Jeremiah 9-11
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 9
The Corruption of the People
1 Oh, that I had in the wilderness
a travelers’ lodging!
That I might leave my people
and depart from them.
They are all adulterers,
a band of traitors.
2 They ready their tongues like a drawn bow;
with lying, and not with truth,
they are powerful in the land.
They go from evil to evil,
and me they do not know—oracle of the Lord.
3 Be on your guard, everyone against his neighbor;
put no trust in any brother.
Every brother imitates Jacob, the supplanter,[a]
every neighbor is guilty of slander.
4 Each one deceives the other,
no one speaks the truth.
They have accustomed their tongues to lying,
they are perverse and cannot repent.(A)
5 Violence upon violence,
deceit upon deceit:
They refuse to know me—
oracle of the Lord.
6 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts:
I will refine them and test them;
how else should I deal with the daughter of my people?
7 A murderous arrow is their tongue,
their mouths utter deceit;
They speak peaceably with their neighbors,
but in their hearts they lay an ambush!(B)
8 Should I not punish them for these deeds—oracle of the Lord;
on a nation such as this should I not take vengeance?(C)
Dirge over the Ravaged Land
9 Over the mountains I shall break out in cries of lamentation,
over the pastures in the wilderness, in a dirge:
They are scorched, and no one crosses them,
no sound of lowing cattle;
Birds of the air as well as beasts,
all have fled and are gone.(D)
10 I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins,
a haunt of jackals;
The cities of Judah I will make a waste,
where no one dwells.(E)
11 Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken? Let him declare it!
Why is the land ravaged,
scorched like a wilderness no one crosses?(F)
12 The Lord said: Because they have abandoned my law, which I set before them, and did not listen to me or follow it, 13 but followed instead their stubborn hearts and the Baals, as their ancestors had taught them,(G) 14 therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: See now, I will give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.(H) 15 I will scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their ancestors have known; I will send the sword to pursue them until I have completely destroyed them.(I)
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
Inquire, and call the wailing women to come;
summon the most skilled of them.
17 Let them come quickly
and raise for us a dirge,
That our eyes may run with tears,
our pupils flow with water.(J)
18 The sound of the dirge is heard from Zion:
We are ruined and greatly ashamed;
We have left the land,
given up our dwellings!
19 Hear, you women, the word of the Lord,
let your ears receive the word of his mouth.
Teach your daughters a dirge,
and each other a lament:
20 Death has come up through our windows,
has entered our citadels,
To cut down children in the street,
young people in the squares.(K)
21 Corpses shall fall
like dung in the open field,
Like sheaves behind the harvester,
with no one to gather them.
True Glory
22 Thus says the Lord:
Let not the wise boast of his wisdom,
nor the strong boast of his strength,
nor the rich man boast of his riches;
23 But rather, let those who boast, boast of this,
that in their prudence they know me,(L)
Know that I, the Lord, act with fidelity,
justice, and integrity on earth.
How I take delight in these—oracle of the Lord.
False Circumcision. 24 See, days are coming—oracle of the Lord—when I will demand an account of all those circumcised in the foreskin:(M) 25 Egypt and Judah, Edom and the Ammonites, Moab, and those who live in the wilderness and shave their temples.[b] For all the nations are uncircumcised, even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised at heart.
Chapter 10
The Folly of Idolatry. 1 Hear the word the Lord speaks to you, house of Israel. 2 Thus says the Lord:
Do not learn the ways of the nations,
and have no fear of the signs in the heavens,[c]
even though the nations fear them.(N)
3 For the carvings of the nations are nonentities,
wood cut from the forest,
Fashioned by artisans with the adze,(O)
4 adorned with silver and gold.
With nails and hammers they are fastened,
so they do not fall.(P)
5 Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they,
they cannot speak;
They must be carried about,
for they cannot walk.
Do not fear them, they can do no harm,
neither can they do good.(Q)
6 No one is like you, Lord,
you are great,
great and mighty is your name.(R)
7 Who would not fear you,
King of the nations,
for it is your due!
Among all the wisest of the nations,
and in all their domains,
there is none like you.(S)
8 One and all they are stupid and senseless,
the instruction from nonentities—only wood!
9 Silver plates brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Ophir,
The work of the artisan
and the handiwork of the smelter,
Clothed with violet and purple—
all of them the work of skilled workers.
10 The Lord is truly God,
he is the living God, the eternal King,
Before whose anger the earth quakes,
whose wrath the nations cannot endure.(T)
11 Thus shall you say of them: The gods that did not make heaven and earth—let these perish from earth and from beneath heaven
12 The one who made the earth by his power,
established the world by his wisdom,
and by his skill stretched out the heavens.(V)
13 When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar,
and he brings up clouds from the end of the earth,
Makes lightning flash in the rain,
and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
14 Everyone is too stupid to know;
every artisan is put to shame by his idol:
He has molded a fraud,
without breath of life.(W)
15 They are nothing, objects of ridicule;
they will perish in their time of punishment.
16 Jacob’s portion is nothing like them:
for he is the maker of everything!
Israel is his very own tribe,
Lord of hosts is his name.(X)
Abandonment of Judah
17 Gather up your bundle from the land,
City living under siege!
18 For thus says the Lord:
Now, at this time
I will sling away the inhabitants of the land;
I will hem them in,
that they may be taken.
19 Woe is me! I am undone,
my wound is beyond healing.
Yet I had thought:
if I make light of my sickness, I can bear it.
20 My tent is ruined,
all its cords are severed.
My children have left me, they are no more:
no one to pitch my tent,
no one to raise its curtains.(Y)
21 How stupid are the shepherds!
The Lord they have not sought;
For this reason they have failed,
and all their flocks scattered.(Z)
22 Listen! a rumor! here it comes,
a great commotion from the land of the north:
To make the cities of Judah a desolation,
the haunt of jackals.
Prayer of Jeremiah
23 I know, Lord,
that no one chooses their way,
Nor determines their course
nor directs their own step.
24 Correct me, Lord, but with equity,
not in anger, lest you diminish me.
25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you,
on the tribes that do not call your name;
For they have utterly devoured Jacob,
and laid waste his home.(AA)
Chapter 11
Plea for Fidelity to the Covenant. 1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 Speak to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 3 and say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be anyone who does not observe the words of this covenant,(AB) 4 which I commanded your ancestors the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that iron furnace, saying: Listen to my voice and do all that I command you. Then you shall be my people, and I will be your God.(AC) 5 Thus I will fulfill the oath I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, the one you have today. “Amen, Lord,” I answered.
6 Then the Lord said to me: Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and obey them. 7 I warned your ancestors unceasingly from the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt even to this day: obey my voice. 8 But they did not listen or obey. They each walked in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, till I brought upon them all the threats of this covenant which they had failed to observe as I commanded them.(AD)
9 A conspiracy has been found, the Lord said to me, among the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 10 They have returned to the crimes of their ancestors who refused to obey my words. They also have followed and served other gods; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their ancestors.(AE) 11 Therefore, thus says the Lord: See, I am bringing upon them a disaster they cannot escape. Though they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.(AF) 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they have been offering incense. But these gods will give them no help whatever in the time of their disaster.(AG)
13 For as many as your cities
are your gods, O Judah!
As many as the streets of Jerusalem
are the altars for sacrifice to Baal.(AH)
14 Now, you must not intercede for this people; do not raise on their behalf a cry or prayer! I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their disaster.(AI)
Sacrifices of No Avail
15 What right has my beloved in my house,
while she devises her plots?
Can vows and sacred meat turn away
your disaster from you?
Will you still be jubilant
16 when you hear the great tumult?
The Lord has named you
“a spreading olive tree, a pleasure to behold”;
Now he sets fire to it,
its branches burn.
17 The Lord of hosts who planted you has decreed disaster for you because of the evil done by the house of Israel and by the house of Judah, who provoked me by sacrificing to Baal.(AJ)
The Plot Against Jeremiah. 18 I knew it because the Lord informed me: at that time you showed me their doings.
19 Yet I was like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, not knowing that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered.”(AK)
20 But, you, Lord of hosts, just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!(AL)
21 Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life and say, “Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord; otherwise you shall die by our hand.”(AM) 22 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: I am going to punish them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and daughters shall die by famine.(AN) 23 None shall be spared among them, for I will bring disaster upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their punishment.(AO)
Footnotes
- 9:3 Jacob, the supplanter: in Hebrew, a play on words. In the popular etymology given in Gn 25:26, the name Jacob means “he supplants,” for he deprived his brother Esau of his birthright (cf. Gn 25:33).
- 9:25 Shave their temples: some Arabian tribes practiced this custom. None of the nations who practice circumcision understand the meaning of their action, not even Israel; no one conforms to life under the covenant.
- 10:2 Signs in the heavens: phenomena in the sky, such as eclipses or comets, used to predict disasters.
- 10:11 This verse is in Aramaic.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.