Book Order Plan

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

²Oh that I had in the desert A travelers’ lodging place; So that I might leave my people And go away from them! For all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous people.

³“They bend their tongues like their bows; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,” declares the LORD.

⁴“Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, And do not trust any brother; Because every brother utterly betrays, And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.

⁵Everyone deceives his neighbor And does not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves committing wrongdoing.

⁶Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

⁷Therefore this is what the LORD of armies says: “Behold, I will refine them and put them to the test; For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow; It speaks deceit; With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor, But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.

⁹Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Shall I not avenge Myself On a nation such as this?

¹⁰“I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, And for the pastures of the wilderness a song of mourning, Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, And the sound of the livestock is not heard; Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled; they are gone.

¹¹I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, A haunt of jackals; And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.”

¹²Who is the wise person who may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed, laid waste like the desert, so that no one passes through?

¹³The LORD said, “Because they have abandoned My Law which I put before them, and have not obeyed My voice nor walked according to it,

¹⁴but have followed the stubbornness of their heart and the Baals, as their fathers taught them,”

¹⁵therefore this is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood; and I will give them poisoned water to drink.

¹⁶I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have put an end to them.”

¹⁷This is what the LORD of armies says: “Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the skillful women, that they may come!

¹⁸Have them hurry and take up a wailing for us, So that our eyes may shed tears, And our eyelids flow with water.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! We are put to great shame, For we have abandoned the land Because they have torn down our homes.’ ”

²⁰Now hear the word of the LORD, you women, And let your ears receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And have every woman teach her neighbor a song of mourning.

²¹For death has come up through our windows; It has entered our palaces To eliminate the children from the streets, The young men from the public squares.

²²Speak, “This is what the LORD says: ‘The corpses of people will fall like dung on the open field, And like the sheaf after the reaper, But no one will gather them.’ ”

²³This is what the LORD says: “Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches;

²⁴but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.

²⁵“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised—

²⁶Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all those inhabiting the desert who trim the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”

¹Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, house of Israel.

²This is what the LORD says: “Do not learn the way of the nations, And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens, Although the nations are terrified by them;

³For the customs of the peoples are futile; For it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.

⁴They decorate the idol with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not totter.

⁵They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good.”

⁶There is none like You, LORD; You are great, and Your name is great in might.

⁷Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? For it is Your due! For among all the wise men of the nations And in all their kingdoms, There is none like You.

⁸But they are altogether stupid and foolish; The instruction from idols is nothing but wood!

⁹Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, And gold from Uphaz, The work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith; Their clothing is of violet and purple; They are all the work of skilled people.

¹⁰But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. The earth quakes at His wrath, And the nations cannot endure His indignation.

¹¹This is what you shall say to them: “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

¹²It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.

¹³When He utters His voice, there is a roar of waters in the heavens, And He makes the clouds ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses.

¹⁴Every person is stupid, devoid of knowledge; Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, For his cast metal images are deceitful, And there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are worthless, a work of mockery; At the time of their punishment they will perish.

¹⁶The Portion of Jacob is not like these; For He is the Maker of everything, And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; The LORD of armies is His name.

¹⁷Pick up your bundle from the ground, You who live under siege!

¹⁸For this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land At this time, And I will cause them distress, So that they may be found.”

¹⁹Woe to me, because of my injury! My wound is incurable. But I said, “This certainly is a sickness, And I must endure it.”

²⁰My tent is destroyed, And all my ropes are broken. My sons have gone from me and are no more. There is no one to stretch out my tent again Or to set up my curtains.

²¹For the shepherds have become stupid And have not sought the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, And all their flock is scattered.

²²The sound of a report! Behold, it is coming— A great roar from the land of the north— To make the cities of Judah A desolation, a haunt of jackals.

²³I know, LORD, that a person’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a person who walks to direct his steps.

²⁴Correct me, LORD, but with justice; Not with Your anger, or You will bring me to nothing.

²⁵Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not know You, And on the families who do not call upon Your name; For they have devoured Jacob; They have devoured him and consumed him, And have laid waste his settlement.

¹The 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 inhabitants of Jerusalem;

³and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: “Cursed is the one who does not obey the words of this covenant

⁴which I commanded your forefathers on the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and do according to all that I command you; so you shall be My people, and I will be your God,’

⁵in order to confirm the oath which I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day.” ’ ” Then I replied, “Amen, LORD.”

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

⁷For I solemnly warned your fathers on the day I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, warning them persistently, saying, “Listen to My voice.”

⁸Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in the stubbornness of their evil heart, each one of them; therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant which I commanded them to do, but they did not.’ ”

⁹Then the LORD said to me, “A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁰They have turned back to the wrongdoings of their ancestors who refused to hear My words, and they have followed other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.”

¹¹Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am bringing disaster on them which they will not be able to escape; though they will cry out to Me, I will not listen to them.

¹²Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they certainly will not save them in the time of their disaster.

¹³For your gods are as many as your cities, Judah; and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars for burning incense to Baal.

¹⁴“So as for you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not listen when they call to Me because of their disaster.

¹⁵What right has My beloved in My house When she has carried out many evil schemes? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster, So that you can rejoice?”

¹⁶The LORD named you “A green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form”; With the noise of a great tumult He has set fire to it, And its branches are worthless.

¹⁷The LORD of armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me by offering sacrifices to Baal.

¹⁸Moreover, the LORD made it known to me and I knew it; Then You showed me their deeds.

¹⁹But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; And I did not know that they had devised plots against me, saying, “Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit, And let’s cut him off from the land of the living, So that his name will no longer be remembered.”

²⁰But, LORD of armies, who judges righteously, Who puts the feelings and the heart to the test, Let me see Your vengeance on them, For to You I have committed my cause.

²¹Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the people of Anathoth, who are seeking your life, saying: “Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, so that you do not die by our hand”;

²²therefore, this is what the LORD of armies says: “Behold, I am going to punish them! The young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters will die by famine;

²³and a remnant will not be left to them, because I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth—the year of their punishment.”