Jeremiah 18:12-23
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Israel’s Stubborn Idolatry
12 But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”(A)
13 Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations:
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel has done
a most horrible thing.(B)
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?[a]
Do the mountain[b] waters run dry,[c]
the cold flowing streams?
15 But my people have forgotten me;
they burn offerings to a delusion;
they have stumbled[d] in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and have gone into bypaths,
not the highway,(C)
16 making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
All who pass by it are horrified
and shake their heads.(D)
17 Like the wind from the east,
I will scatter them before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.(E)
A Plot against Jeremiah
18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us bring charges against him,[e] and let us not heed any of his words.”(F)
19 Give heed to me, O Lord,
and listen to what my adversaries say!
20 Is evil a recompense for good?
Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
Remember how I stood before you
to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.(G)
21 Therefore give their children over to famine;
hurl them out to the power of the sword;
let their wives become childless and widowed.
May their men meet death by pestilence,
their youths be slain by the sword in battle.(H)
22 May a cry be heard from their houses
when you bring the marauder suddenly upon them!
For they have dug a pit to catch me
and laid snares for my feet.(I)
23 Yet you, O Lord, know
all their plotting to kill me.
Do not forgive their iniquity;
do not blot out their sin from your sight.
Let them be tripped up before you;
deal with them while you are angry.(J)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.