The Book of Jeremiah, chapters 1 - 6
1 THE WORDS OF JEREMIAH son of Hilkiah, one of the priests
at Anathoth in Benjamin. The word of the Lord came to him in the
thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah;
also during the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the
eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, was completed.
In the fifth month the people of Jerusalem were carried away into exile.
THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO ME: 'Before I formed you in the
womb I knew you for my own; before you were born I consecrated you,
I appointed you prophet to the nations.' 'Ah, Lord God,' I answered,
'I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.' But the Lord said, 'Do
not call yourself a child; for you shall go to whatever people I send you
and say whatever I tell you to say. Fear none of them, for I am with you
and will keep you safe.' This was the very word of the Lord. Then the
Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth, and said to me, 'I
put my words into your mouth. This day I give you authority over nations
and over kingdoms, to pull down and to uproot, to destroy and to demolish,
to build and to plant.'
The word of the Lord came to me: 'What is it that you see, Jeremiah?'
'An almond in early bloom', I answered. 'You are right,' said the Lord to
me, 'for I am early on the watch to carry out my purpose.' The word of
the Lord came to me a second time: 'What is it that you see?' 'A cauldron',
I said, 'on a fire, fanned by the wind; it is tilted away from the north.'
The Lord said:
From the north disaster shall flare up
against all who live in this land;
for now I summon all peoples and kingdoms of the north,
says the Lord.
Their kings shall come and each shall set up his throne
before the gates of Jerusalem,
against her walls on every side,
and against all the cities of Judah.
I will state my case against my people
for all the wrong they have done in forsaking me,
in burning sacrifices to other gods,
worshipping the work of their own hands.
Brace yourself, Jeremiah;
stand up and speak to them.
Tell them everything I bid you,
do not let your spirit break at the sight of them,
or I will break you before their eyes.
This day I make you a fortified city,
a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze,
to stand fast against the whole land,
against the kings and princes of Judah,
its priests and its people.
They will make war on you but shall not overcome you,
for I am with you and will keep you safe.
This is the very word of the Lord.
2 THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO ME: Go, make a proclamation that
all Jerusalem shall hear: These are the words of the Lord:
I remember the unfailing devotion of your youth,
the love of your bridal days,
when you followed me in the wilderness,
through a land unsown.
Israel then was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest;
no one who devoured her went unpunished,
evil always overtook them.
This is the very word of the Lord.
Listen to the word of the Lord, people of Jacob, families of Israel, one
and all. These are the words of the Lord:
What fault did you forefathers find in me,
that they wandered far from me,
pursuing empty phantoms and themselves becoming empty;
that they did not ask, 'Where is the Lord,
who brought us out of Egypt,
and led us through the wilderness,
through a country of shifting sands,
a country barren and ill-omened, where no man ever trod,
no man made his home?'
I brought you into a fruitful land
to enjoy its fruit and the goodness of it;
but when you entered upon it you defiled it
and made the home I gave you loathsome.
The priests no longer asked, 'Where is the Lord?'
Those who handled the law had no thought of me,
the shepherds of the people rebelled against me;
the prophets prophesied in the name of Baal
and followed gods powerless to help.
Therefore I will bring a charge against you once more,
say the Lord,
against you and against your descendants.
Cross to the coasts and islands of Kittim and see,
send to Kedar and consider well,
see whether there has been anything like this:
has a nation ever changed its gods,
although there were no gods?
But my people have exchanged their Glory
for a god altogether powerless.
Stand aghast at this, ye heavens,
tremble in utter despair,
says the Lord.
Two sins have my people committed:
they have forsaken me,
a spring of living water,
and they have hewn out for themselves cisterns,
cracked cisterns that can hold no water.
Is Israel a slave? Was he born in slavery?
If not, why has he been despoiled?
Why do lions roar and growl at him?
Why has his land been laid waste,
why are his cities razed to the ground and abandoned?
Men of Noph and Tahpanhes
will break your heads.
Is it not your desertion of the Lord your God
that brings all this upon you?
And now, why should you make off to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Shihor?
Or why make off to Assyria
to drink the waters of the River?
It is your own wickedness that will punish you,
your own apostasy that will condemn you.
See for yourselves how bitter a thing it is and how evil,
to forsake the Lord your God and revere me no longer.
This is the very word of the Lord God of Hosts.
Ages ago you broke your yoke and snapped your traces,
crying, 'I will not be your slave';
and you sprawled in promiscuous vice
on all the hill-tops, under every spreading tree.
I planted you as a choice red vine,
true stock all of you,
yet now you are turned into a vine
debased and worthless!
The stain of your sins is there and I see it,
though you wash with soda and do not stint the soap.
This is the very word of the Lord God.
How can you say, 'I am not polluted, not I!
I have not followed the Baalim'?
Look how you conducted yourself in the valley;
remember what you have done.
You have been like a she-camel,
twisting and turning as she runs,
rushing alone into the wilderness,
snuffing the wind in her lust;
who can restrain her in her heat?
No one need tire himself out in pursuit of her;
she is easily found at mating time.
Why not save your feet from stony ground
and your throats from thirst?
But you said, 'No; I am desperate.
I love foreign gods and I must go after them.'
As a thief is ashamed when he is found out,
so the people of Israel feel ashamed,
they, their kings, their princes,
their priests and their prophets;
they say 'You are our father' to a block of wood
and cry 'Mother' to a stone.
But on me they have turned their backs
and averted their faces from me.
And now on the day of disaster they say,
'Rise up and save us.'
Where are they, those gods that you made for yourselves?
Let them come and save you in the day of disaster.
For you, Judah, have as many gods as you have towns.
The Lord answers,
Why argue your case with me?
You are rebels, every one of you.
In vain I struck down your sons,
the lesson was not learnt;
still your own sword devoured your prophets
like a ravening lion.
Have I shown myself inhospitable to Israel
like some wilderness or waterless land?
Why do my people say, 'We have broken away;
we will never come back to thee'?
Will a girl forget her finery
or a bride her ribbons?
Yet my people have forgotten me
over and over again.
How well you pick your way in search of lovers!
Why! even the worst women can learn from you.
Yes, and there is blood on the corners of your robe —
the life-blood of the innocent poor.
You did not get it by housebreaking
but by your sacrifices under every oak.
You say, 'I am innocent;
surely his anger has passed away.'
But I will challenge your claim
to have done no sin.
Why do you so lightly change course?
Egypt will fail as Assyria did;
you shall go out from here,
each of you with his hands above his head,
for the Lord repudiates those in whom you trusted,
and from them you shall gain nothing.
3 If a man put away his wife
and she leaves him,
and if she then becomes another's,
may he go back to her again?
Is not that woman defiled,
a forbidden thing?
You have played the harlot with many lovers;
can you come back to me?
says the Lord.
Look up to the high places and see:
where have you not been ravished?
You sat by the wayside to catch lovers,
like an Arab lurking in the desert,
and defiled the land
with your fornications and your wickedness.
Therefore the showers were withheld
and the spring rain failed.
But yours was a harlot's brow,
and you were resolved to show no shame.
Not so long since, you called me 'Father,
dear friend of my youth',
thinking, 'Will he be angry for ever?
Will he rage eternally?'
This is how you spoke; you have done evil
and gone unchallenged.
In the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, Do you see what
apostate Israel did? She went up to every hill-top and under every spread-
ing tree, and there she played the whore. Even after she had done all this,
I said to her, Come back to me, but she would not. That faithless woman,
her sister Judah, saw it all; she saw too that I had put apostate Israel away
and given her a note of divorce because she had committed adultery. Yet
that faithless woman, her sister Judah, was not afraid; she too has gone and
played the whore. She defiled the land with her thoughtless harlotry and
her adulterous worship of stone and wood. In spite of all this that faithless
woman, her sister Judah, has not come back to me in good faith, but only
in pretence. This is the very word of the Lord.
The Lord said to me, Apostate Israel is less to blame than the faithless
woman Judah. Go an proclaim this message to the north:
Come back to me, Apostate Israel,
says the Lord,
I will no longer frown on you.
For my love is unfailing says the Lord,
I will not be angry for ever.
Only you must acknowledge your wrongdoing,
confess your rebellion against the Lord your God.
Confess your promiscuous traffic with foreign gods
under every spreading tree,
confess that you have not obeyed me.
This is the very word of the Lord.
Come back to me apostate children, says the Lord, for I am patient
with you, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and bring
you to Zion. There will I give you shepherds after my own heart, and they
shall lead you with knowledge and understanding. In those days, when
you have increased and become fruitful in the land, says the Lord, men
shall speak no more of the Ark of the covenant of the Lord; they shall not
think of it nor remember t nor resort to it; it will be needed no more. At
that time Jerusalem shall be called the Throne of the Lord. All nations
shall gather in Jerusalem to honour the Lord's name; never again shall
they follow the promptings of their evil and stubborn hearts. In those days
Judah shall join Israel, and together they shall come from a northern land
into the land I gave their fathers as their patrimony.
I said, How gladly would I treat you as a son,
giving you a pleasant land,
a patrimony fairer than that of any nation!
I said, You shall call me Father
and never cease to follow me.
But like a woman who is unfaithful to her lover,
so you, Israel, were unfaithful to me.
This is the very word of the Lord.
Hark, a sound of weeping on the bare places,
Israel's people pleading for mercy!
For they have taken to crooked ways
and ignored the Lord their God.
Come back to me, wayward sons;
I will heal your apostasy.
O Lord, we come! We come to thee;
for thou art our God.
There is no help in worship on the hill-tops,
no help from clamour on the heights;
truly in the Lord our God
is Israel's only salvation.
From our early days
Baal, god of same, has devoured
the fruits of our fathers' labours,
their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters.
Let us lie down in shame, wrapped round by our dishonour,
for we have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our fathers,
from our early days till now,
and we have not obey the Lord our God.
4 If you will but come back, O Israel,
if you will but come back to me, says the Lord,
if you will banish your loathsome idols from my sight,
and stray no more,
if you swear by the life of the Lord,
in truth, in justice and uprightness,
then shall the nations pray to be blessed like you
and in you shall they boast.
These are the words of the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:
Break up your fallow ground,
do not sow among thorns,
circumcise yourselves to the service of the Lord,
circumcise your hearts,
men of Judah and dwellers in Jerusalem,
lest the fire of my fury blaze up and burn unquenched,
because of your evil doings.
Tell this in Judah,
proclaim it in Jerusalem,
blow the trumpet throughout the land,
sound the muster,
give the command, Stand to! — and let us fall back
on the fortified cities.
Raise the signal — To Zion!
make for safety, lose no time,
for I bring disaster out of the north,
and dire destruction.
A lion has come out of his lair,
the destroyer of nations;
he has struck his tents, he has broken camp,
to harry your land
and lay your cities waste and unpeopled.
Well may you put on sackcloth,
beat the breast and wail,
for the anger of the Lord
is not averted from us.
On that day, says the Lord,
the hearts of he king and his officers shall fail them,
priests shall be struck with horror and prophets dumbfounded.
And I said, O Lord God, thou surely didst deceive the people and
Jerusalem in saying, 'You shall have peace', while the sword is at our
throats.
At that time this people and Jerusalem shall be told:
A scorching wind from the high bare places in the wilderness
sweeps down upon my people,
no breeze for winnowing or for cleansing;
a wind too strong for these
will come at my bidding,
and now I will state my case against them.
Like clouds the enemy advances
with a whirlwind of chariots;
his horses are swifter than eagles —
alas, we are overwhelmed!
O Jerusalem, was the wrongdoing from your heart
and you may yet be saved;
how long will you cherish
your evil schemes?
Hark, a runner from Dan,
tidings of evil from Mount Ephraim!
Tell all this to the nations,
proclaim the doom of Jerusalem:
hordes of invaders come from a distant land,
howling against the cities of Judah.
Their pickets are closing in all round her,
because she has rebelled against me.
This is the very word of the Lord.
Your own ways, your own deeds
have brought all this upon you;
this is your punishment,
and all this comes of your rebellion.
Oh, the writhing of my bowels
and the throbbing of my heart!
I cannot keep silence.
I hear the sound of the trumpet,
the sound of the battle-cry.
Crash upon crash,
the land goes down in ruin,
my tents are thrown down,
their coverings torn to shreds.
How long must I see the standard raised
and hear the trumpet call?
My people are fools, they know nothing of me;
silly children, with no understanding,
they are clever only in wrongdoing,
and of doing right they know nothing.
I saw the earth, and it was without form and void;
the heavens, an their light was gone.
I saw the mountains, and they reeled;
all the hills rocked to and fro.
I saw, and there was no man,
and the very birds had taken flight.
I saw, and the farm-land was wilderness,
and the towns all razed to the ground,
before the Lord in his anger.
These are the words of the Lord:
The whole land shall be desolate,
though I will not make an end of it.
Therefore the earth will mourn
and the heavens above turn black.
For I have made known my purpose;
I will not relent or change my mind.
At the sound of the horsemen and archers
the whole country is in flight;
they creep into caves, they hide in thickets,
they scramble up crags.
Every town is forsaken,
no one dwells there.
And you, what are you doing?
When you dress yourself in scarlet,
deck yourself out with golden ornaments,
and make your eyes big with antimony,
you are beautifying yourself to no purpose.
Your lovers spurn you
and you are out for your life.
I hear a sound as of a woman in labour,
the sharp cry of one bearing her first child.
It is Zion, gasping for breath,
clenching her fists.
Ah me! I am weary,
weary of slaughter.
5 Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem
and see for yourselves;
search her wide squares:
can you find any man who acts justly,
who seeks the truth,
that I may forgive that city?
Men may swear by the life of the Lord,
but they only perjure themselves.
O Lord, are thine eyes not set upon the truth?
Thou didst strike them down,
but they took no heed;
didst pierce them to the heat,
but they refused to learn.
They set their faces harder than flint
and refused to come back.
I said, 'After all, these are the poor,
these are stupid folk,
who do not know the way of the Lord,
the ordinances of their God.
I will go to the great
and speak with them;
for they will know the way of the Lord,
the ordinances of their God.'
But they too have broken the yoke
and snapped their traces.
Therefore a lion out of the scrub shall strike them down,
a wolf from the plain shall ravage them;
a leopard shall prowl about their cities
and maul any who venture out.
For their rebellious deeds are many,
their apostasies past counting.
How can I forgive you for all this?
Your sons have forsaken me and sworn by gods
that are no gods.
I gave them all they needed, yet they preferred adultery,
and haunted the brothels;
each neighs after another man's wife,
like a well-fed and lusty stallion.
Shall I not punish them for this?
the Lord asks.
Shall I not take vengeance
on such a people?
Go along her rows of vines and slash them,
yet do not make an end of them.
Hack away her green branches,
for they are not the Lord's.
Faithless are Israel and Judah,
both faithless to me.
This is the very word of the Lord.
They have denied the Lord,
saying, 'He does not exist.
No evil shall come upon us;
we shall never see sword or famine.
The prophets will prove mere wind,
the word not in them.'
And so, because you talk in this way, these are the words of the Lord
the God of Hosts to me:
I will make my words a fire in yur mouth;
and it shall burn up this people like brushwood.
I bring against you, Israel, a nation from afar,
an ancient people established long ago,
says the Lord.
A people whose language you do not know,
whose speech you will not understand;
they are all mighty warriors,
their jaws are a grave, wide open,
to devour your harvest and your bread,
to devour your sons and your daughters,
to devour your flocks and your herds,
to devour your vines and your fig-trees.
They shall batter down the cities in which you trust,
walled though they are.
But in those days, the Lord declares, I will not make an end of you.
When you ask, 'Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?' I shall
answer, 'As you have forsaken me and served alien gods in your own land,
so shall you serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.'
Tell this to the people of Jacob,
proclaim it to Judah:
Listen, you foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes and see nothing,
ears and hear nothing.
Have you o fear of me? says the Lord;
will you not shiver before me,
before me, who made the shivering sand to bound the sea,
a barrier it never can pass?
Its waves heave and toss but they are powerless;
roar as they may, they cannot pass.
But this people has a rebellious and defiant heart,
rebels they have been and now they are clean gone.
They did not say to themselves,
'Let us fear the Lord our God,
who gives us the rains of autumn
and spring showers in their turn,
who brings us unfailingly
fixed seasons of harvest.'
But your wrongdoing has upset nature's order,
and your sins have kept from you her kindly gifts.
For among my people there are wicked men,
who lay snares like a fowler's net
and set deadly traps to catch men.
Their house is full of fraud,
as a cage is full of birds.
They grow rich and grand,
bloated and rancorous;
their thoughts are all of evil,
and they refuse to do justice,
the claims of the orphan they do not put right
nor do they grant justice to the poor.
Shall I not punish them for this?
says the Lord;
shall I not take vengeance
on such a people?
An appalling thing, an outrage,
has appeared in this land:
prophets prophesy lies and priests go hand in hand with them,
and my people love to have it so.
How will you fare at the end of it all?
6 Save yourselves, men of Benjamin,
come out of Jerusalem,
blow the trumpet in Tekoa,
fire the beacon on Beth-hakkerem,
for calamity looms from the north
and great disaster.
Zion, delightful and lovely:
her end is near —
she to whom the shepherds come
and bring their flocks with them.
There they pitch their tents all round her,
each grazing his own strip of pasture.
Declare war solemnly against her;
come, let us attack her at noon.
Too late! the day declines
and the shadows lengthen.
Come then, let us attack her by night
and destroy her palaces.
These are the words of the Lord of Hosts:
Cut down the trees of Jerusalem
and raise siege-ramps against her,
the city whose name is Licence,
oppression is rampant in her.
As a well keeps its water fresh,
so she keeps her evil fresh.
Violence and outrage echo in her streets;
sickness and wounds stare me in the face.
Learn your lesson, Jerusalem,
lest my love for you be torn from my heart,
and I leave you desolate,
a land where no one can live.
These are the words of the Lord of Hosts:
Glean the remnant of Israel
like a vine,
pass your hand like a vintager one last time
over the branches.
To whom can I address myself,
to whom give solemn warning? Will you hear me?
Their ears are uncircumcised;
they cannot listen;
they treat the Lord's word as reproach;
they show no concern with it.
But I am full of the anger of the Lord,
I cannot hold it in.
I must pour it out on the children in the street
and on the young men in they gangs.
Man and wife alike shall be caught in it,
the greybeard and the very old.
Their houses shall be turned over to others,
their fields and their women alike.
For I will raise my hand, says the Lord,
against the people of the country.
For all, high and low,
are out for ill-gotten gain;
prophets and priests are frauds,
every one of them;
they dress my people's wound, but skin-deep only,
with their saying, 'All is well.'
All well? Nothing is well!
Are they ashamed when they practise their abominations?
Ashamed? Not they!
They can never be put out of countenance.
Therefore they shall fall with a great crash,
and be brought to the ground on the day of my reckoning.
The Lord has said it.
These are the words of the Lord: Stop at the cross-roads; look for
the ancient paths; ask, 'Where is the way that leads to what is good?'
Then take that way, and you will find rest for yourselves. But they said,
'We will not.' Then I will appoint watchmen to direct you; listen for their
trumpet-call. But they said, 'We will not.' Therefore hear, you nations, and
take note, all you who witness it, of the plight of this people. Listen, O
earth, I bring ruin on them, the harvest of all their scheming; for they have
given no thought to my words and have spurned my instruction. What
good is it to me if frankincense is brought from Sheba and fragrant spices
from distant lands? I will not accept your whole-offerings, your sacrifices
do not please me. Therefore these are the words of the Lord:
I will set obstacles before this people
which shall bring them to the ground;
fathers and sons, friends and neighbours
shall all perish together.
These are the words of the Lord:
See, a people is coming from a northern land,
a great nation rouses itself from the earth's farthest corners.
They come with bow sabre, cruel men and pitiless,
bestriding their horses, they sound like the thunder of the sea,
they are like men arrayed for battle against you, Zion.
We have heard tell of them
and our hands hang limp,
agony grips us, the anguish of a woman in labour.
Do not go into the country,
do not walk by the high road;
for the foe, sword in hand,
is a terror let loose.
Daughter of my people, wrap yourself in sackcloth,
sprinkle ashes over yourself, wail bitterly,
as one who mourns an only son;
in an instant shall the marauder be upon us.
I have appointed you an assayer of my people;
you will know how to test them and will assay their conduct;
arch-rebels all of them,
mischief-makers, corrupt to a man.
The bellows puff and blow, the furnace glows;
in vain does the refiner smelt the ore,
lead, copper and iron are not separated out.
Call them spurious silver;
for the Lord has spurned them.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Jun 1, 2018, 12:56 AM UTC
00