Jeremiah 15

¹⁴then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord God.

²⁰then as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves.

²¹For this is what the Lord God says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

¹¹Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of this people.

¹⁴As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me in their time of disaster.

²³So He said He would destroy them—had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.

¹⁵And I will cast you out of My presence, just as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

¹⁶As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.

¹¹He will come and strike down the land of Egypt, bringing death to those destined for death, captivity to those destined for captivity, and the sword to those destined for the sword.

⁹Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish; and let those who remain devour one another’s flesh.”

³And when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”

⁴Then another horse went forth. It was bright red, and its rider was granted permission to take away peace from the earth and to make men slay one another. And he was given a great sword.

²When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

¹⁰“If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he will go; if anyone is to die by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.” Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints.

¹²A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.

²⁶Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

¹⁶then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

²²I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.

²¹For this is what the Lord God says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?

²⁵And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

⁸Then I looked and saw a pale green horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the earth.

⁹I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

³Surely this happened to Judah at the Lord’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done,

⁴and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was unwilling to forgive.

¹¹“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these abominations, acting more wickedly than the Amorites who preceded him, and with his idols has caused Judah to sin,

¹²this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all who hear it.

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁷As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with all his accomplishments and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁶Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the fury of His burning anger, which was kindled against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke Him to anger.

²⁷For the Lord had said, “I will remove Judah from My sight, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the temple of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

⁴⁶This is what the Lord God says: ‘Bring a mob against them and consign them to terror and plunder.

¹⁹These pairs have befallen you: devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Who will grieve for you? Who can comfort you?

⁷Then all who see you will recoil from you and say, ‘Nineveh is devastated; who will grieve for her?’ Where can I find comforters for you?”

⁷‘After that,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

²⁰Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found no one.

⁵Indeed, this is what the Lord says: “Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal. Do not go to mourn or show sympathy, for I have removed from this people My peace, My loving devotion, and My compassion,” declares the Lord.

²²Then David left his supplies in the care of the quartermaster and ran to the battle line. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were doing.

²⁴Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

⁴“I will stretch out My hand against Judah and against all who dwell in Jerusalem. I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the idolatrous and pagan priests—

⁷My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them.

⁴Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who act corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him.

¹¹But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.

⁷therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the Lord.’

¹²His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

²I will send strangers to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land; for they will come against her from every side in her day of disaster.

³O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

¹³But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁶You will winnow them, and a wind will carry them away; a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the Lord; you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

⁴Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.

²⁵Your men will fall by the sword, and your warriors in battle.

³⁵For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of all the earth.

¹⁶Warn the nations now! Proclaim to Jerusalem: “A besieging army comes from a distant land; they raise their voices against the cities of Judah.

⁴‘Prepare for battle against her; rise up, let us attack at noon. Woe to us, for the daylight is fading; the evening shadows grow long.

⁵Rise up, let us attack by night and destroy her fortresses!’”

⁶Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.

⁵The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.

⁹These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.

¹How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.

⁹And in that day, declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

⁷‘After that,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

²²Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man.

¹After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

²And this is what he said:

⁵Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!

⁶Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace.

⁶But when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here,

⁷and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, named Jesus!”

³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to His mother Mary: “Behold, this Child is appointed to cause the rise and fall of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against,

²⁰They brought them to the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews and are throwing our city into turmoil

²¹by promoting customs that are unlawful for us Romans to adopt or practice.”

⁷When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even the man’s enemies live at peace with him.

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

⁴⁶He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.

³Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

⁴Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

¹²Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and still lives long, yet I also know that it will go well with those who fear God, who are reverent in His presence.

³Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet with the message, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us!”

⁵“Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you.

⁶For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

⁹Do you have an arm like God’s? Can you thunder with a voice like His?

⁴this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city.

⁵And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath.

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

¹⁸Now behold, this day I have made you like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.

¹⁹They will fight against you but will never overcome you, since I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.

¹⁴For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.’”

³O My mountain in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures as plunder, because of the sin of your high places, within all your borders.

¹²You sell Your people for nothing; no profit do You gain from their sale.

³For this is what the Lord says: “You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed.”

⁵I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon.

⁸I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay.

⁵And now what have I here? declares the Lord. For My people have been taken without cause; those who rule them taunt, declares the Lord, and My name is blasphemed continually all day long.

²²For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

¹³So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

⁴And you yourself will relinquish the inheritance that I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land that you do not know, for you have kindled My anger; it will burn forever.”

³⁶The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

⁹You will place them in a fiery furnace at the time of Your appearing. In His wrath the Lord will engulf them, and the fire will consume them.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

³But You know me, O Lord; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage.

⁷For I have endured scorn for Your sake, and shame has covered my face.

⁸I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,

¹⁷And you will be hated by everyone because of My name.

¹⁶But I have not run away from being Your shepherd; I have not desired the day of despair. You know that the utterance of my lips was spoken in Your presence.

¹²O Lord of Hosts, who examines the righteous, who sees the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.

²²Then I instructed the Levites to purify themselves and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this as well, O my God, and show me mercy according to Your abundant loving devotion.

⁹And I went to the angel and said, “Give me the small scroll.” “Take it and eat it,” he said. “It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”

¹⁰So I took the small scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach turned bitter.

¹“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat what you find here. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel.”

²So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll.

¹⁰¹I have kept my feet from every evil path, that I may keep Your word.

¹⁰²I have not departed from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.

¹²I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread.

¹⁰They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

¹¹¹Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

²⁸Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it upon him.

¹Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

⁴I do not sit with deceitful men, nor keep company with hypocrites.

⁵I hate the mob of evildoers, and refuse to sit with the wicked.

²⁴Then the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet. He spoke with me and said, “Go, shut yourself inside your house.

²⁵And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes, and you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people.

¹⁷“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

¹⁷But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.

¹⁵Why do you cry out over your wound? Your pain has no cure! Because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins I have done these things to you.

⁶Would I lie about my case? My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.’

⁹For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.

¹⁹Have You rejected Judah completely? Do You despise Zion? Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing? We hoped for peace, but no good has come, and for the time of healing, but there was only terror.

⁷You have deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.

¹²For this is what the Lord says: “Your injury is incurable; your wound is grievous.

⁷“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘If you walk in My ways and keep My instructions, then you will govern My house and will also have charge of My courts; and I will give you a place among these who are standing here.

¹⁵For I will give you speech and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.

¹⁰You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean,

²³They are to teach My people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to discern between the clean and the unclean.

²⁶Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

²⁴Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy—

¹⁸Now behold, this day I have made you like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.

¹⁹They will fight against you but will never overcome you, since I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.

⁹I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.”

⁷The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

⁹Huddle together, O peoples, and be shattered; pay attention, all you distant lands; prepare for battle, and be shattered; prepare for battle, and be shattered!

¹⁰Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”

⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking; do not be silent.

¹⁰For I am with you and no one will lay a hand on you, because I have many people in this city.”

¹A song of ascents. Of David. If the Lord had not been on our side—let Israel now declare—

²if the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us,

¹⁰He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. In Him we have placed our hope that He will yet again deliver us,

²⁴Can the plunder be snatched from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be delivered?

²⁵Indeed, this is what the Lord says: “Even the captives of the mighty will be taken away, and the plunder of the tyrant will be retrieved; I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.

³⁴Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is His name. He will fervently plead their case so that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to those who live in Babylon.

¹⁷No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the Lord.

¹⁶the angel who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”

⁴⁰The Lord helps and delivers them; He rescues and saves them from the wicked, because they take refuge in Him.