The Message about the Drought

141 The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. 2 Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 3 Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. 4 Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads. 5 Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. 6 The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage. 7 Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you. 8 You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night? 9 Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t save? Yet you, Yahweh, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; don’t leave us.

10 Thus says Yahweh to this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahweh does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. 11 Yahweh said to me, Don’t pray for this people for their good. 12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. 13 Then said I, Ah, Lord Yahweh! behold, the prophets tell them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. 14 Then Yahweh said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I didn’t send them, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I to them: they prophesy to you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. 15 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I didn’t send them, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. 16 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—them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them.

17 You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. 18 If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge. 19 Have you utterly rejected Judah? has your soul loathed Zion? why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! 20 We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness, and 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, don’t break your covenant with us. 22 Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

The LORD's Unrepenting Anger with Judah

151 Then said Yahweh to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. 2 It shall happen, when they tell you, Where shall we go forth? Then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity. 3 I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahweh: the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. 4 I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. 5 For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? or who will bemoan you? or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare? 6 You have rejected me, says Yahweh, you have gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against you, and destroyed you; I am weary with repenting. 7 I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my people; they didn’t return from their ways. 8 Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. 9 She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the spirit; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she has been disappointed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says Yahweh.

10 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 lent, neither have men lent to me; yet everyone of them does curse me. 11 Yahweh said, Most certainly I will strengthen you for good; most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. 12 Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? 13 Your substance and your treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders. 14 I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn on you.

The LORD's Assurance to Jeremiah

15 Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; don’t take me away in your longsuffering: know that for your sake I have suffered reproach. 16 Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by your name, Yahweh, God of Armies. 17 I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand; for you have filled me with indignation. 18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail? 19 Therefore thus says Yahweh, If you return, then will I bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth: they shall return to you, but you shall not return to them. 20 I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you, says Yahweh. 21 I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.

The LORD's Judgment on the People

161 The word of Yahweh came also to me, saying, 2 You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place. 3 For thus says Yahweh 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 became the father of them in this land: 4 They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. 5 For thus says Yahweh, Don’t enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says Yahweh, even loving kindness and tender mercies. 6 Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; 7 neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. 8 You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. 9 For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

10 It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they shall tell you, Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God? 11 Then you shall tell them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says Yahweh, 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 evil more than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me: 13 therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night; for I will show you no favor.

14 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be said, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15 but, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them. I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers. 16 Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says Yahweh, and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations. 19 Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, even vanity and things in which there is no profit. 20 Shall a man make to himself gods, which yet are no gods? 21 Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is Yahweh.

Judah's Heart Engraved with Sin

171 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars; 2 while their children remember their altars and their Asherim by the green trees on the high hills. 3 My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a spoil, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders. 4 You, even of yourself, shall discontinue from your heritage that I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know: for you have kindled a fire in my anger which shall burn forever.

5 Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. 6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. 7 Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust Yahweh is. 8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? 10 I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. 11 As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool.

12 A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. 13 Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters. 14 Heal me, O Yahweh, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for you are my praise. 15 Behold, they tell me, Where is the word of Yahweh? let it come now. 16 As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you; neither have I desired the woeful day; you know: that which came out of my lips was before your face. 17 Don’t be a terror to me: you are my refuge in the day of evil. 18 Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed; bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

The Sabbath Must Be Hallowed

19 Thus said Yahweh to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; 20 and tell them, Hear the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: 21 Thus says Yahweh, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; 22 neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day holy, neither do any work: but make the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. 23 But they didn’t listen, neither turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction. 24 It shall happen, if you diligently listen to me, says Yahweh, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work therein; 25 then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. 26 They shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the hill country, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meal offerings, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, to the house of Yahweh. 27 But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.