Old Testament · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 16

Disaster Predicted

1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2"You shall not take for yourself a wife^a, and you shall not have sons or daughters in this place.

3For thus said the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bear them, and concerning their fathers who beget them in this land: 4Deaths of diseases they shall die; they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried; as dung on the face of the ground^b they shall be; and by the sword and by the famine they shall be consumed; and their carcass shall be food for the bird of the heavens and for the beast of the earth.

5For thus said the LORD: Do not enter the house of mourning, and do not go to lament, and do not bemoan them; for I have gathered my peace from this people, declares the LORD, the kindness and the compassions.

6And great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and none shall lament for them, nor cut himself, nor make himself bald for them. 7And none shall break bread for them in mourning, to comfort him for the dead; and none shall give them the cup of consolation to drink, for his father or for his mother.

8And the house of feasting you shall not enter, to sit with them, to eat and to drink. 9For thus said the LORD of hosts^c, the God of Israel: Behold, I am causing to cease from this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

10And it shall be, when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you: 'For what reason has the LORD spoken against us all this great evil? and what is our iniquity? and what is our sin that we have sinned against the LORD our God?'

11Then you shall say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, declares the LORD, and went after other gods and served them^d and bowed down to them, and forsook me, and did not keep my Torah. 12And you have done more evil than your fathers; and behold, you are walking each man^e after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so as not to hear me. 13And I will hurl you from off this land, onto a land that you have not known, you and your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, where I will not give you favor.

God Will Restore Israel

14Therefore behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said: 'As the LORD lives^f, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,' 15but: 'As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them'; for I will bring them back onto their ground that I gave to their fathers.

16Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from off every mountain, and from off every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks.

17For my eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hidden from before me, and their iniquity is not concealed from before my eyes. 18And I will first repay double their iniquity and their sin, because they profaned my land with the carcass of their detestable things, and their abominations have filled my inheritance.

19The LORD, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of trouble, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say: "Only falsehood have our fathers inherited, vanity, and there is none among them that profits.
20Shall a man^g make for himself gods? and they are no gods!"
21Therefore, behold, I am making them know; this time I will make them know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is the LORD.