Jeremiah 2:11-18
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
11 Does any other nation change its gods?—
even though they are not gods at all!
But my people have changed their glory
for useless things.(A)
12 Be horrified at this, heavens;
shudder, be appalled—oracle of the Lord.
13 Two evils my people have done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.(B)
14 Is Israel a slave, a house-born servant?[a]
Why then has he become plunder?
15 Against him lions roar,
they raise their voices.
They have turned his land into a waste;
his cities are charred ruins, without an inhabitant.(C)
16 Yes, the people of Memphis[b] and Tahpanhes
shave the crown of your head.
17 Has not forsaking the Lord, your God,
done this to you?(D)
18 And now, why go to Egypt,[c]
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Why go to Assyria,
to drink the waters of the River?
Footnotes
- 2:14 House-born servant: one born in the master’s house, in contrast to a slave acquired by purchase or as a captive; cf. Lv 22:11.
- 2:16 Memphis: the capital of Lower Egypt. Tahpanhes: a frontier city of Egypt, east of the Delta. Shave the crown of your head: an image for Egypt plundering Judah; perhaps a reference to the capture of King Jehoahaz in 609 B.C. (2 Kgs 23:34).
- 2:18 Egypt and Assyria were the competing foreign powers favored by rival parties within Judah. The desire for such foreign alliances is a further desertion of the Lord, the source of living waters (v. 13), in favor of the above-named powers, symbolized by the waters of the Nile and the Euphrates rivers.
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