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Jeremiah 13
In this manner Yahweh said to me, Go, and buy for yourself a linen girdle, and put it upon your loins, and put it not in water. 2 So I bought a girdle according to the word of Yahweh, and put it upon my loins. 3 And the word of Yahweh came to me the second time, saying, 4 Take the girdle that you have bought, which is upon your loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock. 5 So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me. 6 And it came to pass after many days, that Yahweh said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the girdle from there, which I commanded you to hide there. 7 Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
8 Then the word of Yahweh came to me saying, 9 In this manner says Yahweh, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This evil people, that refuse to hear my words, that walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and have gone after other elohim to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing. 11 For as the girdle clings to the loins 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.
12 Therefore you shall speak to them this word: In this manner says Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say to you, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? 13 Then shall you say to them, In this manner says Yahweh, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. 14 And 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.
15 Hear, and give ear; be not proud; for Yahweh has spoken. 16 Give glory to Yahweh your Elohim, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness. 17 But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride: and my eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock is taken captive.
18 Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Humble yourselves, sit down; for your head bands are come down, even the crown of your glory. 19 The cities of the South are shut up, and there is no one to open them: Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly carried away captive.
20 Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock? 21 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? 22 And if you say in your heart, Why have these things come upon me? For the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and your heels suffer violence. 23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. 24 Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passes away, by the wind of the wilderness. 25 This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me, says Yahweh; because you have forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood. 26 Therefore will I also uncover your skirts upon your face, and your shame shall appear. 27 I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighings, the lewdness of your whoredom, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?
Jeremiah 14
The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. 2 Judah mourns, and the gates of it languish, they sit in black upon the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 3 And 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 put to shame and confounded, and cover their heads. 4 Because of the ground which is cracked, for that no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are put to shame, they cover their heads. 5 Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. 6 And the wild asses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.
7 Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, O Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you. 8 O you hope of Israel, the Savior of it in the time of trouble, why should you be as a sojourner in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to stay for a night? 9 Why should you be as a man stunned, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet you, O Yahweh, are in the middle of us, and we are called by your name; leave us not.
10 In this manner 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 will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. 11 And Yahweh said to me, Pray not for this people for their good. 12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offering and meat-offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.
13 Then said I, Ah, Sovereign Yahweh! behold, the prophets say to them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. 14 Then Yahweh said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I sent them not, 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. 15 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. 16 And 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 no one to bury them — them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them. 17 And 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. 18 If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the killed with the sword! And if I enter into the city, then, behold, they that are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.
19 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! 20 We acknowledge, O Yahweh, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against you. 21 Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake: do not disgrace the throne of your glory: remember, break not your covenant with us. 22 Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are not you he, O Yahweh our Elohim? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.
Jeremiah 15
Then said Yahweh 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. 2 And it shall come to pass, when they say to you, Where shall we go forth? Then you shall tell them, In this manner 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. 3 And I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahweh: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. 4 And I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
5 For who will have pity upon you, O Jerusalem? Or who will bemoan you? Or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare? 6 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. 7 And I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have robbed them of children, I have destroyed my people; they returned not from their ways. 8 Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly. 9 She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the spirit; her sun has gone down while it was yet day; she has been put to shame and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says Yahweh.
10 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 every one of them curses me.
11 Yahweh said, Verily I will strengthen you for good; truly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. 12 Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and bronze? 13 Your substance and your treasures will I give for a plunder without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders. 14 And I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you know not; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn upon you.
15 O Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in your long-suffering: know that for your sake I have suffered reproach. 16 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, O Yahweh, Elohim of hosts. 17 I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand; for you have filled me with indignation. 18 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?
19 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. 20 And 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. 21 And I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.
Jeremiah 16
The word of Yahweh came also to me, saying, 2 You shall not take for yourself a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place. 3 For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their fathers that procreated them in this land: 4 They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face 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 heavens, and for the beasts of the earth.
5 For thus says Yahweh, Enter not 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 lovingkindness and tender mercies. 6 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; 7 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. 8 And you shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. 9 For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the Elohim 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 bride-groom and the voice of the bride.
10 And it shall come to pass, when you shall show this people all these words, and they shall say to 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 Elohim? 11 Then shall you say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says Yahweh, and have walked after other elohim, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; 12 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 listen not to me: 13 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 shall you serve other elohim day and night; for I will show you no favor.
14 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be said, As Yahweh lives, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15 but, As Yahweh lives, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16 Behold, I will send for many fishers, 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. 17 For my eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 And 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.
19 O 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. 20 Shall a man make to himself elohim, which yet are no elohim?
21 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.
