Chronological

14 ¶ The word of the LORD that was given to Jeremiah concerning the famine.

² Judah mourns, and its gates languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

³ And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads.

⁴ Because the ground is chapped, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

⁵ Even the hind calved in the field and forsook it, because there was no grass.

⁶ And the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed because there was no grass.

⁷ O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for thy name’s sake; for our rebellions have multiplied; we have sinned against thee.

⁸ O the hope of Israel, the Keeper thereof in time of trouble, why should thou be as a stranger in the land and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night?

⁹ Why should thou be as a speechless man as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; do not leave us.

¹⁰ ¶ Thus hath the LORD said unto this people, Thus have they loved to move, nor have they refrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not have them in his will; he will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins.

¹¹ Then the LORD said unto me, Do not pray for this people for their good.

¹² When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by sword and by famine and by pestilence.

¹³ Then I said, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you true peace in this place.

¹⁴ Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I did not send them, neither have I commanded them, neither did I speak unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision, divination, vanity, and the deceit of their heart.

¹⁵ Therefore thus hath the LORD said concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name which I did not send and that say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.

¹⁶ And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have no one to bury them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters; for I will pour their wickedness upon them.

¹⁷ ¶ Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.

¹⁸ If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold those that are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest walked around in circles in the land, and they did not know it.

¹⁹ Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Why didst thou cause us to be smitten when no healing remains for us? We waited for peace, and there was no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

²⁰ We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against thee.

²¹ Do not cast us away; for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory; remember, do not break thy covenant with us.

²² Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause it to rain? or can the heavens give rain? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou hast made all these things.

15 ¶ Then the LORD said unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my will would not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.

² And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Where shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus hath the LORD said: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.

³ And I will visit over them four kinds of evil, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

⁴ And I will give them over to be sifted by all the kingdoms of the earth because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

⁵ For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who is to come to ask regarding thy peace?

⁶ Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD; thou art gone backward: therefore, I stretched out my hand over thee and cast thee away; I am tired of repenting.

⁷ And I fanned them with a fan unto the gates of the land; I bereaved them of children, I wasted my people; they did not turn from their ways.

⁸ Their widows are multiplied unto me more than the sand of the sea: I have brought upon them a destroyer at noonday against the young; I have caused him to fall upon her suddenly, and terrors upon the city.

⁹ She that has borne seven languishes; her soul is filled with sorrow; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she has been ashamed and confounded; and the residue of them I will deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

¹⁰ ¶ Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them curses me.

¹¹ The LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.

¹² Shall iron break the iron from the place of the north wind and the bronze?

¹³ Thy riches and thy treasures I will give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

¹⁴ And I will make thee to serve thine enemies in a land which thou dost not know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn upon you.

¹⁵ ¶ O LORD, thou knowest: remember me and visit me and revenge me of my enemies; do not take me away in the prolongation of thy anger, know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.

¹⁶ Thy words were found, and I ate them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart: for thy name was called upon me, O LORD God of the hosts.

¹⁷ I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers, nor did I become puffed up by reason of thy prophecy; I sat alone because thou hast filled me with indignation.

¹⁸ Why was my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar and as waters that fail?

¹⁹ Therefore thus hath the LORD said, If thou wilt return, then I will bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me; and if thou wilt take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth; let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.

²⁰ And I will give thee unto this people as a fenced brazen wall, and they shall fight against thee but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to keep thee and to defend thee, said the LORD.

²¹ And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will ransom thee out of the hand of the strong.

16 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

² Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

³ For thus hath the LORD said concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that would be born in this place and concerning their mothers that would bare them and concerning their fathers that would beget them in this land

⁴ They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth; and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine; and their carcasses shall be food for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵ For thus hath the LORD said, Do not enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor comfort them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, said the LORD, even mercy and compassion.

⁶ Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them:

⁷ neither shall they break the bread of mourning for them, to comfort themselves for their death; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

⁸ In the same manner thou shalt not go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.

⁹ For thus hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said: Behold, I will cause to cease in this place before your eyes and in your days, every voice of mirth and every voice of gladness, every voice of the bridegroom, and every voice of the bride.

¹⁰ ¶ And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt show this people all these things, they shall say unto thee, Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin which we have committed against the LORD our God?

¹¹ Then thou shalt say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods and have served them and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law;

¹² and ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk each one after the imagination of his evil heart, not hearkening unto me:

¹³ Therefore I will cause you to be cast out of this land into a land that ye do not know, neither ye nor your fathers; and there ye shall serve other gods day and night; for I will not grant you mercy.

¹⁴ ¶ Therefore, behold, the days come, said the LORD, that it shall no longer be said, The LORD lives, that caused the sons of Israel to come up out of the land of Egypt;

¹⁵ but, The LORD lives, that caused the sons of Israel to come up out of the land of the north wind, and from all the lands where he had driven them; and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

¹⁶ Behold, I send many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after, will I send many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

¹⁷ For my eyes are upon all their ways, which they have not hid from me, neither does their iniquity hide from the presence of my eyes.

¹⁸ But first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their abominations, and they have filled my inheritance with abominable things.

¹⁹ O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the time of the affliction; Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things in which there is no profit.

²⁰ Shall a man make gods unto himself? But they shall not be gods.

²¹ Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know this time; I will cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD.

17 ¶ The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars

² that their sons might remember their altars and their groves, by the green trees and upon the high hills.

³ My mountain dweller! In the field are thy riches; all thy treasures I will give to the spoil, because of the sin of thy high places throughout all thy borders.

⁴ And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou dost not know: for ye have kindled a fire in my anger, which shall burn for ever.

⁵ ¶ Thus hath the LORD said; Cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from the LORD.

⁶ For he shall be like the heath in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

⁷ Blessed is the man that is steadfast in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD.

⁸ For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreads out her roots by the river and shall not see when heat comes, but her leaf shall be green and shall not be fatigued in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who shall know it?

¹⁰ I the LORD search the heart; I try the kidneys, even to give each man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

¹¹ As the partridge that steals that which she did not hatch, is he that gets riches and not with righteousness; in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and at his end shall be a fool.

¹² ¶ The throne of glory, height from the beginning, is the place of our sanctification.

¹³ O hope of Israel! LORD, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed; and those that depart from me shall be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.

¹⁴ Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

¹⁵ Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.

¹⁶ For I did not take it upon myself to be a pastor following thee; neither have I desired the woeful day; thou dost know: that which came out of my lips has come forth in thy presence.

¹⁷ Do not be a terror unto me; thou art my hope in the day of evil.

¹⁸ Let them be confounded that persecute me, but do not let me be confounded; let them be dismayed; but do not let me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil and destroy them with double destruction.

¹⁹ ¶ Thus said the LORD unto me: Go and stand in the gate of the sons of the people by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;

²⁰ and say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:

²¹ Thus hath the LORD said: Take heed for your lives, and bring no burden on the sabbath day to bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;

²² neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do any work, but sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers,

²³ who did not hear, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive correction.

²⁴ And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day but sanctify the sabbath day to do no work therein,

²⁵ then shall there enter in by the gates of this city, the kings and the princes, who sit upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited for ever.

²⁶ And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places about Jerusalem and from the land of Benjamin and from the fields and from the mountain and from the south, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices and presents and incense, and bringing the sacrifice of praise unto the house of the LORD.

²⁷ But if ye will not hearken unto me to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to bring burdens nor bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.