Jeremiah 7-11

Jeremiah 7

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

²Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

³Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

⁴Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, are these.

⁵For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

⁶if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:

⁷then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore.

⁸Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

⁹Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known,

¹⁰and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations.

¹¹Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, saith the LORD.

¹²But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

¹³And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not:

¹⁴therefore will I do unto the house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

¹⁷Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

¹⁹Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?

²⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh.

²²For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

²³but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.

²⁴But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.

²⁵Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

²⁶yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.

²⁷And thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.

²⁸And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation that hath not hearkened to the voice of the LORD their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

²⁹Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

³⁰For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

³¹And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind.

³²Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury.

³³And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

³⁴Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall become a waste.

Jeremiah 8

¹At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:

²and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

³And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts.

⁴Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD: shall men fall, and not rise up again? shall one turn away, and not return?

⁵Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.

⁶I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turneth to his course, as a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle.

⁷Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the ordinance of the LORD.

⁸How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely.

⁹The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what manner of wisdom is in them?

¹⁰Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall possess them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

¹¹And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

¹³I will utterly consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.

¹⁴Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold dismay!

¹⁶The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembleth; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those that dwell therein.

¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, basilisks, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

¹⁸Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! my heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?

²⁰The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

²¹For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Jeremiah 9

¹Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

²Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

³And they bend their tongue as it were their bow for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

⁴Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will go about with slanders.

⁵And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁶Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

⁷Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else should I do, because of the daughter of my people?

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he layeth wait for him.

⁹Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁰For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passeth through; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled, they are gone.

¹¹And I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

¹²Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it? wherefore is the land and perished burned up like a wilderness, so that none passeth through?

¹³And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;

¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them:

¹⁵therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them.

¹⁷Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the cunning women, that they may come:

¹⁸and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.

²⁰Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

²¹For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

²²Speak, Thus saith the LORD, The carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.

²³Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:

²⁴but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

²⁵Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised in their uncircumcision;

²⁶Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair polled, that dwell in the wilderness: for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

Jeremiah 10

¹Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

²thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the nations are dismayed at them.

³For the customs of the peoples are vanity: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.

⁴They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

⁵They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.

⁶There is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

⁷Who would not fear thee, O King of the nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like unto thee.

⁸But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols, it is but a stock.

⁹There is silver beaten into plates which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of cunning men.

¹⁰But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation.

¹¹Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.

¹²He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens:

¹³when he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁴Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

¹⁶The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name.

¹⁷Gather up thy wares out of the land, O thou that abidest in the siege.

¹⁸For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.

¹⁹Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.

²⁰My tent is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

²¹For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered.

²²The voice of a rumour, behold it cometh, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

²³O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

²⁴O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

²⁵Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have devoured Jacob, yea, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

Jeremiah 11

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

²Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;

³and say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant,

⁴which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:

⁵that I may establish the oath which I sware unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. Then answered I, and said, Amen, O LORD.

⁶And the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.

⁷For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.

⁸Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the stubbornness of their evil heart: therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not.

⁹And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁰They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

¹¹Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and they shall cry unto me, but I will not hearken unto them.

¹²Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

¹³For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.

¹⁴Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.

¹⁵What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

¹⁶The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.

¹⁷For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have wrought for themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense unto Baal.

¹⁸And the LORD gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then thou shewedst me their doings.

¹⁹But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

²⁰But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

²¹Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand:

²²therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

²³and there shall be no remnant unto them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.