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26 “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin because you punish them,(A)

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17 for then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will not yield its produce; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.(A)

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19 I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper.(A)

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They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.(A)

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25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land,(A)

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Come to Bethel—and transgress;
    to Gilgal—and multiply transgression;
bring your sacrifices every morning,
    your tithes every three days;(A)
bring a thank offering of leavened bread
    and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them;
    for so you love to do, O people of Israel!
            says the Lord God.(B)

Israel Rejects Correction

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities
    and lack of bread in all your places;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.(C)

And I also withheld the rain from you
    when there were still three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city
    and send no rain on another city;
one field would be rained upon,
    and the field on which it did not rain withered;
so two or three towns wandered to one town
    to drink water and were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.(D)

I struck you with blight and mildew;
    I laid waste[a] your gardens and your vineyards;
    the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.(E)

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Footnotes

  1. 4.9 Cn: Heb the multitude of

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;(A)
16     gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
    assemble the aged;
gather the children,
    even infants at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
    and the bride her canopy.(B)

17 Between the vestibule and the altar,
    let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
    and do not make your heritage a mockery,
    a byword among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’ ”(C)

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A Call to Repentance and Prayer

13 Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests;
    wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, pass the night in sackcloth,
    you ministers of my God!
Grain offering and drink offering
    are withheld from the house of your God.(A)

14 Consecrate a fast;
    call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
    and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to the Lord.(B)

15 Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
    and as destruction from the Almighty[a] it comes.(C)
16 Is not the food cut off
    before our eyes,
joy and gladness
    from the house of our God?(D)

17 The seed shrivels under the clods;[b]
    the storehouses are desolate;
the granaries are ruined
    because the grain has withered.
18 How the animals groan!
    The herds of cattle wander about
because there is no pasture for them;
    even the flocks of sheep are perishing.(E)

19 To you, O Lord, I cry,
for fire has devoured
    the pastures of the wilderness,
and flames have burned
    all the trees of the field.(F)
20 Even the wild animals cry to you
    because the watercourses are dried up,
and fire has devoured
    the pastures of the wilderness.(G)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.15 Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
  2. 1.17 Meaning of Heb uncertain

15 I will return again to my place
    until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
    In their distress they will beg my favor:(A)

A Call to Repentance

“Come, let us return to the Lord,
    for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
    he has struck down, and he will bind us up.(B)

27 Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. 28 Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin.[a](A) 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel?(B) 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 18.30 Or so that they shall not be a stumbling block of iniquity to you

13 Mortal, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly and I stretch out my hand against it and cut off its supply of bread[a] and send famine upon it and cut off from it humans and animals,(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.13 Heb staff of bread

The Great Drought

14 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:(A)

Judah mourns,
    and her gates languish;
they lie in gloom on the ground,
    and the cry of Jerusalem goes up.(B)
Her[a] nobles send their servants for water;
    they come to the cisterns;
they find no water;
    they return with their vessels empty.
They are ashamed and dismayed
    and cover their heads,(C)
because the ground is cracked.
    Because there has been no rain on the land,
the farmers are dismayed;
    they cover their heads.(D)
Even the doe in the field forsakes her newborn fawn
    because there is no grass.
The wild asses stand on the bare heights;[b]
    they pant for air like jackals;
their eyes fail
    because there is no herbage.(E)

Although our iniquities testify against us,
    act, O Lord, for your name’s sake;
our rebellions indeed are many,
    and we have sinned against you.(F)
O hope of Israel,
    its savior in time of trouble,
why should you be like a stranger in the land,
    like a traveler turning aside for the night?(G)
Why should you be like someone confused,
    like a mighty warrior who cannot give help?
Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us,
    and we are called by your name;
    do not forsake us!(H)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.3 Gk: Heb their
  2. 14.6 Or the trails

50 Thus says the Lord:
Where is your mother’s bill of divorce
    with which I dismissed her?
Or which of my creditors is it
    to whom I have sold you?
No, because of your sins you were sold,
    and for your transgressions your mother was dismissed.(A)
Why was no one there when I came?
    Why did no one answer when I called?
Is my arm powerless to redeem?
    Or have I no strength to deliver?
By my rebuke I dry up the sea;
    I make the rivers a desert,
so that their fish stink for lack of water
    and die of thirst.[a](B)

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Footnotes

  1. 50.2 Or die on the thirsty ground

I will make it a wasteland;
    it shall not be pruned or hoed,
    and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
    that they rain no rain upon it.(A)

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13 No one who conceals transgressions will prosper,
    but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.(A)

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12 While he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.(A) 13 He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his plea, and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord indeed was God.(B)

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Elijah Predicts a Drought

17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe[a] in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”(A) The word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi. But after a while the wadi dried up because there was no rain in the land.

The Widow of Zarephath

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there, for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”(B) 10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” 11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”(C) 13 Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”(D) 15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

Elijah Revives the Widow’s Son

17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”(E)

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Footnotes

  1. 17.1 Gk: Heb of the settlers

23 The sky over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you iron.(A)

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