Jeremiah 14
Holman Christian Standard Bible
The Drought
14 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:(A)
2 Judah mourns;
her gates languish.(B)
Her people are on the ground in mourning;
Jerusalem’s cry rises up.(C)
3 Their nobles send their servants[a] for water.
They go to the cisterns;
they find no water;
their containers return empty.
They are ashamed and humiliated;
they cover their heads.(D)
4 The ground is cracked
since no rain has fallen on the land.
The farmers are ashamed;(E)
they cover their heads.
5 Even the doe in the field
gives birth and abandons her fawn
since there is no grass.
6 Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights(F)
panting for air like jackals.
Their eyes fail
because there are no green plants.
7 Though our guilt testifies against us,
Yahweh, act for Your name’s sake.
Indeed, our rebellions(G) are many;
we have sinned against You.
8 Hope of Israel,(H)
its Savior in time of distress,
why are You like a foreigner in the land,
like a traveler stopping only for the night?
9 Why are You like a helpless man,
like a warrior unable to save?(I)
Yet You are among us, Yahweh,(J)
and we are called by Your name.
Don’t leave us!
10 This is what the Lord says concerning these people:
Truly they love to wander;(K)
they never rest their feet.
So the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins.(L)
False Prophets to be Punished
11 Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of these people.(M) 12 If they fast, I will not hear their cry of despair. If they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. Rather, I will finish them off by sword, famine, and plague.”(N)
13 And I replied, “Oh no, Lord God! The prophets are telling them, ‘You won’t see sword or suffer famine. I will certainly give you true peace in this place.’”(O)
14 But the Lord said to me, “These prophets are prophesying a lie in My name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, worthless divination, the deceit(P) of their own minds.
15 “Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, though I did not send them, and who say, ‘There will never be sword or famine in this land.’ By sword and famine these prophets will meet their end. 16 The people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. There will be no one to bury them(Q)—they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will pour out their own evil on them.”
Jeremiah’s Request
17 You are to speak this word to them:
Let my eyes overflow with tears;
day and night may they not stop,(R)
for the virgin daughter of my people
has been destroyed by a great disaster,(S)
an extremely severe wound.(T)
18 If I go out to the field,
look—those slain by the sword!
If I enter the city,
look—those ill(U) from famine!
For both prophet and priest
travel to a land they do not know.
19 Have You completely rejected Judah?
Do You detest(V) Zion?
Why do You strike us
with no hope of healing for us?
We hoped for peace,
but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing,
but there was only terror.(W)
20 We acknowledge our wickedness, Lord,
the guilt of our fathers;(X)
indeed, we have sinned against You.
21 Because of Your name, don’t despise us.
Don’t disdain Your glorious throne.(Y)
Remember Your covenant(Z) with us;
do not break it.
22 Can any of the worthless idols of the nations(AA) bring rain?
Or can the skies alone give showers?
Are You not the Lord our God?
We therefore put our hope in You,(AB)
for You have done all these things.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 14:3 Lit little ones
Jeremiah 14
The Message
Time and Again We’ve Betrayed God
14 1-6 God’s Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought:
“Judah weeps,
her cities mourn.
The people fall to the ground, moaning,
while sounds of Jerusalem’s sobs rise up, up.
The rich people sent their servants for water.
They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry.
They came back with empty buckets,
wringing their hands, shaking their heads.
All the farm work has stopped.
Not a drop of rain has fallen.
The farmers don’t know what to do.
They wring their hands, they shake their heads.
Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field
because there is no grass—
Eyes glazed over, on her last legs,
nothing but skin and bones.”
7-9 We know we’re guilty. We’ve lived bad lives—
but do something, God. Do it for your sake!
Time and time again we’ve betrayed you.
No doubt about it—we’ve sinned against you.
Hope of Israel! Our only hope!
Israel’s last chance in this trouble!
Why are you acting like a tourist,
taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?
Why do you just stand there and stare,
like someone who doesn’t know what to do in a crisis?
But God, you are, in fact, here, here with us!
You know who we are—you named us!
Don’t leave us without a leg to stand on.
10 Then God said of these people:
“Since they loved to wander this way and that,
never giving a thought to where they were going,
I will now have nothing more to do with them—
except to note their guilt and punish their sins.”
The Killing Fields
11-12 God said to me, “Don’t pray that everything will turn out all right for this people. When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won’t listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I’ll not accept them. I’m finishing them off with war and famine and disease.”
13 I said, “But Master, God! Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right—no war and no famine—that there’s nothing to worry about.”
14 Then God said, “These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.
15-16 “So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, ‘War and famine will never come here’—these preachers will die in war and by starvation. And the people to whom they’ve been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied—no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I’ll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.
17-18 “And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them:
“‘My eyes pour out tears.
Day and night, the tears never quit.
My dear, dear people are battered and bruised,
hopelessly and cruelly wounded.
I walk out into the fields,
shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses.
I walk into the city,
shocked by the sight of starving bodies.
And I watch the preachers and priests
going about their business as if nothing’s happened!’”
19-22 God, have you said your final No to Judah?
Can you simply not stand Zion any longer?
If not, why have you treated us like this,
beaten us nearly to death?
We hoped for peace—
nothing good came from it;
We looked for healing—
and got kicked in the stomach.
We admit, O God, how badly we’ve lived,
and our ancestors, how bad they were.
We’ve sinned, they’ve sinned,
we’ve all sinned against you!
Your reputation is at stake! Don’t quit on us!
Don’t walk out and abandon your glorious Temple!
Remember your covenant.
Don’t break faith with us!
Can the no-gods of the godless nations cause rain?
Can the sky water the earth by itself?
You’re the one, O God, who does this.
So you’re the one for whom we wait.
You made it all,
you do it all.
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Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson