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Punishment Is Inevitable

15Then the Lord said to me: Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn towards this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! ²And when they say to you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord:
Those destined for pestilence, to pestilence,
   and those destined for the sword, to the sword;
those destined for famine, to famine,
   and those destined for captivity, to captivity.
³And I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, says the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth to devour and destroy. ⁴I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what King Manasseh son of Hezekiah of Judah did in Jerusalem.

⁵ Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem,
   or who will bemoan you?
Who will turn aside
   to ask about your welfare?
⁶ You have rejected me, says the Lord,
   you are going backwards;
so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you—
   I am weary of relenting.
⁷ I have winnowed them with a winnowing-fork
   in the gates of the land;
I have bereaved them, I have destroyed my people;
   they did not turn from their ways.
⁸ Their widows became more numerous
   than the sand of the seas;
I have brought against the mothers of youths
   a destroyer at noonday;
I have made anguish and terror
   fall upon her suddenly.
⁹ She who bore seven has languished;
   she has swooned away;
her sun went down while it was yet day;
   she has been shamed and disgraced.
And the rest of them I will give to the sword
   before their enemies,

says the Lord.

Jeremiah Complains Again and Is Reassured

10 Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me. ¹¹The Lord said: Surely I have intervened in your life^* for good, surely I have imposed enemies on you in a time of trouble and in a time of distress.^{* 12}Can iron and bronze break iron from the north?

13 Your wealth and your treasures I will give as plunder, without price, for all your sins, throughout all your territory. ¹⁴I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn for ever.
¹⁵ O Lord, you know;
   remember me and visit me,
   and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors.
In your forbearance do not take me away;
   know that on your account I suffer insult.
¹⁶ Your words were found, and I ate them,
   and your words became to me a joy
   and the delight of my heart;
for I am called by your name,
   O Lord, God of hosts.
¹⁷ I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,
   nor did I rejoice;
under the weight of your hand I sat alone,
   for you had filled me with indignation.
¹⁸ Why is my pain unceasing,
   my wound incurable,
   refusing to be healed?
Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook,
   like waters that fail.

¹⁹ Therefore, thus says the Lord:
If you turn back, I will take you back,
   and you shall stand before me.
If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,
   you shall serve as my mouth.
It is they who will turn to you,
   not you who will turn to them.
²⁰ And I will make you to this people
   a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you,
   but they shall not prevail over you,
for I am with you
   to save you and deliver you,

says the Lord.
²¹ I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,
   and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.

Jeremiah’s Celibacy and Message

16The word of the Lord came to me: ²You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. ³For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them in this land: ⁴They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall become like dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall become food for the birds of the air and for the wild animals of the earth.

5 For thus says the Lord: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament, or bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, my steadfast love and mercy. ⁶Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them; there shall be no gashing, no shaving of the head for them. ⁷No one shall break bread^* for the mourner, to offer comfort for the dead; nor shall anyone give them the cup of consolation to drink for their fathers or their mothers. ⁸You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. ⁹For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to banish from this place, in your days and before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

10 And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹then you shall say to them: It is because your ancestors have forsaken me, says the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; ¹²and because you have behaved worse than your ancestors, for here you are, every one of you, following your stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favour.

God Will Restore Israel

14 Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt’, ¹⁵but ‘As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.

16 I am now sending for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight. ¹⁸And^* I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

¹⁹ O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
   my refuge on the day of trouble,
to you shall the nations come
   from the ends of the earth and say:
Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies,
   worthless things in which there is no profit.
²⁰ Can mortals make for themselves gods?
   Such are no gods!

21 ‘Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.’

Judah’s Sin and Punishment

17The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts, and on the horns of their altars, ²while their children remember their altars and their sacred poles,^* beside every green tree, and on the high hills, ³on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your sin^* throughout all your territory. ⁴By your own act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled^* that shall burn for ever.

⁵ Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
   and make mere flesh their strength,
   whose hearts turn away from the Lord.
⁶ They shall be like a shrub in the desert,
   and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
   in an uninhabited salt land.

⁷ Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
   whose trust is the Lord.
⁸ They shall be like a tree planted by water,
   sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
   and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
   and it does not cease to bear fruit.

⁹ The heart is devious above all else;
   it is perverse—
   who can understand it?
¹⁰ I the Lord test the mind
   and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways,
   according to the fruit of their doings.

¹¹ Like the partridge hatching what it did not lay,
   so are all who amass wealth unjustly;
in mid-life it will leave them,
   and at their end they will prove to be fools.

¹² O glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,
   shrine of our sanctuary!
¹³ O hope of Israel! O Lord!
   All who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you^* shall be recorded in the underworld,^*
   for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.

Jeremiah Prays for Vindication

¹⁴ Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;
   save me, and I shall be saved;
   for you are my praise.
¹⁵ See how they say to me,
   ‘Where is the word of the Lord?
   Let it come!’
¹⁶ But I have not run away from being a shepherd^* in your service,
   nor have I desired the fatal day.
You know what came from my lips;
   it was before your face.
¹⁷ Do not become a terror to me;
   you are my refuge on the day of disaster;
¹⁸ Let my persecutors be shamed,
   but do not let me be shamed;
let them be dismayed,
   but do not let me be dismayed;
bring on them the day of disaster;
   destroy them with double destruction!

Hallow the Sabbath Day

19 Thus said the Lord to me: Go and stand in the People’s Gate, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, ²⁰and say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. ²¹Thus says the Lord: For the sake of your lives, take care that you do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. ²²And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the sabbath or do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. ²³Yet they did not listen or incline their ear; they stiffened their necks and would not hear or receive instruction.

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