Old/New Testament

12 ¶ Righteous art thou, O LORD, even though I dispute with thee: even so, I will speak judgments with thee; Why does the way of the wicked prosper? All those that completely rebel against thee have peace.

² Thou hast planted them, and they have taken root: they grow, and they bring forth fruit; thou art near in their mouth and far from their kidneys.

³ But thou, O LORD, dost know me; thou hast seen me and tried my heart toward thee; pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and mark them for the day of slaughter.

⁴ How long shall the land be desolate, and the grass of all the field wither, for the wickedness of those that dwell therein? The cattle are lacking, and the birds, because they said, He shall not see our latter end.

⁵ If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, in which thou didst trust, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?

⁶ For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee, even they have raised their voice after thee, O congregation; do not believe them, when they speak fair words unto thee.

⁷ ¶ I have forsaken my house, I have left my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

⁸ My heritage was unto me as a lion in the forest; it cried out against me, therefore I have hated it.

⁹ My heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour her.

¹⁰ Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard; they have trodden my heritage under foot; they have made my precious heritage a desolate wilderness.

¹¹ They have made it desolate; it cries against me, desolate; the whole land was made desolate because there was no man that would see.

¹² The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the LORD shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land; there is no peace for any flesh.

¹³ They have sown bread, but shall reap thorns; they had the heritage, but they did not profit; and they shall be ashamed because of your fruits, by the fierce anger of the LORD.

¹⁴ ¶ Thus hath the LORD said against all my evil neighbours that touch the heritage which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.

¹⁵ And it shall come to pass that after I have plucked them out, I will return and have mercy on them, and will cause them to return, each one to his heritage, and each one to his land.

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear in my name, saying, The LORD lives; as they taught my people to swear by Baal then they shall be prospered in the midst of my people.

¹⁷ But if they will not hear, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.

13 ¶ Thus hath the LORD said unto me, Go and buy thee a linen girdle and put it upon thy loins, and thou shalt not put it in water.

² And I bought the girdle according to the word of the LORD and put it on my loins.

³ And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,

⁴ Take the girdle that thou hast bought, which is upon thy loins, and arise; go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a hole of the rock.

⁵ So I went and hid it in the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.

⁶ And it came to pass after many days that the LORD said unto me, Arise; go to the Euphrates and take from there the girdle, which I commanded thee to hide there.

⁷ Then I went to the Euphrates and dug and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the girdle was rotted, it was good for nothing.

⁸ Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

⁹ Thus hath the LORD said, After this manner I will cause the pride of Judah to rot and the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ This evil people that refuses to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart and went after other gods to serve them and to worship them shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.

¹¹ For as the girdle cleaves to the loins of a man, so I have caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people and for fame, and for a praise, and for honour; but they did not hear.

¹² ¶ Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word: Thus hath the LORD God of Israel said, Every bottle shall be filled with wine; and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?

¹³ Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus hath the LORD said, Behold, I fill all the inhabitants of this land with drunkenness, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne and the priests and the prophets and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁴ And I will break them one against another, even the fathers with the sons together, saith the LORD; I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy to not destroy them.

¹⁵ Hear ye and give ear; do not be proud: for the LORD has spoken.

¹⁶ Give glory to the LORD your God before he causes darkness and before your feet stumble in mountains of darkness, and while ye look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death and makes it gross darkness.

¹⁷ But if ye will not hear this, my soul shall weep in secret because of your pride; and weeping bitterly, my eyes shall be undone in tears because the LORD’s flock was carried away captive.

¹⁸ Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down in the dust because the crown of your glory has come down off your heads.

¹⁹ The cities of the south were shut up, and no one could open them: Judah was carried away captive; all of it, it was completely carried away captive.

²⁰ Lift up your eyes, and behold those that come from the north wind: where is the flock that was given thee, the cattle of thy beauty?

²¹ What wilt thou say when he shall visit thee? For thou hast taught them to be princes and as head over thee; shall not sorrows take thee as a woman in travail?

²² ¶ When thou shalt say in thine heart, Why do these things come upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made bare.

²³ Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Likewise ye also cannot do good, being taught to do evil.

²⁴ Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness.

²⁵ This shall be thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me said the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.

²⁶ Therefore I uncovered thy skirts before thy face, and thy shame was manifested.

²⁷ I have seen thine adulteries and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom upon the hills; in the same field I saw thine abominations. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean at last? How long then shall it be?

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.

1 ¶ Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

² to Timothy, dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace of God the Father and of Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,

⁴ greatly desiring to see thee (being mindful of thy tears), that I may be filled with joy,

⁵ when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also.

⁶ ¶ Therefore I admonish thee that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

⁷ For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of strength and of love and of temperance.

⁸ Therefore be not thou ashamed to give testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel by the power of God,

⁹ who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the times of the ages,

¹⁰ but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and has brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel,

¹¹ unto which I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.

¹² For which cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

¹³ Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and charity which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ Keep the good deposit committed unto thee by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us.

¹⁵ ¶ This, thou knowest, that all those who are in Asia are turned away from me, of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

¹⁶ The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain;

¹⁷ for when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently and found me.

¹⁸ The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day; and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.