Jeremiah 5:26-9:10

English Standard Version

²⁶For wicked men are found among my people;
    ^(A)they lurk like fowlers lying in wait.^[a]
^(B)They set a trap;
    they catch men.
²⁷Like a cage full of birds,
    their houses are full of deceit;
therefore they have become great and rich;
²⁸    ^(C)they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no bounds in deeds of evil;
    ^(D)they judge not with justice
the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper,
    and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
²⁹^(E)Shall I not punish them for these things?
declares the Lord,
    and shall I not avenge myself
    on a nation such as this?”

³⁰An appalling and ^(F)horrible thing
    has happened in the land:
³¹^(G)the prophets prophesy falsely,
    and the priests rule at their direction;
^(H)my people love to have it so,
    but what will you do when the end comes?

Impending Disaster for Jerusalem

6 Flee for safety, ^(I)O people of Benjamin,
    from the midst of Jerusalem!
Blow the trumpet in ^(J)Tekoa,
    and raise a signal on ^(K)Beth-haccherem,
for disaster looms ^(L)out of the north,
    and great destruction.
²The lovely and delicately bred I will destroy,
    ^(M)the daughter of Zion.^[b]
³^(N)Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her;
    ^(O)they shall pitch their tents around her;
    they shall pasture, each in his place.
⁴^(P)“Prepare war against her;
    arise, and let us attack ^(Q)at noon!
Woe to us, for the day declines,
    for the shadows of evening lengthen!
⁵Arise, and let us attack by night
    and destroy her palaces!”

⁶For thus says the Lord of hosts:
^(R)“Cut down her trees;
    ^(S)cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem.
This is the city that must be ^(T)punished;
    there is nothing but oppression within her.
⁷^(U)As a well keeps its water fresh,
    so she keeps fresh her evil;
^(V)violence and destruction are heard within her;
    sickness and wounds are ever before me.
⁸Be warned, O Jerusalem,
    ^(W)lest I turn from you in disgust,
lest I make you ^(X)a desolation,
    an uninhabited land.”

⁹Thus says the Lord of hosts:
^(Y)“They shall glean thoroughly as a vine
    the remnant of Israel;
like a grape gatherer pass your hand again
    over its branches.”
¹⁰^(Z)To whom shall I speak and give warning,
    that they may hear?
^(AA)Behold, their ears are uncircumcised,
    ^(AB)they cannot listen;
behold, ^(AC)the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn;
    they take no pleasure in it.
¹¹Therefore I am full of the wrath of the Lord;
    ^(AD)I am weary of holding it in.
^(AE)“Pour it out upon the children in the street,
    and upon the gatherings of young men, also;
^(AF)both husband and wife ^(AG)shall be taken,
    the elderly and the very aged.
¹²^(AH)Their houses shall be turned over to others,
    their fields and wives together,
for I will stretch out my hand
    against the inhabitants of the land,”
declares the Lord.
¹³^(AI)“For from the least to the greatest of them,
    everyone ^(AJ)is greedy for unjust gain;
and from ^(AK)prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
¹⁴They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ^(AL)‘Peace, peace,’
    ^(AM)when there is no peace.
¹⁵^(AN)Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
    ^(AO)at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,”
says the Lord.

¹⁶Thus says the Lord:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
    and ask for ^(AP)the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
    ^(AQ)and find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
¹⁷^(AR)I set watchmen over you, saying,
    ‘Pay attention to ^(AS)the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ^(AT)‘We will not pay attention.’
¹⁸Therefore hear, O nations,
    and know, O congregation, what will happen to them.
¹⁹Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people,
    ^(AU)the fruit of their devices,
because they have not paid attention to my words;
    and as for my law, they have rejected it.
²⁰^(AV)What use to me is ^(AW)frankincense that comes from ^(AX)Sheba,
    or sweet cane from a distant land?
^(AY)Your burnt offerings are not acceptable,
    nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.
²¹Therefore thus says the Lord:
^(AZ)‘Behold, I will lay before this people
    stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble;
fathers and sons together,
    neighbor and friend shall perish.’”

²²Thus says the Lord:
^(BA)“Behold, a people is coming ^(BB)from the north country,
    a great nation is stirring from ^(BC)the farthest parts of the earth.
²³They lay hold on bow and javelin;
    they are ^(BD)cruel and have no mercy;
    ^(BE)the sound of them is like the roaring sea;
they ride on horses,
    set in array as a man for battle,
    against you, O daughter of Zion!”
²⁴We have heard the report of it;
    ^(BF)our hands fall helpless;
anguish has taken hold of us,
    ^(BG)pain as of a woman in labor.
²⁵Go not out into the field,
    nor walk on the road,
for the enemy has a sword;
    ^(BH)terror is on every side.
²⁶O daughter of my people, ^(BI)put on sackcloth,
    and ^(BJ)roll in ashes;
^(BK)make mourning as for an only son,
    most bitter lamentation,
for suddenly the destroyer
    will come upon us.

²⁷“I have made you ^(BL)a tester of metals among my people,
    that you may know and ^(BM)test their ways.
²⁸^(BN)They are all stubbornly rebellious,
    ^(BO)going about with slanders;
they are ^(BP)bronze and iron;
    all of them act corruptly.
²⁹The ^(BQ)bellows blow fiercely;
    the lead is consumed by the fire;
^(BR)in vain the refining goes on,
    for the wicked are not removed.
³⁰^(BS)Rejected silver they are called,
    for the Lord has rejected them.”

Evil in the Land

7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²^(BT)“Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(BU)Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴^(BV)Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

⁵“For if you truly ^(BW)amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly ^(BX)execute justice one with another, ⁶if you ^(BY)do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, ^(BZ)or shed innocent blood in this place, ^(CA)and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ⁷^(CB)then I will let you dwell in this place, ^(CC)in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

⁸“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹^(CD)Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, ^(CE)swear falsely, ^(CF)make offerings to Baal, ^(CG)and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, ^(CH)which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹^(CI)Has this house, ^(CJ)which is called by my name, ^(CK)become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. ¹²Go now to ^(CL)my place that was in Shiloh, ^(CM)where I made my name dwell at first, and ^(CN)see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. ¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and ^(CO)when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and ^(CP)when I called you, you did not answer, ¹⁴therefore I will do to ^(CQ)the house ^(CR)that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, ^(CS)as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵^(CT)And I will cast you out of my sight, ^(CU)as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of ^(CV)Ephraim.

¹⁶“As for you, ^(CW)do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, ^(CX)and the women knead dough, to ^(CY)make cakes for ^(CZ)the queen of heaven. And ^(DA)they pour out drink offerings to other gods, ^(DB)to provoke me to anger. ¹⁹^(DC)Is it I whom they provoke? declares the Lord. Is it not themselves, ^(DD)to their own shame? ²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, ^(DE)my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; ^(DF)it will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(DG)“Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them ^(DH)concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them: ^(DI)‘Obey my voice, and ^(DJ)I will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^(DK)And walk in all the way that I command you, ^(DL)that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴^(DM)But they did not obey or incline their ear, ^(DN)but walked in their own counsels and ^(DO)the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and ^(DP)went backward and not forward. ²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, ^(DQ)I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. ²⁶^(DR)Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, ^(DS)but stiffened their neck. ^(DT)They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷^(DU)“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. ^(DV)You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; ^(DW)truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

²⁹^(DX)“‘Cut off your hair and cast it away;
raise a lamentation on ^(DY)the bare heights,
for the Lord has rejected and forsaken
the generation of his wrath.’

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set ^(DZ)their detestable things in the house ^(EA)that is called by my name, to ^(EB)defile it. ³¹And they have built the high places of ^(EC)Topheth, which is in ^(ED)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^(EE)to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, ^(EF)which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²^(EG)Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called ^(EH)Topheth, or ^(EI)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; ^(EJ)for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. ³³^(EK)And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, ^(EL)and none will frighten them away. ³⁴^(EM)And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, ^(EN)for the land shall become a waste.

8 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. ²And they shall be spread ^(EO)before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. ^(EP)And they shall not be gathered or buried. ^(EQ)They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ³^(ER)Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family ^(ES)in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

⁴“You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
^(ET)When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?
⁵Why then has this people ^(EU)turned away
    in perpetual ^(EV)backsliding?
^(EW)They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.
⁶^(EX)I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
    ^(EY)like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
⁷Even the stork in the heavens
    knows her times,
and ^(EZ)the turtledove, ^(FA)swallow, and crane^[c]
    keep the time of their coming,
^(FB)but my people know not
    the rules^[d] of the Lord.

⁸^(FC)“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
⁹^(FD)The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed ^(FE)and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    so what wisdom is in them?
¹⁰^(FF)Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone ^(FG)is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
¹¹They have healed ^(FH)the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
¹²Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, ^(FI)they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
^(FJ)Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.
¹³When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
    there are ^(FK)no grapes on the vine,
    ^(FL)nor figs on the fig tree;
^(FM)even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”^[e]

¹⁴Why do we sit still?
^(FN)Gather together; ^(FO)let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
    and has ^(FP)given us ^(FQ)poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵^(FR)We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

¹⁶^(FS)“The snorting of their horses is heard ^(FT)from Dan;
    at the sound of the neighing ^(FU)of their stallions
    ^(FV)the whole land quakes.
They come ^(FW)and devour the land and all that fills it,
    the city and those who dwell in it.
¹⁷For behold, I am sending among you ^(FX)serpents,
    adders ^(FY)that cannot be charmed,
    ^(FZ)and they shall bite you,”
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

¹⁸My joy is gone; grief is upon me;^[f]
    ^(GA)my heart is sick within me.
¹⁹Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from ^(GB)the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    ^(GC)Is her King not in her?”
^(GD)“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
    and with their foreign idols?”
²⁰“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
²¹For the wound of ^(GE)the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    ^(GF)I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no ^(GG)balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?
9 ^[g] ^(GH)Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of ^(GI)the daughter of my people!
²^[h] Oh that I had in the desert
    a travelers' lodging place,
that I might leave my people
    and go away from them!
For they are all ^(GJ)adulterers,
    a company of ^(GK)treacherous men.
³^(GL)They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong^[i] in the land;
for they proceed from evil to evil,
    ^(GM)and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

⁴^(GN)Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
for every ^(GO)brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor ^(GP)goes about as a slanderer.
⁵Everyone deceives his neighbor,
    and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongue to speak lies;
    they weary themselves committing iniquity.
⁶Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit,
    ^(GQ)they refuse to know me, declares the Lord.

⁷Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:
“Behold, ^(GR)I will refine them and ^(GS)test them,
    for what else can I do, ^(GT)because of my people?
⁸^(GU)Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    ^(GV)it speaks deceitfully;
with his mouth ^(GW)each speaks peace to his neighbor,
    but in his heart ^(GX)he plans an ambush for him.
⁹^(GY)Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord,
    and shall I not avenge myself
    on a nation such as this?

¹⁰“I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains,
    and a lamentation for ^(GZ)the pastures of the wilderness,
^(HA)because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
^(HB)both the birds of the air and the beasts
    have fled and are gone.