Jeremiah 16

⁴The word of the Lord came to me, saying:

²The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah,

¹Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²⁶Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is.

²⁷Are you committed to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you free of commitment? Do not look for a wife.

²⁹Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’

¹⁴So Lot went out and spoke to the sons-in-law who were pledged in marriage to his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

²³How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.

¹⁹How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!

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.

⁹For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.

²¹Therefore this is what the Lord says: “I will lay stumbling blocks before this people; fathers and sons alike will be staggered; friends and neighbors will perish.”

³³Those slain by the Lord on that day will be spread from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned, gathered, or buried. They will be like dung lying on the ground.

¹⁰who perished at Endor and became like dung on the ground.

²²Declare that this is what the Lord says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”

¹⁷I will bring such distress on mankind that they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.

²⁰I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

¹⁸Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’ They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’

¹⁹He will be buried like a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.

¹⁶“Son of man, behold, I am about to take away the desire of your eyes with a fatal blow. But you must not mourn or weep or let your tears flow.

¹⁷Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Put on your turban and strap your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips or eat the bread of mourners.”

¹¹When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

¹Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

¹⁷On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’

⁶“Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

⁷No food will be offered to comfort those who mourn the dead; not even a cup of consolation will be given for the loss of a father or mother.

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.

¹You are sons of the Lord your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead,

⁵The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning; Ashkelon will be silenced. O remnant of their valley, how long will you gash yourself?

⁵eighty men who had shaved off their beards, torn their garments, and cut themselves came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, carrying grain offerings and frankincense for the house of the Lord.

²⁸You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.

³⁷For every head is shaved and every beard is clipped; on every hand is a gash, and around every waist is sackcloth.

¹²On that day the Lord God of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.

¹⁷Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Put on your turban and strap your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips or eat the bread of mourners.”

⁴They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, and their sacrifices will not please Him, but will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat will be defiled. For their bread will be for themselves; it will not enter the house of the Lord.

¹⁴I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while in mourning, or removed any of it while unclean, or offered any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything You commanded me.

¹¹All his brothers and sisters and prior acquaintances came and dined with him in his house. They consoled him and comforted him over all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. And each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

⁶Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter in soul.

⁷Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

²It is better to enter a house of mourning than a house of feasting, since death is the end of every man, and the living should take this to heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad countenance is good for the heart.

¹⁷I never sat with the band of revelers, nor did I celebrate with them. Because Your hand was on me, I sat alone, for You have filled me with indignation.

¹²On that day the Lord God of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.

¹³But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

⁴You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.

⁵You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.

²⁷People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

¹¹But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

¹¹I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.

¹³So I will silence the sound of your songs, and the music of your lyres will no longer be heard.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

¹⁰Moreover, I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

⁷The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.

⁸The joyful tambourines have ceased; the noise of revelers has stopped; the joyful harp is silent.

²²And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will never ring out in you again. Nor will any craftsmen of any trade be found in you again, nor the sound of a millstone be heard in you again.

²³The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”

¹⁹And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

⁸And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

⁹And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the Lord has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

²²And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.

³⁵you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

⁸And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?’

⁹Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

³⁵but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

³⁶They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

²¹But as for those whose hearts pursue detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.”

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

⁹Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

³For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.

²They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground.

¹⁰These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

²⁶Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

³This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.

¹⁴Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

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.

¹⁹But when the judge died, the Israelites became even more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They would not give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

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.

²⁶I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

²⁷Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

¹⁴Then I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know, for My anger will kindle a fire that will burn against you.”

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.”

²⁰then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

¹⁷But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, but are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,

¹⁸I declare to you today that you will surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

⁷So behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt.’

⁸Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ Then they will dwell once more in their own land.”

¹⁵Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this command today.

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

⁴For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol.

⁵Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses before you, as well as Aaron and Miriam.

¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance.

³⁷I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.

⁶I will keep My eyes on them for good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

²⁸Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, when I regather them to their own land, not leaving any of them behind after their exile among the nations.

²⁴For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

¹⁴You have made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler.

¹⁵The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

²The Lord God has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

²The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

¹⁶And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

²Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.

²⁰So do not let my blood fall to the ground far from the presence of the Lord. For the king of Israel has come out to look for a flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

³The eyes of the Lord are in every place, observing the evil and the good.

²¹For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord examines all his paths.

²⁴“Can a man hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.

⁸You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

²¹For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees his every step.

²²There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity can hide.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

²“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.”

³³Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

³⁴Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell. For I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites.”

¹⁸Let my persecutors be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified. Bring upon them the day of disaster and shatter them with double destruction.

⁷I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable.

⁶Give back to her as she has done to others; pay her back double for what she has done; mix her a double portion in her own cup.

²¹But as for those whose hearts pursue detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.”

⁴For You have been a refuge for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like rain against a wall,

⁷The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of distress; He cares for those who trust in Him.

¹⁷Do not become a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of disaster.

²In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

³And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

¹⁰Who fashions a god or casts an idol which profits him nothing?

²⁰This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Peoples will yet come—the residents of many cities—

²¹and the residents of one city will go to another, saying: ‘Let us go at once to plead before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I myself am going.’

⁴Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.

⁵They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;

¹⁹They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

²⁶And you can see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in nearly the whole province of Asia, this Paul has persuaded a great number of people to turn away. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all.

¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

¹⁶The Lord is known by the justice He brings; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. Higgaion Selah

²“Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it, the Lord is His name:

¹⁸May they know that You alone, whose name is the Lord, are Most High over all the earth.

⁸He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the Lord is His name—

³The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is His name.

³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place.