with Ishmael saw
Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were
with him, then they were glad.
So all the people who Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah
turned about and came back, and went to Johanan the son of Kareah.
But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men,
and went to the children of Ammon.
Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces who were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had
recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that
he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, to wit, the men of
war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had
brought back from Gibeon:
and they departed, and lived in Geruth Chimham, which is by Bethlehem,
to go to enter into Egypt,
because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam,
whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. |
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Jeremiah 42 |
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Now it happened in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal and one of
the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedaliah
the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they ate bread together in
Mizpah.
Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men who were with
him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the
sword, and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over
the land.
Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with him, to wit,
with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the
men of war.
It happened the second day after he had killed Gedaliah, and no man
knew it,
that there came men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even
eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and
having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their
hand, to bring them to the house of Yahweh.
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them,
weeping all along as he went: and it happened, as he met them, he said
to them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
It was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the
son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the midst of
the pit, he, and the men who were with him.
But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, Don’t kill us;
for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and
of oil, and of honey. So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their
brothers.
Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom
he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (the same was who which Asa the
king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed.
Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people who
were in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who
remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had
committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; Ishmael the son of Nethaniah
carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of
Ammon.
But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces
who were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah had done,
then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon.
Now it happened that, when all the people who were with Ishmael saw
Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were
with him, then they were glad.
So all the people who Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah
turned about and came back, and went to Johanan the son of Kareah.
But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men,
and went to the children of Ammon.
Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces who were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had
recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that
he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, to wit, the men of
war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had
brought back from Gibeon:
and they departed, and lived in Geruth Chimham, which is by Bethlehem,
to go to enter into Egypt,
because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam,
whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land. |
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Jeremiah 43 |
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It happened that, when Jeremiah had made an end of
speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God,
with which Yahweh their God had sent him to them, even all
these words,
then spoke Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of
Kareah, and all the proud men, saying to Jeremiah, You speak
falsely: Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, You shall not
go into Egypt to live there;
but Baruch the son of Neriah sets you on against us, to
deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put
us to death, and carry us away captive to Babylon.
So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces, and all the people, didn’t obey the voice of Yahweh,
to dwell in the land of Judah.
But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces, took all the remnant of Judah, who were returned from
all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the
land of Judah;
the men, and the women, and the children, and the king’s
daughters, and every person who Nebuzaradan the captain of the
guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of
Neriah;
and they came into the land of Egypt; for they didn’t obey the
voice of Yahweh: and they came to Tahpanhes.
Then came the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,
Take great stones in your hand, and hide them in mortar in the
brick work, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in
Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;
and tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel:
Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of
Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne on these stones
that I have hidden; and he shall spread his royal pavilion
over them.
He shall come, and shall strike the land of Egypt; such as are
for death shall be given to death, and such as are for
captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the
sword.
I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and
he shall burn them, and carry them away captive: and he shall
array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on
his garment; and he shall go forth from there in peace.
He shall also break the pillars of Beth Shemesh, that is in
the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall
he burn with fire.
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Jeremiah 44 |
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The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who lived
in the land of Egypt, who lived at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and
at Memphis, and in the country of Pathros, saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: You have seen all
the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities
of Judah; and behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man
dwells therein,
because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke
me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to
serve other gods, that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you,
nor your fathers.
However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up
early and sending them, saying, Oh, don’t do this abominable
thing that I hate.
But they didn’t listen, nor inclined their ear to turn from
their wickedness, to burn no incense to other gods.
Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured forth, and was
kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem;
and they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day.
Therefore now thus says Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of
Israel: Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to
cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child
out of the midst of Judah, to leave yourselves none remaining;
in that you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands,
burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you
have gone to live; that you may be cut off, and that you may be
a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?
Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the
wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their
wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives
which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of
Jerusalem?
They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared,
nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you
and before your fathers.
Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold,
I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all
Judah.
I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to
go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they shall all be
consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be
consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from
the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine;
and they shall be an object of horror, and an
astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.
For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I
have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the
pestilence;
so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the
land of Egypt to live there, shall escape or be left, to return
into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to
dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape.
Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to
other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly,
even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros,
answered Jeremiah, saying,
As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of
Yahweh, we will not listen to you.
But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out
of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to
pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our
fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and
in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and
were well, and saw no evil.
But since we left off burning incense to the queen of the sky,
and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have wanted all
things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
When we burned incense to the queen of the sky, and poured out
drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her,
and pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands?
Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men, and to the
women, even to all the people who had given him an answer,
saying,
The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the
streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your
princes, and the people of the land, didn’t Yahweh remember
them, and didn’t it come into his mind?
so that Yahweh could no longer bear, because of the evil of your
doings, and because of the abominations which you have
committed; therefore your land has become a desolation, and an
astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this
day.
Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned
against Yahweh, and have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, nor
walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies;
therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is this day.
Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people, and to all the women,
Hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt:
Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, saying, You and
your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your
hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows
that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and
to pour out drink offerings to her: establish then your vows,
and perform your vows.
Therefore hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah who dwell in the
land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says
Yahweh, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any
man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, As the Lord
Yahweh lives.
Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all
the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed
by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them.
Those who escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt
into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of
Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, shall
know whose word shall stand, mine, or theirs.
This shall be the sign to you, says Yahweh, that I will punish
you in this place, that you may know that my words shall surely
stand against you for evil:
Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of
Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of those
who seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the
hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy, and
sought his life. |
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Jeremiah 45 |
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The message that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the
son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the
mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to you, Baruch:
You said, Woe is me now! for Yahweh has added sorrow to my
pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
You shall tell him, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, that which I
have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I
will pluck up; and this in the whole land.
Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them; for,
behold, I will bring evil on all flesh, says Yahweh; but your
life will I give to you for a prey in all places where you go. |
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Jeremiah 46 |
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The word of Yahweh which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning
the nations.
Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which
was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah.
Prepare the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle!
Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen, and stand forth with
your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
Why have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and
their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and don’t
look back: terror is on every side, says Yahweh.
Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the
north by the river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen.
Who is this who rises up like the Nile, whose waters toss
themselves like the rivers?
Egypt rises up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like
the rivers: and he says, I will rise up, I will cover the earth; I
will destroy cities and its inhabitants.
Go up, you horses; and rage, you chariots; and let the mighty men
go forth: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who
handle and bend the bow.
For that day is a day of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day
of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the
sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of
their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the
north country by the river Euphrates.
Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain
do you use many medicines; there is no healing for you.
The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your
cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they are
fallen both of them together.
The word that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of
Egypt.
Declare in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and
in Tahpanhes: say, Stand forth, and prepare; for the sword has
devoured around you.
Why are your strong ones swept away? they didn’t stand, because
Yahweh did drive them.
He made many to stumble, yes, they fell one on another: and they
said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land
of our birth, from the oppressing sword.
They cried there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise; he has let
the appointed time pass by.
As I live, says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies, surely
like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so
shall he come.
You daughter who dwells in Egypt, furnish yourself to go into
captivity; for Memphis shall become a desolation, and shall be
burnt up, without inhabitant.
Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the
north is come, it is come.
Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the
stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together,
they didn’t stand: for the day of their calamity is come on them,
the time of their visitation.
The sound of it shall go like the serpent; for they shall march
with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters.
They shall cut down her forest, says Yahweh, though it can’t be
searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are
innumerable.
The daughter of Egypt shall be disappointed; she shall be delivered
into the hand of the people of the north.
Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Behold, I will punish
Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her kings;
even Pharaoh, and those who trust in him:
and I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their
lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and
into the hand of his servants; and afterwards it shall be
inhabited, as in the days of old, says Yahweh.
But don’t you be afraid, Jacob my servant, neither be dismayed,
Israel: for, behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from
the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be
quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.
Don’t you be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says Yahweh; for I am with
you: for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have
driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will
correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished. |
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Jeremiah 47 |
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The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah the prophet
concerning the Philistines, before that Pharaoh struck Gaza.
Thus says Yahweh: Behold, waters rise up out of the north,
and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow
the land and all that is therein, the city and those who
dwell therein; and the men shall cry, and all the
inhabitants of the land shall wail.
At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong
ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his
wheels, the fathers don’t look back to their children for
feebleness of hands;
because of the day that comes to destroy all the
Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper who
remains: for Yahweh will destroy the Philistines, the
remnant of the isle of Caphtor.
Baldness is come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing,
the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself?
You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you be
quiet? Put up yourself into your scabbard; rest, and be
still.
How can you be quiet, since Yahweh has given you a command?
Against Ashkelon, and against the seashore, there has he
appointed it. |
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Jeremiah 48 |
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Of Moab. Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Woe
to Nebo! for it is laid waste; Kiriathaim is disappointed, it
is taken; Misgab is put to shame and broken down.
The praise of Moab is no more; in Heshbon they have devised
evil against her: Come, and let us cut her off from being a
nation. You also, Madmen, shall be brought to silence: the
sword shall pursue you.
The sound of a cry from Horonaim, desolation and great
destruction!
Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be
heard.
For by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping shall they
go up; for at the descent of Horonaim they have heard the
distress of the cry of destruction.
Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the
wilderness.
For, because you have trusted in your works and in your
treasures, you also shall be taken: and Chemosh shall go forth
into captivity, his priests and his princes together.
The destroyer shall come on every city, and no city shall
escape; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be
destroyed; as Yahweh has spoken.
Give wings to Moab, that she may fly and get her away: and her
cities shall become a desolation, without any to dwell
therein.
Cursed is he who does the work of Yahweh negligently; and
cursed is he who keeps back his sword from blood.
Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on
his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel,
neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste
remains in him, and his scent is not changed.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will
send to him those who pour off, and they shall pour him off;
and they shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles in
pieces.
Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was
ashamed of Bethel their confidence.
How do you say, We are mighty men, and valiant men for the
war?
Moab is laid waste, and they are gone up into his cities, and
his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, says the
King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction
hurries fast.
All you who are around him, bemoan him, and all you who know
his name; say, How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful
rod!
You daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory,
and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up
against you, he has destroyed your strongholds.
Inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and watch: ask him who
flees, and her who escapes; say, What has been done?
Moab is disappointed; for it is broken down: wail and cry;
tell it by the Arnon, that Moab is laid waste.
Judgment is come on the plain country, on Holon, and on Jahzah,
and on Mephaath,
and on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth Diblathaim,
and on Kiriathaim, and on Beth Gamul, and on Beth Meon,
and on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the cities of the
land of Moab, far or near.
The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says
Yahweh.
Make him drunken; for he magnified himself against Yahweh: and
Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in
derision.
For wasn’t Israel a derision to you? was he found among
thieves? for as often as you speak of him, you shake your
head.
You inhabitants of Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the
rock; and be like the dove that makes her nest over the mouth
of the abyss.
We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very
proud; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogance, and
the haughtiness of his heart.
I know his wrath, says Yahweh, that it is nothing; his
boastings have worked nothing.
Therefore will I wail for Moab; yes, I will cry out for all
Moab: for the men of Kir Heres shall they mourn.
With more than the weeping of Jazer will I weep for you, vine
of Sibmah: your branches passed over the sea, they reached
even to the sea of Jazer: on your summer fruits and on your
vintage the destroyer is fallen.
Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and
from the land of Moab; and I have caused wine to cease from
the wine presses: none shall tread with shouting; the shouting
shall be no shouting.
From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz have
they uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, to
Eglath Shelishiyah: for the waters of Nimrim also shall become
desolate.
Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab, says Yahweh, him who
offers in the high place, and him who burns incense to his
gods.
Therefore my heart sounds for Moab like pipes, and my heart
sounds like pipes for the men of Kir Heres: therefore the
abundance that he has gotten is perished.
For every head is bald, and every beard clipped: on all the
hands are cuttings, and on the waist sackcloth.
On all the housetops of Moab and in its streets there is
lamentation every where; for I have broken Moab like a vessel
in which none delights, says Yahweh.
How is it broken down! how do they wail! how has Moab
turned the back with shame! so shall Moab become a derision
and a terror to all who are around him.
For thus says Yahweh: Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and
shall spread out his wings against Moab.
Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized, and the
heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be as the
heart of a woman in her pangs.
Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he has
magnified himself against Yahweh.
Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are on you, inhabitant of
Moab, says Yahweh.
He who flees from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he who
gets up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will
bring on him, even on Moab, the year of their visitation, says
Yahweh.
Those who fled stand without strength under the shadow of
Heshbon; for a fire is gone forth out of Heshbon, and a flame
from the midst of Sihon, and has devoured the corner of Moab,
and the crown of the head of the tumultuous ones.
Woe to you, O Moab! the people of Chemosh is undone; for your
sons are taken away captive, and your daughters into
captivity.
Yet will I bring back the captivity of Moab in the latter
days, says Yahweh. Thus far is the judgment of Moab. |
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Jeremiah 49 |
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Of the children of Ammon. Thus says Yahweh: Has Israel no
sons? has he no heir? why then does Malcam possess Gad, and
his people well in its cities?
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will
cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the
children of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and
her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Israel
possess those who did possess him, says Yahweh.
Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste; cry, you daughters of
Rabbah, clothe yourself in sackcloth: lament, and run back and
forth among the fences; for Malcam shall go into captivity,
his priests and his princes together.
Why do you glory in the valleys, your flowing valley,
backsliding daughter? who trusted in her treasures, saying,
Who shall come to me?
Behold, I will bring a fear on you, says the Lord, Yahweh of
Armies, from all who are around you; and you shall be driven
out every man right forth, and there shall be none to gather
together the fugitives.
But afterward I will bring back the captivity of the children
of Ammon, says Yahweh.
Of Edom. Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Is wisdom no more in
Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom
vanished?
Flee, turn back, dwell in the depths, inhabitants of Dedan;
for I will bring the calamity of Esau on him, the time that I
shall visit him.
If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some
gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, wouldn’t they destroy
until they had enough?
But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places,
and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is
destroyed, and his brothers, and his neighbors; and he is no
more.
Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive;
and let your widows trust in me.
For thus says Yahweh: Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain
to drink of the cup shall certainly drink; and are you he who
shall altogether go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished,
but you shall surely drink.
For I have sworn by myself, says Yahweh, that Bozrah shall
become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and
all its cities shall be perpetual wastes.
I have heard news from Yahweh, and an ambassador is sent among
the nations, saying, Gather yourselves together, and
come against her, and rise up to the battle.
For, behold, I have made you small among the nations, and
despised among men.
As for your terror, the pride of your heart has deceived you,
O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height
of the hill: though you should make your nest as high as the
eagle, I will bring you down from there, says Yahweh.
Edom shall become an astonishment: everyone who passes by it
shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all its plagues.
As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor
cities of it, says Yahweh, no man shall dwell there, neither
shall any son of man live therein.
Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of the
Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make
them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I
appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a
time? and who is the shepherd who will stand before me?
Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken
against Edom; and his purposes, that he has purposed against
the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away,
even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make
their habitation desolate over them.
The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry,
the noise which is heard in the Red Sea.
Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out
his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of
Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her
pangs.
Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have
heard evil news, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the
sea; it can’t be quiet.
Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and
trembling has seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken
hold of her, as of a woman in travail.
How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy?
Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the
men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says
Yahweh of Armies.
I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall
devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.
Of Kedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon struck. Thus says Yahweh: Arise, go up to
Kedar, and destroy the children of the east.
Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry
away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and
their camels; and they shall cry to them, Terror on every
side!
Flee, wander far off, dwell in the depths, you inhabitants of
Hazor, says Yahweh; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has
taken counsel against you, and has conceived a purpose against
you.
Arise, go up to a nation that is at ease, that dwells without
care, says Yahweh; that have neither gates nor bars, that
dwell alone.
Their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their
livestock a spoil: and I will scatter to all winds those who
have the corners of their hair cut off; and I will
bring their calamity from every side of them, says Yahweh.
Hazor shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation
forever: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of
man live therein.
The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah the prophet
concerning Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah
king of Judah, saying,
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Behold, I will break the bow of
Elam, the chief of their might.
On Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of
the sky, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and
there shall be no nation where the outcasts of Elam shall not
come.
I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and
before those who seek their life; and I will bring evil on
them, even my fierce anger, says Yahweh; and I will send the
sword after them, until I have consumed them;
and I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from there
king and princes, says Yahweh.
But it shall happen in the latter days, that I will bring back
the captivity of Elam, says Yahweh.
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49:21 or,
Sea of Reeds
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Jeremiah 50 |
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The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the
land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.
Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and don’t conceal: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is
disappointed, Merodach is dismayed; her images are
disappointed, her idols are dismayed.
For out of the north there comes up a nation against her,
which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell
therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and animal.
In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, the children of
Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together;
they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek Yahweh
their God.
They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned
toward it, saying, Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh
in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten.
My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused
them to go astray; they have turned them away on the
mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill; they have
forgotten their resting place.
All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries
said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against
Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, the hope
of their fathers.
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land
of the Chaldeans, and be as the male goats before the flocks.
For, behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against
Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and
they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she
shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty
man; none shall return in vain.
Chaldea shall be a prey: all who prey on her shall be
satisfied, says Yahweh.
Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder
my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads
out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;
your mother shall be utterly disappointed; she who bore you
shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the least of the
nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
Because of the wrath of Yahweh she shall not be inhabited, but
she shall be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon
shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.
Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you
who bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has
sinned against Yahweh.
Shout against her all around: she has submitted herself; her
bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the
vengeance of Yahweh: take vengeance on her; as she has done,
do to her.
Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle
in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they
shall turn everyone to his people, and they shall flee
everyone to his own land.
Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away:
first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and now at last
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.
Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel:
Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I
have punished the king of Assyria.
I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on
Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied on the
hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.
In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, the iniquity of
Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the
sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon
them whom I leave as a remnant.
Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and
against the inhabitants of Pekod: kill and utterly destroy
after them, says Yahweh, and do according to all that I have
commanded you.
A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction.
How is the hammer of the whole earth cut apart and broken! how
is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!
I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon,
and you weren’t aware: you are found, and also caught, because
you have striven against Yahweh.
Yahweh has opened his armory, and has brought forth the
weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies,
has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans.
Come against her from the utmost border; open her storehouses;
cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; let nothing of
her be left.
Kill all her bulls; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to
them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation.
The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of
Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God,
the vengeance of his temple.
Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend
the bow; encamp against her all around; let none of it escape:
recompense her according to her work; according to all that
she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against
Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all her
men of war will be brought to silence in that day, says
Yahweh.
Behold, I am against you, you proud one, says the Lord, Yahweh
of Armies; for your day has come, the time that I will visit
you.
The proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him
up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall
devour all who are around him.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The children of Israel and the
children of Judah are oppressed together; and all who took
them captive hold them fast; they refuse to let them go.
Their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh of Armies is his name: he
will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to
the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
A sword is on the Chaldeans, says Yahweh, and on the
inhabitants of Babylon, and on her princes, and on her wise
men.
A sword is on the boasters, and they shall become fools; a
sword is on her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed.
A sword is on their horses, and on their chariots, and on all
the mixed people who are in the midst of her; and they shall
become as women: a sword is on her treasures, and they shall
be robbed.
A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it
is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols.
Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves shall
dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it
shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be lived
in from generation to generation.
As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor
cities of it, says Yahweh, so shall no man dwell there,
neither shall any son of man live therein.
Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and
many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the
earth.
They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no
mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on
horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against
you, daughter of Babylon.
The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands
wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of him, and pangs as
of a woman in travail.
Behold, the enemy shall come up like a lion from the
pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will
suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen,
him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will
appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd who can stand
before me?
Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken
against Babylon; and his purposes, that he has purposed
against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them
away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he
shall make their habitation desolate over them.
At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles, and
the cry is heard among the nations. |
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Jeremiah 51 |
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Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and
against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind.
I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and
they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they
shall be against her around.
Against him who bends let the archer bend his bow, and against
him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and don’t spare
her young men; utterly destroy all her army.
They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and
thrust through in her streets.
For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of Yahweh
of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy
One of Israel.
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life;
don’t be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of
Yahweh’s vengeance; he will render to her a recompense.
Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all
the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine;
therefore the nations are mad.
Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take
balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake
her, and let us go everyone into his own country; for her
judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the
skies.
Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us
declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.
Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahweh has
stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his
purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the
vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.
Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch
strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has
both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the
inhabitants of Babylon.
You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end
has come, the measure of your covetousness.
Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will
fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they shall
lift up a shout against you.
He has made the earth by his power, he has established the
world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched
out the heavens:
when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the
heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of
the earth; he makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth
the wind out of his treasuries.
Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every
goldsmith is disappointed by his image; for his molten image
is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their
visitation they shall perish.
The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former
of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance:
Yahweh of Armies is his name.
You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you will I
break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy
kingdoms;
and with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider;
and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who
rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces man and
woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the
youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and
the virgin;
and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his
flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his
yoke of oxen; and with you will I break in pieces governors
and deputies.
I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea
all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says
Yahweh.
Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh,
which destroys all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand
on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a
burnt mountain.
They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone
for foundations; but you shall be desolate for ever, says
Yahweh.
Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the
nations, prepare the nations against her, call together
against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz:
appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as
the rough canker worm.
Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its
governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their
dominion.
The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahweh
against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a
desolation, without inhabitant.
The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain
in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become
as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are
broken.
One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet
another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on
every quarter:
and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned
with fire, and the men of war are frightened.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: The
daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when
it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest
shall come for her.
Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has
crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a
monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my
delicacies; he has cast me out.
The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall
the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be on the
inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.
Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause,
and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and
make her fountain dry.
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an
astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.
They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as
lions’ cubs.
When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make
them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual
sleep, and not wake, says Yahweh.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams
with male goats.
How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth
seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!
The sea is come up on Babylon; she is covered with the
multitude of its waves.
Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert,
a land in which no man dwells, neither does any son of man
pass thereby.
I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring
forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the
nations shall not flow any more to him: yes, the wall of
Babylon shall fall.
My people, go away from the midst of her, and save yourselves
every man from the fierce anger of Yahweh.
Don’t let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that
shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and
after that in another year shall come news, and violence in
the land, ruler against ruler.
Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will execute judgment
on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be
confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.
Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall
sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to
her from the north, says Yahweh.
As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at
Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.
You who have escaped the sword, go, don’t stand still;
remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your
mind.
We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion
has covered our faces: for strangers are come into the
sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will
execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her
land the wounded shall groan.
Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she
should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall
destroyers come to her, says Yahweh.
The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from
the land of the Chaldeans!
For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the
great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise
of their voice is uttered:
for the destroyer is come on her, even on Babylon, and her
mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for
Yahweh is a God of recompenses, he will surely requite.
I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors
and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a
perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose name is
Yahweh of Armies.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The broad walls of Babylon shall
be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with
fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations
for the fire; and they shall be weary.
The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son
of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the
king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now
Seraiah was chief quartermaster.
Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on
Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning
Babylon.
Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see
that you read all these words,
and say, Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut
it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor animal,
but that it shall be desolate forever.
It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book,
that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst
of the Euphrates:
and you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise
again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they
shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah |
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Jeremiah 52 |
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Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign;
and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s
name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according
to all that Jehoiakim had done.
For through the anger of Yahweh did it happen in Jerusalem
and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth
month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and
encamped against it; and they built forts against it round
about.
So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of king
Zedekiah.
In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the
famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for
the people of the land.
Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war
fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of
the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s
garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around;)
and they went toward the Arabah.
But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and
overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army
was scattered from him.
Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of
Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment
on him.
The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his
eyes: he killed also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon
bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him
in prison until the day of his death.
Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which
was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood
before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem:
and he burned the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house; and
all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he
with fire.
All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of
the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.
Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away
captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the
people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who
fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude.
But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest
of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers.
The pillars of brass that were in the house of Yahweh, and
the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh,
did the Chaldeans break in pieces, and carried all the brass
of them to Babylon.
The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the
basins, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with
which they ministered, took they away.
The cups, and the fire pans, and the basins, and the pots,
and the lampstands, and the spoons, and the bowls—that which
was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in
silver,—the captain of the guard took away.
The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls
that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made for the
house of Yahweh. The brass of all these vessels was without
weight.
As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was
eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits did compass it;
and its thickness was four fingers: it was hollow.
A capital of brass was on it; and the height of the one
capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the
capital all around, all of brass: and the second pillar also
had like these, and pomegranates.
There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the
pomegranates were one hundred on the network all around.
The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and
Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the
threshold:
and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the
men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face,
who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of
the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men
of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the
city.
Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought
them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.
The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at
Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away
captive out of his land.
This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive:
in the seventh year three thousand twenty-three Jews;
in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away
captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons;
in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of
the Jews seven hundred forty-five persons: all the persons
were four thousand and six hundred.
It happened in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity
of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five
and twentieth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of
Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of
Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison;
and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the
throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon,
and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before
him continually all the days of his life:
and for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given
him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day
of his death, all the days of his life. |
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