JEREMIAH - Bible MKJV

The Book of JEREMIAH -- Modern King James Version of the Holy Bible - Copyright Š 1962 - 1998 --
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Jeremiah 1
1 ś The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
2 to whom the Word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3 It also came in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the exiling of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4 ś And it happened, the Word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I consecrated you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
6 Then I said, Alas, Lord Jehovah! Behold, I do not know to speak; for I am a boy.
7 But the LORD said to me, Do not say, I am a boy; for you shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of their faces; for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
9 And the LORD put forth His hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
10 Behold! I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
11 ś And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
12 And the LORD said to me, You have seen well; for I will watch over My Word to perform it.
13 And the Word of the LORD came to me the second time, saying, What do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot; and its face is from the face of the north.
14 And the LORD said to me, Out of the north an evil will be set loose on all the inhabitants of the land.
15 For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD. And they shall come, and they shall each one set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its wall all around, and against all the cities of Judah.
16 And I will pronounce My judgments against them regarding all their evil, those who have forsaken Me, and burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.
17 And you must gird up your loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be terrified at their faces, lest I prostrate you before them.
18 For, behold, I have made you a fortified city this day, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its rulers, against its priests, and against the people of the land.
19 And they shall fight against you; but they shall not overcome you. For I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.

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Jeremiah 2
1 ś And the Word of Jehovah came to me, saying,
2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, So says the LORD, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothals, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holiness to the LORD, and the firstfruits of His increase. All that devour him shall offend; evil shall come on them, says the LORD.
4 Hear the Word of Jehovah, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel.
5 So says the LORD, What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me and have walked after vanity, and have become vain?
6 Nor did they say, Where is the LORD who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of dry places, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man lived?
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled My land and made My inheritance an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, Where is the LORD? And they who handle the law did not know Me; the shepherds also rebelled against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things not profitable.
9 ś Therefore I will contend with you, says the LORD, and with your son's sons I will enter into judgment.
10 For pass over the coasts of Kittim, and see; and send to Kedar, and carefully consider, and see if there is such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed their gods who are yet no gods? But My people have changed their Glory for that which does not profit.
12 Be amazed, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be completely desolated, says the LORD.
13 For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
14 ś Is Israel a servant? Or is he a servant of the house? Why has he become a prey?
15 The young lions roared against him; they gave their voice. And they made his land a waste; his cities are burned without inhabitant.
16 Also the sons of Noph and Tahapanes have fed on the crown of your head.
17 Have you not brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Jehovah your God, when He led you by the way?
18 And now what is for you toward the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? Or what for you toward Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
19 Your own evil shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you, therefore know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken Jehovah your God, and that My fear is not in you, says the Lord Jehovah of hosts.
20 ś For long ago you broke your yoke and tore up your bonds; and you said, I will not transgress, when on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down like a harlot.
21 Yet I planted you a noble vine, wholly a true seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate shoots of an alien vine to Me?
22 For though you wash yourself with potash, and multiply soap for yourself, yet your iniquity is marked before Me, says the Lord Jehovah .
23 How can you say, I am not defiled; I have not gone after the Baals? See your way in the valley, know what you have done! You are a swift camel crossing its ways;
24 a wild ass used to the wilderness; in the desire of her passion she snuffs at the wind; in her time who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not tire themselves; in her month they will find her.
25 Withhold your foot from being bare, and your throat from thirst. But you said, There is no hope; no; for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.
26 As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their rulers, and their priests, and their prophets;
27 saying to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You gave me birth. For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise and save us!
28 But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble; for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.
29 ś Why will you plead with Me? You all have sinned against Me, says the LORD.
30 In vain I have stricken your sons; they received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
31 O generation, see the Word of Jehovah. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? Why do My people say, We roam freely ; we will come no more to You?
32 Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.
33 Why did you trim your way to seek love? Therefore you have also taught the evil women your ways.
34 Also in your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents; you did not find them breaking in, but on all these.
35 Yet you say, Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with you, because you say, I have not sinned.
36 Why do you go about so much to change your way? You also shall be ashamed of Egypt, as you were ashamed of Assyria.
37 Yes, you shall go out from this place , and your hands on your head. For the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper by them.

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Jeremiah 3
1 ś They say, If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him and will be for another man, will he return to her again? Would not that land be greatly defiled? But you play the harlot with many lovers; yet come back to Me, says the LORD.
2 Lift up your eyes to the high places, and see. Where have you not been lain with? By the highways you have sat for them, like the Arabian in the wilderness; and you have defiled the land with your fornications and with your wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; and you had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.
4 Will you not from this time cry to Me, My father, You are the guide of my youth?
5 Will He keep His anger forever? Will He keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and done all the evil things you could do.
6 ś The LORD also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has fornicated there.
7 And I said after she had done all these things , Turn to Me! But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes for which backsliding Israel committed adultery, I sent her away and gave a bill of divorce to her, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she went and whored, she also.
9 And it happened, from the folly of her whoredom, she defiled the land and fornicated with stones and stocks.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, says the LORD.
11 And the LORD said to me, The backsliding Israel has justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
12 ś Go and cry these words toward the north, and say, Return, O backsliding Israel, says the LORD; and I will not cause My anger to fall on you; for I am merciful, says the LORD, and I will not keep anger forever.
13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have sinned against the LORD your God and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, says the LORD.
14 Turn, O backsliding sons, says the LORD; for I am married to you; and I will take you one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
15 And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16 And it will be when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD! Nor shall it come to mind; nor shall they remember it; nor shall they visit it ; nor shall it be made any more.
17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem. Nor shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
18 In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance to your fathers.
19 But I said, How shall I put you among the sons, and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful inheritance among the hosts of nations? And I said, You shall call Me, My Father, and shall not turn away from Me.
20 ś Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, says the LORD.
21 A voice was heard on the high places weeping, cryings of the sons of Israel; for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten Jehovah their God.
22 Return, O backsliding sons, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come to You; for You are Jehovah our God.
23 Truly, for delusion comes from the high hills, tumult on the mountains. Truly, in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel.
24 For shame has eaten up the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God.

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Jeremiah 4
1 ś If you will return, O Israel, says the LORD, return to Me. And if you will put away your abominations out of your sight, then you shall not be moved.
2 And you shall swear, The LORD lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him they shall glory.
3 ś For so says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and people of Jerusalem; lest My fury come forth like fire, and burn so that none can put it out; because of the evil of your doings.
5 ś Declare in Judah, and let it be heard in Jerusalem; and say, Blow the trumpet in the land; cry, gather together, and say, Gather yourselves and let us go into the fortified cities.
6 Set up the banner toward Zion; flee for safety and do not wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great ruin.
7 The lion has come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the nations has set out; he has left his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will fall into ruins without inhabitant.
8 Put on sackcloth for this, wail and howl; for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.
9 And it shall be at that day, says the LORD, the king's heart will perish, and the heart of the rulers; and the priests will be amazed, and the prophets will be astounded.
10 Then I said, Ah, Lord Jehovah! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace; but the sword reaches to the soul.
11 At that time it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind from the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people, not to sift nor to cleanse.
12 A wind more full than these shall come for Me. Now also I will utter judgments against them.
13 Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a tempest. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are plundered!
14 O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart from evil so that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you?
15 For a voice declares from Dan, and proclaims affliction from mount Ephraim.
16 Tell it to the nations: Behold! proclaim against Jerusalem! Besiegers are going to come from a distant land; and they will set their voice against the cities of Judah.
17 Like watchmen of a field, they are against her all around; because she rebelled against Me, says the LORD.
18 Your way and your doings have brought these things on you; this is your evil, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart.
19 ś My bowels, my bowels! I convulse in pain. O walls of my heart! My heart is restless within me; I cannot be silent because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the ram's horn, the alarm of war.
20 Ruin on ruin is cried; for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are laid waste, my curtains in a moment.
21 How long shall I see the banner and hear the sound of the ram's horn?
22 For My people are foolish; they have not known Me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
23 I looked on the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I looked on the mountains, and, lo, they quaked; and all the hills were shaken.
25 I looked, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled.
26 I looked, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down before the face of the LORD, before His fierce anger.
27 For so the LORD has said, The whole land shall be desolate, yet I will not make a full end.
28 The earth shall mourn for this, and the heavens above shall be black, because I have spoken, I have purposed, and will not repent, nor will I turn back from it.
29 Every city shall flee from the sound of the horsemen and bowmen. They shall go into thickets and climb up among the rocks. All the city is abandoned, and not a man shall live in them.
30 And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Though you dress with crimson, though you put on ornaments of gold, though you make your eyes large with paint, you shall make yourself beautiful in vain; your lovers will despise you; they will seek your life.
31 For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as one bearing her first child, the voice of Zion's daughter, gasping and spreading her hands, saying , Woe to me now! For my soul faints because of murderers.

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Jeremiah 5
1 ś Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in her open places, if you can find a man, if there is one who does justice, who seeks the truth; and I will pardon her.
2 And though they say, As the LORD lives; surely they swear falsely.
3 O LORD, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have destroyed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.
4 So I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish; for they do not know the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.
5 I will go up for myself to the great men, and will speak to them; for they have known the way of the LORD and the judgment of their God. But these have broken the yoke together and have torn off the bonds!
6 Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, and a wolf of the deserts shall rob them; a leopard shall watch over their cities. Everyone who goes out from them shall be torn in pieces, because their sins are many and their backslidings are multiplied.
7 Why shall I pardon you for this? Your sons have forsaken Me, and have sworn by No-gods. When I adjured them, then they committed adultery, and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot's house.
8 They were like lusty, well-fed stallions in the morning; every one neighing after his neighbor's wife.
9 Shall I not judge for these things ? says the LORD. And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 ś Go up on her vine-rows and destroy; but do not make a full end; take away her branches, for they are not the LORD's.
11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very deceitfully against Me, says the LORD.
12 They have lied against the LORD and said, It is not He; neither shall evil come on us; nor shall we see sword nor famine.
13 And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them; so it shall be done to them.
14 Therefore so says Jehovah, God of hosts, Because you spoke this word, behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire, and these people wood, and it shall devour them.
15 Lo, I will bring a nation on you from afar, O house of Israel, says the LORD. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor understand what they say.
16 Their quiver is as an open grave; they are all mighty men.
17 And they shall eat up Your harvest and your bread. They will devour your sons and your daughters. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig-trees. One shall beat down your fortified cities with the sword, those in which you trust.
18 But even in those days, says Jehovah, I will not make a complete end with you.
19 And it will be, when you shall say, Why does the LORD our God do all these things to us? Then You shall answer them, Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
20 ś Declare this in the house of Jacob, and cry it in Judah, saying,
21 Now hear this, O foolish people and without heart; who have eyes and see not; who have ears and hear not;
22 Do you not fear Me? says the LORD. Will you not tremble at My presence, I who have placed the sand for the boundary of the sea by a never-ending decree, so that it cannot pass it? And though they toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though its waves roar, yet they cannot pass over it?
23 But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and are gone.
24 And they do not say in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, who gives both the former and the latter rain in its season; He reserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
25 ś Your iniquities have turned away these things , and your sins have withheld good from you.
26 For among My people are found wicked ones; they lie in wait, as one who sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
27 Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and grown rich.
28 They have become fat, they shine. Yes, they go past the deeds of the wicked; they do not judge the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may get rich; and they do not judge the right of the needy.
29 Shall I not visit for these things ? says the LORD. Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30 An astounding and horrible thing has happened in the land.
31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so, and what will you do at the end of it?

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Jeremiah 6
1 ś O sons of Benjamin, take refuge out of the midst of Jerusalem. And blow the ram's horn in Tekoa, and set up a signal-fire over Beth-haccerem; for evil appears out of the north, and great ruin.
2 I will destroy the daughter of Zion, the beautiful and tender one.
3 The shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch tents on her all around; they shall feed each one in his hand.
4 Prepare war against her; arise and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day goes away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
5 Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces.
6 For so has Jehovah of hosts said, Cut down trees and cast a mound against Jerusalem! She is the city to be visited; there is nothing but oppression in her midst.
7 As a fountain keeps fresh her waters, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and spoil is heard in her; always before Me are grief and wounds.
8 O Jerusalem, you must be instructed, lest My soul depart from you; lest I make you desolate, a land without people.
9 ś So says Jehovah of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine; turn back your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.
10 To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are not circumcised, and they cannot listen. Behold, the Word of Jehovah is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it.
11 Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in; I will pour it out on the children in the street, and on the circle of young men together. For even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with fullness of days.
12 And their houses shall be turned to others, together with their fields and wives; for I will stretch out My hand on the people of the land, says the LORD.
13 For everyone from the least of them even to the greatest of them cuts off a profit; and from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.
14 They have also healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush; therefore they shall fall among those who fall. At the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, says the LORD.
16 So says the LORD, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is , and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it .
17 Also I set watchmen over you, saying , Listen to the sound of the ram's horn. But they said, We will not listen.
18 ś Therefore hear, nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.
19 Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My words, nor to My law, but have rejected it.
20 Why does frankincense come to Me from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not pleasing, nor your sacrifices sweet to Me.
21 Therefore so says the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall on them; the neighbor and his friend shall perish.
22 So says the LORD, Behold, a people comes from the north country, and a great nation shall be stirred from the sides of the earth.
23 They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, set in order like a man for war against you, O daughter of Zion.
24 We have heard the rumor of it; our hands become feeble; anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, like a woman in labor.
25 Do not go out into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear are on every side.
26 O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth, and wallow in ashes; make mourning for yourself, as for an only son, most bitter weeping; for the ravager shall suddenly come on us.
27 I have set you up an assayer, an examiner among My people, that you may know and try their way.
28 They are all grievous revolters, walking in slanders; they are bronze and iron; they are all corrupters.
29 The bellows are burned, the lead is melted by the fire; the refiner melts in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away.
30 Reprobate silver they call them, because the LORD has rejected them.

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Jeremiah 7
1 ś The Word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and declare there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.
3 So says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Make your ways and your doings good, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4 Do not trust in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD are these.
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you completely do judgment between a man and his neighbor;
6 if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your hurt;
7 then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.
8 Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot do any good.
9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know;
10 and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?
11 Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I also have seen, says the LORD.
12 But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer;
14 therefore I will do to this house, which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, the whole seed of Ephraim.
16 ś Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up cry nor prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.
17 Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.
19 Do they vex Me? says Jehovah. Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?
20 Therefore so says the Jehovah God; Behold, My anger and My fury shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be put out.
21 ś So says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Put your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.
23 But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.
24 But they did not listen, nor bow their ear, but walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending.
26 Yet they did not listen to Me, nor bow down their ear, but hardened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
27 So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall also call to them, but they will not answer you.
28 But you shall say to them, This is a nation which does not obey the voice of Jehovah their God, nor receives instruction; truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 ś Cut off your hair and throw it away, and take up a weeping on the high places. For the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
30 For the sons of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the LORD. They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, in order to defile it.
31 They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command them , nor did it come into My heart.
32 So, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they shall bury in Tophet, until there is no place.
33 And the bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
34 Then I will cause the voice of gladness to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride. For the land shall be desolate.

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Jeremiah 8
1 ś At that time, says the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem, out of their graves.
2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of the heavens, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the earth.
3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, who remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Jehovah of hosts.
4 ś And you shall say to them, So says the LORD; shall they fall and not arise? Shall he turn away and not return?
5 Why has this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a never-ending backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return.
6 I listened and heard, but they did not speak right; no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turned in their own courses, as the horse rushes into the battle.
7 Yea, the stork in the heavens knows her seasons; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow watch the time of their coming; but my people do not know the judgment of the LORD.
8 How do you say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly the lying pen of the scribes has written falsely.
9 The wise are ashamed, they are terrified, and are captured. Lo, they have turned away from the Word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?
10 Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who shall inherit them , for everyone from the least even to the greatest cuts off a profit. From the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they had done an abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush; therefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says the LORD.
13 ś I will utterly consume them, says 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, those who pass over them.
14 Why do we sit still? Gather yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there. For Jehovah our God has put us to silence, and has given us poisonous water to drink, because we have sinned against Jehovah.
15 We looked for peace, but no good came ; and for a time of health, but behold, trouble!
16 The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his stallions. For they have come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those who live in it.
17 For, behold, I will send serpents and adders among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says the LORD.
18 When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint within me.
19 Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, from a far country. Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her King in her? Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign vanities?
20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
21 For the breaking of the daughter of my people I am broken; I am in gloom; horror has seized me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the healing of the daughter of My people not come?

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Jeremiah 9
1 ś Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for traveling men, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies. But they are not mighty for the truth on the earth; for they go from evil to evil, and they do not know Me, says the LORD.
4 Everyone beware of his neighbor, and do not trust any brother! For every brother will supplant his neighbor, and will walk with slanders.
5 And everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6 Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me, says the LORD.
7 Therefore so says Jehovah of hosts, Behold, I will melt them and try them; for what else can I do for the daughter of My people?
8 Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow; it speaks deceit; one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he lies in ambush.
9 Shall I not visit them for these things ? says the LORD; shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains, and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness; because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them ; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the heavens and the beast have fled; they are gone.
11 And I will make Jerusalem ruins, a den of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without a living soul.
12 ś Who is the wise man who may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why does the land perish and burn up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?
13 And the LORD says, Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it,
14 but they have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.
15 Therefore so says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water.
16 I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.
17 So says the LORD of hosts, Think carefully, and call for the wailers, that they may come. And send for the wise women, that they may come;
18 and let them make haste and take up a weeping for us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.
19 For a voice of weeping is heard out of Zion. How are we plundered! We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because they have thrown down our tents.
20 Yet hear the Word of the LORD, O women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters to weep, and each one teach her neighbor to mourn.
21 For death has come up into our windows, and has entered into our houses, to cut off the children from outside and the young men from the streets.
22 Speak, So says the LORD, Even the bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the fallen grain after the reaper; and none shall gather them .
23 ś So says the LORD, Do not let the wise glory in his wisdom, nor let the mighty glory in his might; do not let the rich glory in his riches;
24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, doing kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these I delight, says the LORD.
25 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will punish all the circumcised with foreskin;
26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and all who are in the outermost corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are not circumcised, and all the house of Israel, those not circumcised in heart.

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Jeremiah 10
1 ś Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel.
2 So says the LORD, Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are terrified at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain; for one cuts a tree out of the forest with the axe, the work of the hands of the workman.
4 They adorn it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it will not wobble.
5 They are like a rounded post, and they cannot speak. They must surely be lifted, because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them; for they cannot do evil nor good, for it is not in them.
6 There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and Your name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear You, O King of nations? For fear belongs to You, because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.
8 But they are all at once foolish and animal-like; the tree is an example of vanities.
9 Silver beaten into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the goldsmith. Violet and purple is their clothing; they are all the work of skillful ones.
10 But the LORD is the true God, He is the living God, and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to stand His fury.
11 So you shall say to them, The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.
12 He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens by His judgment.
13 When He utters His voice, there is a noise of many waters in the heavens. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightnings with rain, and brings forth the wind out of His treasures.
14 Every man is stupid for lack of knowledge; every refiner is put to shame by the graven image; for his molten image is a lie, and no breath is in them.
15 They are vanity, the work of delusion; in the time of their judgment they shall perish.
16 The Portion of Jacob is not like them; for He is the Maker of all things; and Israel is the rod of His inheritance. Jehovah of hosts is His name.
17 ś Gather up your bundle from the ground, you who live under the siege.
18 For so says the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the people of the land at this time, and will distress them, so that they may find Me .
19 Woe to me for my breaking! My wound is grievous; but I said, Truly this is a malady, and I must bear it.
20 My tabernacle is ravaged, and all my cords are broken; My sons went away from me, and they are not. There is none to stretch out My tabernacle any more, and to set up My curtains.
21 For the pastors have become stupid, and have not sought the LORD, therefore they shall not be blessed, and all their flocks shall be scattered.
22 Behold, the noise of the rumor has come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a den of jackals.
23 O LORD, I know that the way of man does not belong to man; it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
24 O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.
25 Pour out Your fury on the nations who do not know You, and on the families who do not call on Your name; for they have eaten up Jacob and have devoured him, and have destroyed him, and have made his dwelling desolate.

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Jeremiah 11
1 ś The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying,
2 Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem.
3 And say to them, So says Jehovah, God of Israel, Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,
4 which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey My voice and do them according to all that I command you; so you shall be My people, and I will be your God;
5 so that I may fulfil the oath which I have sworn to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered and said, Amen, O LORD.
6 Then the LORD said to me, Declare all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear the words of this covenant, and do them.
7 For I earnestly testified to your fathers in the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, rising early and testifying, saying, Obey My voice.
8 Yet they did not obey nor bow down their ear, but walked each one in the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I will bring on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did not do them.
9 And the LORD said to me, A plot is found among the men of Judah, and among the people of Jerusalem.
10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My words. And they went 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.
11 ś So the LORD says this: Behold, I will bring evil on them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry to Me, I will not listen to them.
12 Then shall the cities of Judah and the people of Jerusalem go and cry to the gods to whom they offer incense. But they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.
13 For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
14 And you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them. For I will not hear them in the time they cry to Me for their trouble.
15 What is to My beloved in My house, since she has committed her many evils? And has the holy flesh caused your evil to pass from you? How then do you exult?
16 The LORD called your name, a green olive tree, fair, with fine fruit. With the sound of a great storm He has set fire to it, and its branches are worthless.
17 And Jehovah of hosts who planted you has spoken evil against you, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves to provoke Me to anger by offering incense to Baal.
18 ś And the LORD made me know, and I knew. Then You showed me their doings.
19 But I was like a docile lamb being brought to the slaughter. And I did not know that they had plotted evils against me, saying , Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name may be remembered no more.
20 But, O Jehovah of hosts who judges rightly, who tries the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance on them. For to You I have revealed my cause.
21 Therefore so says the LORD of the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, saying, Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, that you do not die by our hand.
22 So says Jehovah of hosts, Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;
23 and there shall be no remnant of them. For I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, the year of their judgment.

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Jeremiah 12
1 ś Righteous are You, O LORD, that I might contend with You; yet let me speak with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all those happy who deal treacherously?
2 You have planted them; yea, they take root. They grow, yea, they make fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their reins.
3 But You, O LORD, know me. You have seen me and tried my heart toward You. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and devote them for the day of slaughter.
4 How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds have been destroyed, because they said, He shall not see our last end.
5 If you have run with footmen, and they wore you out, then how can you compete with horses? And if you feel secure in the land of peace, then how will you do in the swelling of Jordan?
6 For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you. Yea, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, though they speak good things to you.
7 ś I have forsaken My house; I have left My inheritance. I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.
8 My inheritance is to Me as a lion in the forest; it cries out against Me; therefore I have hated it.
9 My inheritance is like a speckled bird to Me; the birds all around are against her. Go, gather all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour.
10 Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My portion under foot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
11 One has made it a desolation, it mourns to Me. The whole land is made desolate because no man lays it to heart.
12 The ravagers have come on 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. No flesh shall have peace.
13 They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns. They are worn out, but they do not profit. And they shall be ashamed of your harvests because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
14 ś So says the LORD against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance 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 will be after I have plucked them out, I will return and have pity on them, and will bring them again, each man to his inheritance and each man to his land.
16 And it will be if they will carefully learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, As the LORD lives; as they taught the people to swear by Baal; then they shall be built in the midst of My people.
17 But if they will not obey, I will uproot and destroy that nation, says the LORD.

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Jeremiah 13
1 ś So says the LORD to me, Go and buy for yourself a linen girdle, and put it on your loins, and do not put it in water.
2 So I bought a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.
3 And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle that you bought, which is on your loins, and arise. Go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
5 So I went and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
6 And it happened at the end of many days the LORD said to me, Arise, go to Euphrates and take the girdle from there, which I commanded you to hide there.
7 Then I went to Euphrates and dug, and took the girdle from the place where I had hidden it. And, behold, the girdle was rotted; it was not good for anything.
8 Then the Word of the LORD came to me, saying,
9 So says the LORD, In this way I will spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart and walk after other gods to serve them and to worship them, shall even be like this girdle, which is good for nothing.
11 For as the girdle holds fast to the loins of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, says the LORD; so that they might be to Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; but they would not hear.
12 ś So you will speak to them this word: So says Jehovah, God of Israel, Every skin shall be filled with wine. And they shall say to you, Do we not surely know that every skin shall be filled with wine?
13 Then you shall say to them, So says the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the people of this land, even the kings that sit on David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
14 And I will smash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, says the LORD. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, to keep them from their destruction.
15 Hear 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 on the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death, setting up deep gloom.
17 But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. And my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock was captured.
18 Say to the king and to the queen mother, Humble yourselves, sit down; for your greatness shall come down, even the crown of your glory.
19 The cities of the south have been shut up, and none are opening; Judah has been exiled, all of it has been peacefully exiled.
20 Lift up your eyes and behold those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful flock?
21 What will you say when he comes to punish you? For you have taught them to be rulers over you for a head. Do not pangs seize you, like a woman in travail?
22 ś And if you say in your heart, Why do these things come on me? It is because of the greatness of your iniquity; your skirts are bared, and your heels suffer violence.
23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Then you also may do good, who are accustomed to doing evil.
24 And I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness.
25 This is your lot, the share I have measured to you, says the LORD, because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.
26 So I also have stripped off your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear.
27 I have seen your adulteries, and your neighings, the wickedness of your fornication, and your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you not be made clean? How long will it still be ?

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Jeremiah 14
1 ś The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the matter of droughts.
2 Judah mourns, and its gates droop. They are black to the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up.
3 And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters; they came to the cisterns, and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
4 Because the ground was cracked, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed; they covered their heads.
5 Yea, the doe also 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 jackals; their eyes failed because there was no grass.
7 O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, act for Your name's sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against You.
8 O the Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the land, and as a traveler turning in to lodge?
9 Why should You be as a man stunned, as one mighty, yet who cannot save? Yet You, O LORD, are in our midst, and we are called by Your name. Do not leave us!
10 ś So says the LORD to this people; So they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not accept them. He will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins.
11 Then the LORD said to me, Do not pray for this people for good.
12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and a grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the plague.
13 Then I said, Ah, O Lord Jehovah! Behold, the prophets are saying to them, You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine; but I will give you true peace in this place.
14 And the LORD said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I did not send them, nor have I commanded them, nor did I speak to them. They prophesy to you a false vision and a worthless divination, and a thing of no value, and the deceit of their heart.
15 So the LORD says this concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, and I did not send them; yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; by sword and famine those prophets shall 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 none to bury them, either them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters. For I will pour their evil on them.
17 ś And you shall speak this word to them: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and do not let them cease. For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great break, with a very grievous blow.
18 If I go out into the field, then I see those killed with the sword! And if I enter into the city, then, behold, sicknesses of famine! Yes, both the prophet and the priest have gone up into a land that they do not know.
19 Have You utterly rejected Judah? Or has Your soul hated Zion? Why have You stricken us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came ; and for the time of healing, and behold, trouble!
20 We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against You.
21 Do not abhor us for Your name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of Your glory; remember, do not break Your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the vanities of the nations who make rain fall? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not You, O LORD our God? Then we will wait on You; for You do all these things.

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Jeremiah 15
1 ś Then the LORD said to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My soul could not be toward this people. Send them out of My sight, and let them go out.
2 And it will be, if they say to you, Where shall we go? Then you shall tell them, So says the LORD: Those who are for death, go to death; and those for the sword, to the sword; and those for the famine, to the famine; and those for the captivity, to the captivity.
3 And I will set over them four kinds, says the LORD; the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
4 And I will make them a horror to all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.
5 For who shall have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who shall weep over you? Or who shall turn aside to ask your welfare?
6 You have forsaken Me, says the LORD; you have gone backward; therefore I will stretch out My hand against you, and destroy you; I am weary with repenting.
7 And I will winnow them with a fork in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of sons; I will destroy My people, since they do not turn from their ways.
8 Their widows are more numerous about Me than the sand of the seas; I have brought on them, against a mother of a young man, a ravager at noonday; I have caused anguish and terror to fall on her suddenly.
9 She who bore seven languishes; she has breathed out her life; her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been ashamed and humiliated; and I will deliver the rest of them to the sword before their enemies, says the LORD.
10 ś Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not loaned, nor have men loaned to me; yet every one curses me.
11 The LORD said, Truly I will free you for good. Truly I will cause the enemy to entreat you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.
12 Can one break iron, iron or bronze from the north?
13 Your wealth and your treasures I will give for prey, not for price, but for all your sins, even in all your borders.
14 And I will make you pass with your enemies into a land which you do not know. For a fire has been kindled in My anger; it shall burn against you.
15 ś O LORD, You know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on those who seek to hurt me. Do not take me away in Your long-suffering; know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.
16 Your words were found, and I ate them; and Your Word was to me the joy and gladness of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Jehovah, God of hosts.
17 I did not sit in the circle of mockers, nor rejoice; I sat alone because of Your hand; for You have filled me with indignation.
18 Why has my pain been without end, and why is my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You surely are to me like a deceitful brook, waters that cannot be trusted.
19 Therefore so says the LORD, If you turn back, then I will bring you again; you shall stand before Me. And if you take the precious from the worthless, you shall be as My mouth. Let them turn back to you, but do not return to them.
20 And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; and they shall fight against you, but they shall not overcome you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you, says the LORD.
21 And I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the evil ones.

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Jeremiah 16
1 ś The Word of the LORD was to me, saying,
2 You shall not take a wife for yourself, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.
3 For so says the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who fathered them in this land:
4 They shall die from deaths of diseases; they shall not be mourned, nor shall they be buried. But they shall be as dung on the face of the earth. And they shall be destroyed by the sword and by famine; and their bodies shall be food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.
5 For so says the LORD, Do not enter into the house of mourning; do not go to weep nor moan over them. For I have taken away My peace from this people, says the LORD, even loving-kindness and mercies.
6 Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, nor shall men mourn for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.
7 Nor shall anyone tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Nor shall anyone give them the cup of comfort to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 Also you shall not go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.
9 For so says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause the voice of mirth to cease out of this place before your eyes, and in your days, and the voice of gladness, and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
10 ś And it shall be, when you declare to this people all these words, and they shall say to you, Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our God?
11 Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law.
12 And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, you walk each one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, without listening to Me;
13 even I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night; where I will not grant you favor.
14 ś So, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be said, As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
15 but, As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where He had driven them. And I will bring them again into their lands that I gave to their fathers.
16 Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they will fish them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.
17 For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes.
18 And first I will twice repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land, they have filled My inheritance with the dead bodies of their abominable things.
19 O LORD, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.
20 Shall a man make gods to himself, and they are no gods?
21 Therefore, behold, I will make them know; this time I will cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is Jehovah.

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Jeremiah 17
1 ś The sin of Judah is engraved with an iron stylus; it is carved on the tablet of the heart and on the horns of Your altar with the point of a diamond;
2 while their sons remember their altars and their Asherahs by the green trees on the high hills.
3 O My mountain in the field, I will give your wealth and all your treasures for prey, and your high places for sin, throughout all your borders.
4 And you, even through yourself, have let go of the inheritance which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in My anger, which shall burn forever.
5 ś So says the LORD, Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes. But he shall live in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and Jehovah is his trust.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters; it sends out its roots by the river, and it shall not fear when the heat comes, but its foliage shall be green; and he is not worried in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
11 The quail sits on eggs and does not hatch them ; in the same way he who gets riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the middle of his days, and in his end he shall be a fool.
12 ś A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
13 O LORD, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the Fountain of living waters.
14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed, save me, and I shall be saved; for You are my praise.
15 Behold, they say to me, Where is the Word of the LORD? Let it come now!
16 I have not hurried away from shepherding after You; nor have I desired the woeful day; You surely know the going forth of my lips before Your face.
17 Do not be a terror to me; You are my hope in the day of evil.
18 Let those who persecute me be ashamed, but do not let me be ashamed; let them be afraid, but do not let me be afraid. Bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double breaking.
19 ś So the LORD said to me: Go and stand in the gates of the sons of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem.
20 And say to them, Hear the Word of the LORD, kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the people of Jerusalem who enter in by these gates!
21 So says the LORD, Take heed to yourselves, and carry no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
22 Nor carry out a burden from your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.
23 But they did not obey, nor bowed down their ear, but made their neck stiff, so that they might not hear nor receive instruction.
24 And it shall be, if you carefully listen to Me, says the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy, to do no work in it;
25 then kings and rulers sitting on the throne of David shall enter into the gates of this city, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their rulers, the men of Judah, and the people of Jerusalem. And this city shall remain forever.
26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and grain offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the LORD.
27 But if you will not listen to me to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to carry a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it will not be put out.

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Jeremiah 18
1 ś The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.
3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he was working a work on the wheel.
4 And the vessel that he made in clay was ruined in the hand of the potter; so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it .
5 Then the Word of the LORD came to me, saying,
6 O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? says the LORD. Behold, As the clay in the potter's hands, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
7 The instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck it up and to pull it down, and to destroy it ;
8 if that nation, against whom I have spoken, will turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.
9 And the instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build it and to plant it ;
10 if it does evil in My sight, not to obey My voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would do them good.
11 ś Now then please, speak to the men of Judah, and to the people of Jerusalem, saying, So says the LORD: Behold, I am forming evil against you, and devising a plan against you. Return now, each one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.
12 And they said, There is no hope; but we will walk after our own ways, and we will each one do according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.
13 Therefore so says the LORD, Ask now among the nations; who has heard the like of this? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the field? Or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?
15 Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways from the old paths, to walk in by-paths, not in the highway,
16 to make their land desolate and a hissing forever. Everyone who passes by will be amazed, and will wag his head.
17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
18 ś Then they said, Come and let us plot schemes against Jeremiah. For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor wisdom from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.
19 Pay attention to me; O LORD, and attend to the voice of my foes.
20 Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before You to do good for them, and to turn away Your wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their sons to the famine, and give them over to the hand of the sword. And let their wives be bereaved, and widows, and their men be slain of death; let their young men be struck by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when You suddenly bring a raiding party on them. For they have dug a pit to take me, and have hidden snares for my feet.
23 Yet, LORD, You know all their counsel against me to kill me . Do not forgive their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your sight, but let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.

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Jeremiah 19
1 ś So says the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen jar, and assemble from the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests.
2 And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom by the entry of Potsherd Gate. And there declare the words that I shall tell you.
3 And say, Hear the Word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and people of Jerusalem. So says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which shall cause the ears of him who hears it to tingle.
4 Because they have forsaken Me, and have made this place famous and have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents.
5 They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I never commanded nor spoke, nor did it come into My mind.
6 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The Valley of Slaughter.
7 And I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of those who seek their lives. And I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the animals of the earth.
8 And I will make this city a waste and a hissing. Everyone who passes by shall be amazed and shall hiss because of all its plagues.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall each one eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall distress them.
10 ś Then you shall break the jar before the eyes of the men who go with you,
11 and shall say to them, So says the LORD of hosts, Even so I will break this people of this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again. And they shall bury them in Tophet until there is no place left to bury.
12 I will do this to this place, says the LORD, and to its people, and make this city as Tophet.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be as defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of the heavens, and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.
14 Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy. And he stood in the court of the LORD's house, and said to all the people,
15 So says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have spoken against it, because they have hardened their necks so that they might not hear My words.

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Jeremiah 20
1 ś When Pashur the son of Immer the priest (he was chief officer in the house of the LORD) heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,
2 then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate, which was by the house of the LORD.
3 And it happened on the next day, Pashur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, The LORD has not called your name Pashur, but Terror from All Around.
4 For so says the LORD, Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. And they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall behold it . And I will give all Judah into the king of Babylon's hand, and he will exile them into Babylon, and kill them with the sword.
5 And I will give all the wealth of this city, and its produce, and all its precious things, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah, even I will give into the hand of their enemies; who will strip them and take them, and bring them to Babylon.
6 And you, Pashur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. And you shall come to Babylon, and you shall die there, and shall be buried there; you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.
7 ś O LORD, You have deceived me, and I was deceived. You are stronger than I, and You have prevailed. I am in derision all the day; everyone laughs at me.
8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I cry violence and ruin; for the Word of the LORD has been a reproach and a cause of mocking to me all day.
9 Then I said, I will not mention Him, nor speak in His name any more. But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with holding in, and I could not stop.
10 For I heard the slanders of many, Terror is all around! Expose! Yea, let us expose him! Every man of my peace is watching for my fall, saying , Perhaps he will be lured away, and we shall prevail over him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
11 But the LORD is with me like a mighty, awesome one. Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not overcome me. They shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not be blessed. Their everlasting shame shall never be forgotten.
12 But, O Jehovah of hosts, who tries the righteous and sees the reins and the heart, let me see Your vengeance on them. For I have committed my cause to You.
13 Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD; for He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
14 ś Cursed is the day in which I was born; let not the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.
15 Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, A man child is born to you; making him very glad.
16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not; and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;
17 because he did not kill me from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me .
18 Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?

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Jeremiah 21
1 ś The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,
2 Please inquire of the LORD for us. For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that he may go up from us.
3 Then Jeremiah said to them, You shall say this to Zedekiah,
4 So says the Jehovah, God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls. And I will gather them together in the middle of this city.
5 And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath.
6 And I will strike the people of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great plague.
7 And afterward, says the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the plague, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. And he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, nor have pity, nor have mercy.
8 ś And to this people you shall say, So says the LORD, Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
9 He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the plague. But he who goes out and falls to the Chaldeans who are all around you, he shall live, and his life shall be his prize.
10 For I have set My face against this city for evil, and not for good, says the LORD. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
11 And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say , Hear the Word of the LORD.
12 O house of David, so says the LORD: Do judgment in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest My fury go out like fire, and burn so that none can put it out, because of the evil of your doings.
13 Behold, I am against you, O dweller of the valley, rock of the plain, says the LORD; those who say, Who shall come down against us? Or who shall enter into our homes?
14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the LORD; and I will kindle a fire in the forest of it, and it shall devour all things around it.

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Jeremiah 22
1 ś So says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there.
2 And say, Hear the Word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
3 So says the LORD, Do judgment and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the oppressors's hand. And do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you do this thing indeed, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
5 But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a ruin.
6 For so says the LORD to the king of Judah's house, You are Gilead to Me, and the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities with no people.
7 And I will prepare destroyers against you, each one with his weapons. And they shall cut down your choice cedars, and throw them into the fire.
8 And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say each one to his neighbor, Why has the LORD done this to this great city?
9 Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
10 ś Weep not for the dead, nor moan for him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away. For he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
11 For so says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned in the place of Josiah his father, who went forth out of this place: he shall not return there any more.
12 But he shall die in the place where they have exiled him and shall see this land no more.
13 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms without justice; his neighbor serves without pay, and he does not give him his work;
14 who says, I will build myself a wide house and large rooms, and cuts out windows for himself, and puts in a cedar ceiling, and paints it with vermilion.
15 Do you reign, because you lust to excel in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him. Was this not to know Me? says the LORD.
17 But your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your unjust gain, and to shed innocent blood, and for cruelty, and to do violence.
18 Therefore so says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, They shall not mourn for him, saying , Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister! They shall not mourn for him, saying , Ah, lord! or, Ah, his glory!
19 He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 ś Go up to Lebanon, and cry. And lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim, for all your lovers are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed My voice.
22 The wind shall eat up all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity; surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated for all your wickedness.
23 O dweller in Lebanon, nested in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come to you, the pain as one giving birth?
24 As I live, says the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pull you out of there!
25 And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 And I will cast you and your mother who bore you into another country where you were not born. And there you shall die.
27 But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return.
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken jar? Is he a vessel in which there is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they do not know?
29 O earth, earth, earth! Hear the word of the LORD!
30 So says the LORD, Write this man down as childless, a man who will not be blessed in his days. For no man of his seed shall be blessed, sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.

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Jeremiah 23
1 ś Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture, says the LORD.
2 Therefore so says Jehovah, God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed My people, You have scattered My flock, and have driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will bring on you the evil of your doings, says the LORD.
3 And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their fold. And they shall be fruitful and multiply.
4 And I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. And they shall fear no more, nor be afraid; nor shall they lack anything , says the LORD.
5 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and act wisely, and shall do judgment and justice in the earth.
6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is His name by which He shall be called, JEHOVAH, OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
7 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD lives, who brought the sons of Israel up out of the land of Egypt;
8 but, The LORD lives, who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries where I have driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land.
9 ś My heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of His holiness.
10 For the land is full of adulterers. Yes, because of cursing the land mourns; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their power is not right.
11 For both prophet and priest are ungodly; yes, in My house I have found their evil, says the LORD.
12 So their way shall be to them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on, and fall in them; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their judgment, says the LORD.
13 And I have seen frivolity in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to go astray.
14 I have also seen in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing; they commit adultery and walk in falsehood. They also strengthen to the hands of evildoers, so that none returns from his evil; they are all of them like Sodom to Me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.
15 So Jehovah of hosts says this concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone forth into all the land.
16 So says Jehovah of hosts, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you vain; they speak a vision from their own heart, not out of the mouth of the LORD.
17 They still say to those who despise Me, The LORD has said, You shall have peace! And they say to everyone who walks after the stubbornness of his own heart, No evil shall come on you!
18 For who has stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hears His Word? Who has listened to His Word and heard it ?
19 Behold, the tempest of the LORD has gone forth in fury, a whirling tempest. It shall whirl on the head of the wicked.
20 The anger of the LORD shall not return, until He has done and until He has set up the purposes of His heart; in later days you shall understand it perfectly.
21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
22 But if they had stood in My wisdom and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
23 Am I a God near, says the LORD, and not a God afar off?
24 Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill the heavens and earth? says the LORD.
25 I have heard what the prophets said, who prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? But they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart,
27 who plot to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell, each one to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal.
28 The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream. And he who has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? says the LORD.
29 Is not My Word like a fire? says the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
30 So the LORD says, Behold, I am against the prophets who steal My words each one from his neighbor.
31 The LORD says, Behold, I am against the prophets who use their tongues and say, He says.
32 The LORD says, Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams and tell them, and cause My people to go astray by their lies and by their lightness. Yet I did not send them nor command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, says the LORD.
33 ś And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? You shall then say to them, What burden? I will even forsake you, says the LORD.
34 And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house.
35 So you shall say each one to his neighbor, and each one to his brother, What has the LORD answered? And what has the LORD spoken?
36 And you shall mention the burden of the LORD no more. For every man's word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.
37 So you shall say to the prophet, What has the LORD answered you? And what has the LORD spoken?
38 But since you say, The burden of the LORD; therefore so says the LORD, Because you say this word; the burden of the LORD; and I have sent to you saying, You shall not say, The burden of the LORD;
39 therefore, behold, I, even I, will completely forget you, and I will forsake you and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of My presence.
40 And I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a never-ending shame, which shall not be forgotten.

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Jeremiah 24
1 ś The LORD caused me to see, and behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of the LORD (after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had exiled Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the rulers of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon);
2 one basket had very good figs, like the first ripe figs. And the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
3 Then the LORD said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so that they cannot be eaten, they are so bad.
4 Again the Word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 So says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will acknowledge the exiles of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
6 For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. And I will build them and not pull them down; and I will plant them and not pluck them up.
7 And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. For they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
8 And like the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad; surely so says the LORD, So I will give to Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his rulers, and the rest of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt;
9 and I will even make them a horror for evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and a proverb, a gibe and a curse, there in all places where I shall drive them.
10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the plague among them until they are destroyed from the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.

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Jeremiah 25
1 ś The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah. It was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon;
2 the word which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the people of Jerusalem, saying,
3 From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even to this day, that is the twenty-third year, the Word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking. But you have not listened.
4 And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but you have not listened nor bowed down your ear to hear.
5 They said, Turn again now, each one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers forever and ever.
6 And do not go after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no harm.
7 Yet you have not listened to Me, says the LORD, so that you might provoke Me with the works of your hands, for harm to you.
8 ś Therefore so says the LORD of hosts, Because you have not heard My words,
9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and will bring them against this land, and against its people, and against all these nations all around. And I will completely destroy them, and make them a waste, and a hissing, and everlasting ruins.
10 And I will take from them the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the candle.
11 And this whole land shall be a ruin and a waste. And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 And it shall be, when seventy years are fulfilled I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, and the land of the Chaldeans, says the LORD, for their iniquity, and I will make it an everlasting ruin.
13 And I will bring on that land all My words which I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
14 For many nations and great kings shall lay service on them also. And I will repay them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
15 ś For so says the LORD, the God of Israel, to me, Take the wine cup of this wrath at My hand, and cause all the nations to whom I shall send you to drink it.
16 And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be maddened, because of the sword that I will send among them.
17 Then I took the cup at the LORD's hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the LORD had sent me.
18 Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings of them, and their rulers, to make them a ruin and a, a hissing, and a curse, (as it is today),
19 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his servants, and his rulers, and all his people,
20 and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the rest of Ashdod;
21 Edom, and Moab, and the sons of Ammon,
22 and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands beyond the sea,
23 Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and those who trim the edges of their beards.
24 and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the desert,
25 and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes,
26 and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the face of the earth; and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.
27 So you shall say to them, So says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.
28 And it shall be if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, So says the LORD of hosts, You shall certainly drink.
29 For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by My name; and should you be found entirely without guilt? You shall not be without guilt. For I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of hosts.
30 ś And prophesy against them all these words, and say to them, The LORD shall roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation. He shall mightily roar over His dwelling place. He shall give a shout, like those who tread out grapes , against all the people of the earth.
31 A noise shall come to the ends of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations; He will enter into judgment with all flesh. He will give those who are wicked to the sword, says the LORD.
32 So says the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest shall be stirred up from the corners of the earth.
33 And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; they shall not be mourned, nor gathered, nor buried. They shall be as dung on the ground.
34 Howl, shepherds, and cry; and roll, leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and of your scatterings are fulfilled; and you shall fall like a desirable vessel.
35 And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the choice ones of the flock, to escape.
36 A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the choice ones of the flock shall be heard ; for the LORD has spoiled their pasture.
37 And the peaceful pastures are cut down because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
38 Like the lion, He has left His den; for their land is wasted because of the oppressor's pressing fury, and because of His fierce anger.

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Jeremiah 26
1 ś In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying,
2 So says the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD's house and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD's house, all the words that I command you to speak to them; do not keep back a word.
3 It may be that they will listen, and each man turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I plan to do to them because of the evil of their doings.
4 And you shall say to them, So says the LORD: If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you,
5 to listen to the words of My servants the prophets whom I am sending to you (both rising up early and sending them, but you have not listened);
6 then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
7 ś So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD.
8 And it happened when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, You shall surely die!
9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be wasted, without inhabitant? And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.
10 When the rulers of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king's house to the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entrance of the New Gate of the LORD's house .
11 And the priests and the prophets spoke to the rulers and to all the people, saying, Let a death sentence be for this man, for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.
12 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the rulers and to all the people, saying, The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard.
13 So now make your ways and your doings good, and obey the voice of the LORD your God. And the LORD will repent of the evil that He has spoken against you.
14 As for me, behold, I am in your hand. Do with me as seems good and right to you.
15 But know for certain that if you put me to death you shall surely bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city, and on its people. For truly the LORD has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.
16 ś Then the rulers and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets, There is not a sentence of death for this man; for he has spoken to us in the name of Jehovah our God.
17 Then some of the elders of the land rose up and spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying,
18 Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, So says Jehovah of hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house like the high places of a forest.
19 Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah indeed put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD, and pray to the LORD, and the LORD repented of the evil which He had spoken against them? So we are doing great evil against our souls.
20 And there was also a man who prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.
21 And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the rulers, heard his words, the king tried to put him to death. But when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled and went into Egypt.
22 And Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt; Elnathan the son of Achbor, and men with him into Egypt.
23 And they brought Urijah out of Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword and threw his dead body into the graves of the common people.
24 But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.

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Jeremiah 27
1 ś In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 So says the LORD to me, Make bonds and yokes for yourself, and put them on your neck.
3 And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who came to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah.
4 And command them to go to their masters, So says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: So you shall say to your masters,
5 I have made the earth, man, and the animals on the face of the earth, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed right to Me.
6 And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant. And I have also given him the beast of the field to serve him.
7 And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land comes. And then many nations and great kings shall enslave him.
8 And it shall be, the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish, says the LORD, with the sword and with the famine, and with the plague, until I have destroyed them by his hand.
9 As for you, do not listen to your prophets, nor to your fortune tellers, nor to your dreamers, nor to your conjurers, nor to your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon.
10 For they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out and you should perish.
11 But the nations who bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those I will leave it on their own land, says the LORD. And they shall work it and dwell in it.
12 ś I also spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live.
13 Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, as the LORD has spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
14 Therefore do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon. For they prophesy a lie to you.
15 For I have not sent them, says the LORD; yet they prophesy a lie in My name, so that I might drive you out, and that you might perish, you and the prophets who prophesy to you.
16 Also I spoke to the priests and to all the people, saying, So says the LORD, Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon. For they prophesy a lie to you.
17 Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon and live. For why should this city be laid waste?
18 But if they are prophets, and if the Word of the LORD is with them, let them now pray to Jehovah of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.
19 For so says Jehovah of hosts, concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the rest of the vessels which remain in this city,
20 which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he exiled Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem;
21 yes, so says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the LORD and in the house of the king of Judah and of Jerusalem:
22 They shall be carried to Babylon, and they shall be there until the day that I visit them, says the LORD. Then I will bring them up and give them back to this place.

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Jeremiah 28
1 ś And it happened in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah the son of Azur the prophet, of Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying,
2 So says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
3 Within two full years I will again bring into this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried them to Babylon.
4 And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah who went into Babylon, says the LORD. For I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
5 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence all the people who stood in the house of the LORD,
6 even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen. May the LORD do so . May the LORD confirm your words which you have prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD's house, and all that is exiled from Babylon into this place.
7 But hear now this word that I speak in your ears and in the ears of all the people:
8 The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of plague.
9 As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then the prophet shall be known, that the LORD has truly sent him.
10 ś Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck and broke it.
11 And Hananiah spoke for the eyes of all the people, saying, So says the LORD, Even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the time of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.
12 Then the Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
13 Go and tell Hananiah, saying, So says the LORD: You have broken the yokes of wood, but you shall make for them yokes of iron.
14 For so says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And they shall serve him. And I have given him the beasts of the field also.
15 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah. The LORD has not sent you, but you make this people to trust in a lie.
16 Therefore so says the LORD, Behold, I will drive you from off the face of the earth. You shall die this year, because you have taught rebellion against the LORD.
17 So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

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Jeremiah 29
1 ś And these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon.
2 (After Jeconiah the king, and the queen mother, and the eunuchs, the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, had departed from Jerusalem.)
3 The letter came by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah the king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying,
4 So says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I caused to be exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5 Build houses and live in them ; and plant gardens and eat their fruit.
6 Take wives and father sons and daughters. And take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be multiplied there and not become few.
7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be exiled, and pray to the LORD for it. For in its peace you shall have peace.
8 ś For so says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your fortune-tellers in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you dream.
9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD.
10 For so says the LORD, When according to My Word seventy years have been fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you and confirm My good Word to you, to bring you back to this place.
11 For I know the purposes which I am purposing for you, says the LORD; purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
12 Then you shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 And you shall seek Me and find Me , when you search for Me with all your heart.
14 And I will be found by you, says the LORD; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD. And I will bring you again into the place from where I caused you to be exiled.
15 ś Because you have said, The LORD has raised us up prophets in Babylon;
16 so says the LORD of the king who sits on the throne of David, and of all the people who dwell in this city, and of your brothers who have not gone out with you into captivity;
17 so says the LORD of hosts: Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the plague, and will make them like worthless figs which cannot be eaten from badness.
18 And I will pursue them with the sword, with the famine, and with the plague, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and a waste, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations where I have driven them,
19 because they have not listened to My words, says the LORD, which I sent to them by My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending; but you would not hear, says the LORD.
20 And hear the Word of the LORD, all you exiles, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon;
21 so says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, about Ahab the son of Kolaiah and of Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in My name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall kill them before your eyes.
22 And a curse shall be taken up from them by all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,
23 because they have committed evil in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and have spoken lying words in My name, which I have not commanded them; for I am He who knows and a witness, says the LORD.
24 ś You shall also speak to Shemaiah the Nehelamite, saying,
25 So says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, Because you have sent letters in your name to all the people who are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying,
26 The LORD has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be officers in the house of the LORD, over every madman who prophesies, that you should put him into the stocks and into the collar.
27 Now therefore why have you not reproved Jeremiah of Anathoth, who prophesies to you?
28 For this cause he sent to us in Babylon, saying, This exile is long. Build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit.
29 And Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet.
30 And the Word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying,
31 Send to all the exiles, saying, So says the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I did not send him, and he caused you to trust in a lie,
32 therefore so says the LORD, Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his seed. He shall not have a man to dwell among this people; nor shall he behold the good which I shall do for My people, says the LORD, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD.

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Jeremiah 30
1 ś The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 So speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.
3 For, lo, the days come, says the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, says the LORD. And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave their fathers, and they shall possess it.
4 And these are the words that the LORD spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah.
5 For so says the LORD, We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
6 Ask now, and see whether a man is giving birth? Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in labor, and all faces are turned into paleness?
7 Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
8 For it shall be in that day, says Jehovah of hosts, I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds. And strangers shall no longer enslave him,
9 but they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up to them.
10 ś And you, O My servant Jacob, do not fear, says the LORD. Do not be terrified, O Israel. For lo, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. And Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.
11 For I am with you, says the LORD, to save you. Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will not leave you entirely unpunished.
12 For so says the LORD, Your break cannot be cured, and your wound is grievous.
13 There is none to plead your cause; for your ulcer there are no healing medicines for you.
14 All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity; because your sins are many.
15 Why do you cry over your crushing? Your pain is incurable, for the greatness of your iniquity; because your sins are many, I have done these things to you.
16 So all those who devour you shall be devoured; and all your enemies, every one of them, shall go into captivity. And they who rob you shall be robbed, and all who strip you I will strip.
17 For I will give health back to you, and will heal you of your wounds, says the LORD; because they called you an outcast, saying , This is Zion; no one is seeking for her.
18 ś So says the LORD: Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and will have mercy on his dwelling places. And the city shall be built on her own hill, and the palace shall remain in its own place.
19 And out of them shall come thanksgiving, and the voice of those who rejoice. And I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
20 Also their sons shall be as they were before, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all who ill-treat them.
21 And their rulers shall be of themselves, and their governor shall come from among them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach Me. For who is this who pledged his heart to come near to Me? says the LORD.
22 And you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
23 Behold, the tempest of Jehovah's wrath goes forth, a sweeping tempest; it shall whirl on the head of the wicked.
24 The fierce anger of the LORD shall not return until He has done it , and until He has fulfilled the purposes of His heart. In the latter days you shall understand it.

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Jeremiah 31
1 ś At that time, says the LORD, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they s