Old/New Testament
Jeremiah warns the people of Jerusalem
6 You descendants of Benjamin,
you must run away to be safe!
Escape from Jerusalem!
Make a noise with a trumpet in Tekoa!
Light a fire to warn people in Beth-Hakkerem!
A great army is coming from the north.
It will come to destroy everything!
2 Jerusalem is a beautiful city,
like a daughter that I love.
She cannot protect herself,
and I will destroy her.
3 Kings will come to attack the city.
They will bring their armies,
like shepherds with their sheep.
They will make their camps all around the city.
Each of them will take their own piece of land.
4 They will say to their soldiers,
‘Get ready to attack the city!
We will attack at noon!’
But if the day is almost finished, they will say,
‘It is already evening and it will soon be dark.
5 So we should attack them in the night.
We will destroy all their strong buildings!’
6 This will happen because Lord Almighty has said,
‘Cut down the trees around Jerusalem.
Use them to build towers to the top of the city's walls.
I must punish Jerusalem.
It is full of cruel people.
7 They never stop doing wicked things,
like water that pours out from a spring.
It is full of the noise of violence and fights.
Everywhere I see people who have disease and wounds.
8 Listen to me as I warn you, Jerusalem.
If not, I will turn away from you.
I will destroy you completely.
Nobody will live on your land any more.’
9 The Lord Almighty said this:
‘I will let the enemy take all the people from Israel,
like a farmer who picks all the grapes from his vine.
So check the vines carefully,
to see if there are some grapes that you can save.’
10 I replied,
‘If I speak to people and I warn them,
nobody will listen to me.
They have shut their ears so that they cannot hear.
They hate the Lord's message.
They do not want to hear it.
11 I am as angry with them as you are, Lord.
I can no longer control my anger.’
The Lord replied,
‘Tell everyone how angry you are!
Tell the children who play in the streets,
Tell the young men who meet together.
Include all the men and their wives,
as well as the old people, and those who are near to death.
12 I will give their houses to other people to live in.
Other people will take their fields and their wives.
Yes, I will punish the people who live in this land.’
That is what the Lord says.
13 ‘They all cheat other people to get what they want.
Important people and ordinary people do that.
Prophets and priests do that.
They love to deceive people.
14 They tell my people that their wounds are not bad.
They say to them,
“No problem! You will have peace!”
But there will be no peace for my people.
15 They are not ashamed of the disgusting things that they do.
They do not even know what shame is.
They have forgotten how to be ashamed.
So they will fall to the ground,
as other people have fallen.
When I decide to punish them,
that will be the end of them.’
That is what the Lord says.
16 The Lord said to his people,
‘Stand at the place where the roads cross,
and look carefully.
Ask where the ways of your ancestors are.[a]
Find the good way, and go along that way.
Then you will live in peace.’
But the people said, ‘No, we will not go that way. ’
17 The Lord said,
‘I sent my prophets to warn you of danger.
They said, “Listen for the noise of the trumpet!
That will tell you when danger is near.”
But you said, “We do not want to listen.”
18 So listen to me, all you nations.
Look carefully!
See what will happen to my people.
19 Hear me, all people on the earth.
I will cause great trouble for my people.
I will punish them as a result of their wrong thoughts.
They have not listened to my messages.
They have turned against my law.
20 They may offer to me sweet incense that comes from Sheba.
But that does not please me.
The spices that they bring from lands far away
do not please me either.
I will not accept the burnt offerings or other sacrifices
that they offer to me.’
21 So this is what the Lord says:
‘I will send troubles to make these people fall down.
Fathers and their children will all fall to the ground.
Their friends and their neighbours will die.’
22 This is what the Lord says:
‘Look! An army is coming from the north.
A great nation is preparing to attack you
from a place that is far away.
23 Its soldiers carry bows and spears as their weapons.
They are always cruel and they are never kind.
They ride into the battle on their horses,
and it sounds like the noise of the sea.
They are ready to attack you,
people of Jerusalem.’
24 The people say,
‘We have heard news about them,
and we are very frightened.
We feel too weak to fight.
We are afraid and in pain,
like a woman who is giving birth.
25 Do not go out into the fields.
Do not travel on the roads.
Our enemies are everywhere.
They have their swords ready to attack us.
Danger is all around us.’
26 So I say, ‘My dear people, show that you are sorry.
Wear sackcloth and sit in ashes.
Weep and cry aloud,
as if your only child had died.
Realize that the enemy's army will soon be here
and they are ready to destroy us.’
27 The Lord said to me,
‘I have sent you to test my people.
Test them like someone tests metal.
Watch them carefully,
to see how they live.
28 They have completely turned against God.
They refuse to change their minds.
They tell lies against people,
and they cheat them.
29 A very hot fire can remove the dirt from silver
and make it pure.
I punish my people to make them pure,
but it is useless.
There are too many wicked people,
so I cannot make them pure.
30 I, the Lord, cannot accept them,
so they are like useless silver.’
Jeremiah speaks in the Temple
7 The Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: 2 ‘Stand at the gate of the Lord's temple and speak this message. Say, “Listen to the Lord's message, all you people of Judah. You come through this gate to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says: Change the way that you live. Do things that are right. If you change, I will let you continue to live here. 4 People may say, ‘We are safe here! This is the temple of the Lord. It is the temple of the Lord!’ But the people who say that are deceiving you. Do not trust them. 5 You must change the way that you have been living. You must do what is right. Be fair to each other. 6 Do not be cruel to foreigners who are living among you. Do not be cruel to widows, or to children who have no family. You must stop murdering people. You must stop worshipping other gods. If you live like that, it will destroy you. 7 If you change how you live, I will let you live in this place. It is the land that I gave to your ancestors, to be their home for ever.
8 But look at how you live now! You believe in lies that cannot save you. 9 You rob people. You murder people. You have sex with someone else's wife or husband. You tell lies in court when you have promised to tell the truth. You offer sacrifices to the false god, Baal. You serve other gods that you never knew before. 10 You do that and then you come to meet me here, in my own house! You say, ‘We are safe!’ 11 This is my temple! It is not a place where robbers can hide and be safe. Listen to me! I have seen the things that you have done.” That is what the Lord says.
12 “Go to Shiloh, and see what I did there. It was the first place that I chose where people would worship me. But I destroyed it because of the wicked things that my people, the Israelites, did. 13 You have done the same wicked things. I have warned you many times, but you have not listened to me. I called out to you, but you refused to answer.” That is what the Lord says.
14 “So now I will destroy this temple that I chose to be my home. I gave this temple to you and to your ancestors. You think that it will keep you safe. But I will destroy it, as I destroyed Shiloh. 15 I will send you far away from me. I already did that to the other Israelites, the people of Ephraim's tribe.” [b]
16 Jeremiah, you must not pray for this people. Do not ask me to help them. If you ask me to save them, I will not listen to you. 17 You can see what they are doing in Jerusalem and in all the towns of Judah. 18 The children fetch wood and their fathers use it to light a fire. The women prepare flour to cook cakes. Then they offer them to the “Queen of Heaven”. And they offer gifts of drink to other false gods. They do that to make me angry. 19 But they are not hurting me. They are hurting themselves, and they will be ashamed.’ That is what the Lord says.
20 The Lord God says, ‘Because I am so angry, I will punish this land very much. It will be like a fire that nobody can stop. My punishment will destroy people, animals, trees and crops.’
21 The Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says this to Judah's people: ‘You should eat the meat from your burnt offerings, as well as your other sacrifices. You are not offering them to me![c] 22 Remember this: I brought your ancestors safely out of Egypt. Then I gave them my commands. Those commands were not only about burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 I also told them, “Obey me. Then I will be your God, and you will be my people. You must live in the way that I have commanded you. If you do that, you will enjoy your lives.” 24 But your ancestors refused to obey me. They did anything that their wicked thoughts made them want to do. They refused to return to me. Instead, they went further away. 25 Since the time that your ancestors left Egypt, I have sent my servants, the prophets to speak to you. I have continued to do that many times, even until now. 26 But my people did not listen to me. They have refused to obey me. They have continued to do evil things, even worse than their ancestors did.’
27 The Lord said to me, ‘Jeremiah, you must speak my message to them. But they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not answer. 28 So you must tell them, “The people of this nation have not obeyed the Lord their God. When I warned them, they have not agreed to change. Nobody does what is right. Nobody even speaks about what is true. 29 Now show that you are upset. Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go to the tops of the hills and sing sad songs about death. Realize that today's people have made the Lord very angry. So he has decided to turn away from them and leave them.” ’
The valley of death
30 The Lord says, ‘The people of Judah have done things that I see are evil. They have put their disgusting idols in my temple. That is the place that I chose to be my special home, and they have made it unclean. 31 They have built altars in Topheth, in Ben-Hinnom Valley. On those altars, they light fires to burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices. I never commanded them to do that. I never even thought about it. 32 So listen to me! The time will soon come when people no longer call those places Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley. Instead, they will call it Death Valley. They will bury lots of dead people there. There will be no space left to bury any more people! 33 Then the bodies of dead people will lie on the ground. Birds and animals will come and eat them. There will be nobody to chase them away. 34 Jerusalem and all of Judah will become like a desert where nobody lives. There will be no noise of happy people. There will be no happy songs or marriage parties. The whole land will be quiet.’
8 The Lord says, ‘At that time, your enemies will open the graves of your leaders and they will remove their bones.[d] They will remove the bones of Judah's kings and their officers, as well as the priests and prophets. They will also remove the bones of the ordinary people of Jerusalem. 2 They will leave the bones all over the ground, under the sun, the moon and the stars. Those were the gods that my people loved. They served them and they worshipped them. Nobody will take their bones and bury them again. They will lie on the ground, like dung. 3 The people of this wicked nation who are still alive will want to die. I will send them away as prisoners to other countries. They will not want to live in those places. They will all want to die.’ That is what the Lord Almighty says.
Sin brings punishment
4 ‘Jeremiah, tell the people that this is what I, the Lord, say to them:
When people fall down, they get up again.
When people realize that they are on the wrong road,
they turn around.
5 So why have the people of Jerusalem not turned back to me?
They turn away from me all the time.
They believe the lies of false gods,
and they refuse to return to me.
6 I have listened carefully to them,
but they do not say what is right.
They are not sorry for the wicked things that they have done.
None of them say, “I have done something wrong.”
They all continue to do what they want to do.
They are like horses that are running into a battle.
7 Even birds know when it is time for them to move to a different place.
That is true for storks, doves, swallows and cranes.[e]
Birds know when it is time to return,
but my people do not know my laws.
8 You say, “We are wise
because we have the law of the Lord.”
But I tell you, your teachers have changed my laws.
They teach you lies instead.
9 Those wise teachers will be ashamed and upset.
Enemies will catch them as their prisoners.
They have refused to accept the Lord's message.
So they are not really wise.
10 I will give their wives to other men.
Their fields will belong to other men.
They all cheat other people to get what they want.
Important people and ordinary people do that.
Prophets and priests do that.
They love to deceive people.
11 They tell my dear people that their wounds are not bad.
They say to them,
“No problem! You will have peace.”
But there will be no peace for my people.
12 They are not ashamed of the disgusting things that they do.
They do not even know what shame is.
They have forgotten how to be ashamed.
So they will fall to the ground,
as other people have fallen.
When I punish them,
that will be the end of them.’
That is what the Lord says.
13 The Lord says,
‘I will take away the crops from their fields.’
‘No figs or grapes will grow on their trees.[f]
The leaves on their trees will dry up and die.
All the good things that I gave to them will disappear.’
14 The people say:
‘We should not sit here and do nothing.
We must all go together into our strong cities.
If we have to die, we will die there!
The Lord our God has said that we must die.
We have done bad things against him.
He has decided to punish us with death.
He has given us water to drink that has poison in it.
15 We wanted to have peace,
but nothing good has happened to us.
We wanted to rest without trouble,
but instead we are afraid.
16 In the city of Dan, people can already hear
the noise of the enemy's horses.[g]
They are coming to attack our land,
so everyone shakes with fear.
They will destroy the whole land
and everything in it.
They will destroy the cities
and all the people who live in them.’
17 The Lord says,
‘Yes! I am sending an enemy's army to attack you.
They will be like dangerous snakes that have poison.
Nobody can stop them!
They will bite you and kill you.’
18 I said,
‘I am very sad and upset.
I will never get better again.
19 Listen to my dear people!
They are calling out for help everywhere in the land.
They are saying, “Is the Lord still with us in Zion?
Is he still there to rule us as our King?” ’
The Lord replies,
‘They worship images of false gods.
and useless foreign idols.
That has made me very angry.’
20 The people say,
‘We have taken in all our crops from the fields.
The summer has finished.
And still nobody has rescued us.’
21 I am very upset
because my dear people have so much pain.
I weep and I cry, as if a friend had died.
22 Surely there is a medicine in Gilead.
There is a doctor there who can make my dear people better.
But my people are still ill.
Why are they not better?
How to help people in the church
5 Do not speak strongly to an older man and tell him what he must do. Instead, ask him in a kind way, as you would speak to your father. Speak to younger men as you would speak to your brothers. 2 Speak to older women as you would speak to your mother. Speak to younger women as you would speak to your sisters. Always respect them properly.
Widows
3 Respect those widows in the church who are really alone. 4 If a widow has children or grandchildren, then they should take care of her. The children must help their parents or grandparents because they belong to the same family. Their parents helped them, so they need to give them something in return. The children need to learn that important lesson. It is what God's message teaches them to do and it makes God happy. 5 Some widows are really alone and they have nobody to take care of them. A widow like that trusts God that he will help her. As a result, she prays a lot, at night and during the day, and she asks God to help her. 6 But some widows only want to enjoy themselves. For a widow like that, her spirit is already dead, even while she is still alive.
7 Teach everyone clearly to do these things. Then nobody can say that the believers are doing anything wrong. 8 Every believer must take care of his own family. Certainly, he must do that for the people who live with him in his home. If anyone does not do that, it shows that he has refused God's true message. That person is worse than someone who does not believe in Christ.
9 If you want to put a widow's name on the list of widows, this is what she must be like. She must be more than 60 years old. She must have been the wife of one husband. 10 People should know that she has done good things. For example, she must have been a good mother to her children. She must have received visitors into her home. She must have helped God's people as their servant. She must have taken care of people who had problems. She must have continued to do all kinds of good things like that.
11 But do not put the names of younger widows on the list. They may decide to marry again, because they strongly want to have sex. Then they will no longer choose to serve Christ. 12 As a result, they will stop doing what they had earlier promised to do for the church. That will make them guilty.[a]
13 Young widows may learn to be lazy. They may go around from house to house. Not only do they become lazy, but they talk too much about silly things. They talk wrongly about other people and what they are doing. They say things that they ought not to say. 14 So I think that widows who are still young women should marry again. Then they can have children and they can take care of their own homes. If they live well like that, the enemy of God's people will not have a chance to say bad things against us. 15 Some of the younger widows have already turned away from Christ, so that they can obey Satan.
16 A woman who believes in Christ should take care of any widows in her own family. Then the church will not have to do that work. Instead, the church will be able to help those widows who are really alone.
Leaders in the church
17 Everyone should respect leaders of the believers who lead the church well.[b] The church should also pay them properly for their work. That is certainly true for leaders who teach God's people and speak God's message to them. 18 The Bible says: ‘Do not tie shut the mouth of a bull while it walks on your wheat seeds.’[c] The Bible also says: ‘You must pay a worker what his work is worth.’
19 Somebody may tell you that a leader of the believers has done something wrong. But do not accept that as true, unless two or three people say the same thing. 20 If a leader is really guilty and continues to do wrong things, you must warn him. Do that when everyone in the church is there. They will hear what you say, and they will be afraid to do wrong things themselves.
21 I say this to you very strongly: Obey what I am telling you to do. Remember that God himself and Christ Jesus, together with their special angels, are all watching what you do. Do not quickly decide if someone has done right or wrong. Be fair and judge everyone in the same way. 22 Do not hurry to put your hands on anyone to choose him as a leader of the church. Perhaps that man has done something wrong. Then people might think that you agree with his sins. You yourself must always be careful to do what is right and good.
23 I know that you often become ill. So do not drink only water, but drink a little wine. This will help your stomach to keep well.
24 Some people do wrong things that everyone can see clearly. When someone judges those people, everyone already knows that they are guilty. So everybody already knows that it is right to punish those people. But for other people, nobody knows about their sins until later. 25 It is the same with the good things that people do. Many good things are clear for everyone to see. And even the good things that people do secretly will not remain a secret for ever.
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