Amend Your Ways and Your Doings

71 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2 Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh. 3 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Don’t trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these. 5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; 6 if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: 7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore. 8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10 and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations? 11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh. 12 But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer: 14 therefore will I do to the 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 did to Shiloh. 15 I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

16 Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. 17 Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19 Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? 20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my wrath 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 quenched.

The Punishment for Judah's Rebellion

21 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat. 22 For I didn’t 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 this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. 24 But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: 26 yet they didn’t listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers. 27 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 You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

29 Cut off your hair, Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30 For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. 32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury. 33 The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away. 34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.

81 At that time, says Yahweh, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; 2 and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth. 3 Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Yahweh of Armies.

4 Moreover you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return? 5 Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. 6 I listened and heard, but they didn’t speak aright: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. 7 Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law. 8 How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely. 9 The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what manner of wisdom is in them? 10 Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to those who shall possess them: for everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely. 11 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 committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahweh.

13 I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. 14 Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh. 15 We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! 16 The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein. 17 For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says Yahweh.

A Lament for Judah and Jerusalem

18 Oh that I could 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 land that is very far off: isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities? 20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 21 For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

91 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring 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 of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. 3 They bend their tongue, as it were their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me, says Yahweh. 4 Take heed everyone of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. 5 They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. 6 Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says Yahweh. 7 Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else should I do, because of the daughter of my people? 8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lays wait for him. 9 Shall I not visit them for these things? says Yahweh; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone. 11 I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

Ruin and Exile Threatened

12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through? 13 Yahweh says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein, 14 but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them; 15 therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them. 17 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come: 18 and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. 19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we ruined! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings. 20 Yet hear the word of Yahweh, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation. 21 For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets. 22 Speak, Thus says Yahweh, The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather them.

The Knowledge of God Is Man's Glory

23 Thus says Yahweh, Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don’t let the rich man glory in his riches; 24 but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh. 25 Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all those who are circumcised in their uncircumcision: 26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.