Old/New Testament
12 O Lord, you always give me justice when I bring a case before you to decide. Now let me bring you this complaint: Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why are evil men so happy? 2 You plant them. They take root and their business grows. Their profits multiply, and they are rich. They say, “Thank God!” But in their hearts they give no credit to you. 3 But as for me—Lord, you know my heart—you know how much it longs for you. (And I am poor,[a] O Lord!) Lord, drag them off like helpless sheep to the slaughter. Judge them, O God!
4 How long must this land of yours put up with all their goings-on? Even the grass of the field groans and weeps over their wicked deeds! The wild animals and birds have moved away, leaving the land deserted. Yet the people say, “God won’t bring judgment on us. We’re perfectly safe!”
5 The Lord replied to me: If racing with mere men—these men of Anathoth—has wearied you, how will you race against horses, against the king, his court, and all his evil priests?[b] If you stumble and fall on open ground, what will you do in Jordan’s jungles? 6 Even your own brothers, your own family, have turned against you. They have plotted to call for a mob to lynch you. Don’t trust them, no matter how pleasantly they speak. Don’t believe them.
7 Then the Lord said: I have abandoned my people, my inheritance; I have surrendered my dearest ones to their enemies. 8 My people have roared at me like a lion of the forest, so I have treated them as though I hated them. 9 My people have fallen. I will bring upon them swarms of vultures and wild animals to pick the flesh from their corpses.
10 Many foreign rulers have ravaged my vineyard, trampling down the vines, and turning all its beauty into barren wilderness. 11 They have made it desolate; I hear its mournful cry. The whole land is desolate and no one cares. 12 Destroying armies plunder the land; the sword of the Lord devours from one end of the nation to the other; nothing shall escape. 13 My people have sown wheat but reaped thorns; they have worked hard, but it does them no good. They shall harvest a crop of shame, for the fierce anger of the Lord is upon them.
14 And now the Lord says this to the evil nations, the nations surrounding the land God gave his people Israel: See, I will force you from your land just as Judah will be forced from hers; 15 but afterwards I will return and have compassion on all of you and will bring you home to your own land again, each man to his inheritance. 16 And if these heathen nations quickly learn my people’s ways and claim me as their God instead of Baal (whom they taught my people to worship), then they shall be strong among my people. 17 But any nation refusing to obey me will be expelled again and finished, says the Lord.
13 The Lord said to me, Go and buy a linen loincloth and wear it, but don’t wash it—don’t put it in water at all. 2 So I bought the loincloth and put it on. 3 Then the Lord’s message came to me again. This time he said, 4 Take the loincloth out to the Euphrates River and hide it in a hole in the rocks.
5 So I did; I hid it as the Lord had told me to. 6 Then, a long time afterwards, the Lord said: Go out to the river again and get the loincloth. 7 And I did; I dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was mildewed and falling apart. It was utterly useless!
8-9 Then the Lord said: This illustrates the way that I will rot the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. 10 This evil nation refuses to listen to me and follows its own evil desires, and worships idols; therefore, it shall become as this loincloth—good for nothing. 11 Even as a loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I made Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were my people, an honor to my name. But then they turned away.
12 Tell them this: The Lord God of Israel says, All your wine jugs will be full of wine. And they will reply, Of course, you don’t need to tell us how prosperous we will be![c] 13 Then tell them: That’s not what I mean.[d] I mean that I will fill everyone living in this land with helpless bewilderment—from the king sitting on David’s throne, and the priests and the prophets, right on down to all the people. 14 And I will smash fathers and sons against each other, says the Lord. I will not let pity nor mercy spare them from utter destruction.
15 Oh, that you were not so proud and stubborn! Then you would listen to the Lord, for he has spoken. 16 Give glory to the Lord your God before it is too late, before he causes deep, impenetrable darkness to fall upon you so that you stumble and fall upon the dark mountains; then, when you look for light, you will find only terrible darkness. 17 Do you still refuse to listen? Then in loneliness my breaking heart shall mourn because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears because the Lord’s flock shall be carried away as slaves.
18 Say to the king and queen mother,[e] Come down from your thrones and sit in the dust, for your glorious crowns are removed from your heads. They are no longer yours. 19 The cities of the Negeb to the south of Jerusalem have closed their gates against the enemy. They must defend themselves, for Jerusalem cannot help;[f] and all Judah shall be taken away as slaves.
20 See the armies marching from the north! Where is your flock, Jerusalem,[g] your beautiful flock he gave you to take care of? 21 How will you feel when he sets your allies over you as your rulers? You will writhe in pain like a woman having a child. 22 And if you ask yourself, Why is all this happening to me? It is because of the grossness of your sins; that is why you have been raped and destroyed by the invading army. 23 Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin? or a leopard take away his spots? Nor can you who are so used to doing evil now start being good.
24-25 Because you have put me out of your mind and put your trust in false gods, I will scatter you as chaff is scattered by the fierce winds off the desert. This then is your allotment, that which is due you, which I have measured out especially for you. 26 I myself will expose you to utter shame. 27 I am keenly aware of your apostasy, your faithlessness to me, and your abominable idol worship in the fields and on the hills. Woe upon you, O Jerusalem! How long before you will be pure?
14 This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord, explaining why he was holding back the rain:
2 Judah mourns; business has ground to a halt; all the people prostrate themselves to the earth, and a great cry rises from Jerusalem. 3 The nobles send servants for water from the wells, but the wells are dry. The servants return, baffled and desperate, and cover their heads in grief. 4 The ground is parched and cracked for lack of rain; the farmers are afraid. 5 The deer deserts her fawn because there is no grass. 6 The wild donkeys stand upon the bare hills panting like thirsty jackals. They strain their eyes looking for grass to eat, but there is none to be found.
7 O Lord, we have sinned against you grievously, yet help us for the sake of your own reputation! 8 O Hope of Israel, our Savior in times of trouble, why are you as a stranger to us, as one passing through the land who is merely stopping for the night? 9 Are you also baffled? Are you helpless to save us? O Lord, you are right here among us, and we carry your name; we are known as your people. O Lord, don’t desert us now!
10 But the Lord replies: You have loved to wander far from me and have not tried to follow in my paths. Now I will no longer accept you as my people; now I will remember all the evil you have done and punish your sins.
11 The Lord told me again: Don’t ask me anymore to bless this people. Don’t pray for them anymore. 12 When they fast, I will not pay any attention; when they present their offerings and sacrifices to me, I will not accept them. What I will give them in return is war and famine and disease.
13 Then I said, O Lord God, their prophets are telling them that all is well—that no war or famine will come. They tell the people you will surely send them peace, that you will bless them.
14 Then the Lord said: The prophets are telling lies in my name. I didn’t send them or tell them to speak or give them any message. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen nor heard; they speak foolishness concocted out of their own lying hearts. 15 Therefore, the Lord says, I will punish these lying prophets who have spoken in my name though I did not send them, who say no war shall come nor famine. By war and famine they themselves shall die! 16 And the people to whom they prophesy—their bodies shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war; there shall be no one to bury them. Husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—all will be gone. For I will pour out terrible punishment upon them for their sins.
17 Therefore, tell them this: Night and day my eyes shall overflow with tears; I cannot stop my crying, for my people have been run through with a sword and lie mortally wounded on the ground. 18 If I go out in the fields, there lie the bodies of those the sword has killed; and if I walk in the streets, there lie those dead from starvation and disease. And yet the prophets and priests alike have made it their business to travel through the whole country, reassuring everyone that all is well, speaking of things they know nothing about.
19 “O Lord,” the people will cry, “have you completely rejected Judah? Do you abhor Jerusalem? Even after punishment, will there be no peace? We thought, Now at last he will heal us and bind our wounds. But no peace has come, and there is only trouble and terror everywhere. 20 O Lord, we confess our wickedness, and that of our fathers too. 21 Do not hate us, Lord, for the sake of your own name. Do not disgrace yourself and the throne of your glory by forsaking your promise to bless us! 22 What heathen god can give us rain? Who but you alone, O Lord our God, can do such things as this? Therefore we will wait for you to help us.”
1 From: Paul, Jesus Christ’s missionary, sent out by God to tell men and women everywhere about the eternal life he has promised them through faith in Jesus Christ.
2 To: Timothy, my dear son. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord shower you with his kindness, mercy, and peace.
3 How I thank God for you, Timothy. I pray for you every day, and many times during the long nights I beg my God to bless you richly. He is my fathers’ God and mine, and my only purpose in life is to please him.
4 How I long to see you again. How happy I would be, for I remember your tears as we left each other.
5 I know how much you trust the Lord, just as your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois do; and I feel sure you are still trusting him as much as ever.
6 This being so, I want to remind you to stir into flame the strength and boldness[a] that is in you, that entered into you when I laid my hands upon your head and blessed you. 7 For the Holy Spirit, God’s gift, does not want you to be afraid of people, but to be wise and strong, and to love them and enjoy being with them.
8 If you will stir up this inner power, you will never be afraid to tell others about our Lord or to let them know that I am your friend even though I am here in jail for Christ’s sake. You will be ready to suffer with me for the Lord, for he will give you strength in suffering.
9 It is he who saved us and chose us for his holy work not because we deserved it but because that was his plan long before the world began—to show his love and kindness to us through Christ. 10 And now he has made all of this plain to us by the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, who broke the power of death and showed us the way of everlasting life through trusting him. 11 And God has chosen me to be his missionary, to preach to the Gentiles and teach them.
12 That is why I am suffering here in jail, and I am certainly not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to safely guard all that I have given him until the day of his return.
13 Hold tightly to the pattern of truth I taught you, especially concerning the faith and love Christ Jesus offers you.[b] 14 Guard well the splendid, God-given ability you received as a gift from the Holy Spirit who lives within you.
15 As you know, all the Christians who came here from Asia have deserted me; even Phygellus and Hermogenes are gone. 16 May the Lord bless Onesiphorus and all his family because he visited me and encouraged me often. His visits revived me like a breath of fresh air, and he was never ashamed of my being in jail. 17 In fact, when he came to Rome, he searched everywhere trying to find me, and finally did. 18 May the Lord give him a special blessing at the day of Christ’s return. And you know better than I can tell you how much he helped me at Ephesus.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.