Jeremiah 11
11
Judah Has Broken the Lord's Agreement
1-3The Lord God told me to say to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:
I, the Lord, am warning you that I will put a curse on anyone who doesn't keep the agreement I made with Israel. So pay attention to what it says. 4My commands haven't changed since I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, a nation that seemed like a blazing furnace where iron ore is melted. I told your ancestors that if they obeyed my commands, I would be their God, and they would be my people. 5Then I did what I had promised and gave them this wonderful land, where you now live.
“Yes, Lord,” I replied, “that's true.”
6Then the Lord told me to say to everyone on the streets of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah:
Pay attention to the commands in my agreement with you. 7Ever since I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I have been telling your people to obey me. But you and your ancestors 8have always been stubborn. You have refused to listen, and instead you have done whatever your sinful hearts have desired.
You have not kept the agreement we made, so I will make you suffer every curse that goes with it.
9The Lord said to me:
Jeremiah, the people of Judah and Jerusalem are plotting against me. 10They have sinned in the same way their ancestors did, by turning from me and worshiping other gods. The northern kingdom of Israel broke the agreement I made with your ancestors, and now the southern kingdom of Judah#11.10 Israel … Judah: See the note at 2.4. has done the same.
11Here is what I've decided to do. I will bring suffering on the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and no one will escape. They will beg me to help, but I won't listen to their prayers. 12-13Then they will offer sacrifices to their other gods and ask them for help. After all, the people of Judah have more gods than towns, and more shameful altars for Baal than there are streets in Jerusalem. But those gods won't be able to rescue the people of Judah from disaster.
14Jeremiah, don't pray for these people or beg me to rescue them. If you do, I won't listen, and I certainly won't listen if they pray!
15Then the Lord told me to say to the people of Judah:
You are my chosen people,
but you have no right
to be here in my temple,
doing such evil things.
The sacrifices you offer me
won't protect you from disaster,
so stop celebrating.#11.15 celebrating: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text of verse 15.
16Once you were like an olive tree
covered with fruit.
But soon I will send a noisy mob
to break off your branches
and set you on fire.
17I am the Lord All-Powerful. You people of Judah were like a tree that I had planted, but you have made me angry by offering sacrifices to Baal, just as the northern kingdom did. And now I'm going to pull you up by the roots.
The Plot To Kill Jeremiah
* 18Some people plotted to kill me.
And like a lamb
being led to the butcher,
I knew nothing
about their plans.
19But then the Lord told me
that they had planned
to chop me down like a tree—
fruit and all—
so that no one would ever
remember me again.
20 #
Ws 1.6-9. I prayed, “Lord All-Powerful,
you always do what is right,
and you know every thought.
So I trust you to help me
and to take revenge.”
21Then the Lord said:
Jeremiah, some men from Anathoth#11.21 Anathoth: Jeremiah's hometown (see 1.1). say they will kill you, if you keep on speaking for me. 22But I will punish them. Their young men will die in battle, and their children will starve to death. 23And when I am finished, no one from their families will be left alive.
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 11
11
Plea for Fidelity to the Covenant. 1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2Speak to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 3and say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be anyone who does not observe the words of this covenant,#Dt 27:26. 4which I commanded your ancestors the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that iron furnace, saying: Listen to my voice and do all that I command you. Then you shall be my people, and I will be your God.#Dt 4:20; 1 Kgs 8:51. 5Thus I will fulfill the oath I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, the one you have today. “Amen, Lord,” I answered.
6Then the Lord said to me: Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and obey them. 7I warned your ancestors unceasingly from the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt even to this day: obey my voice. 8But they did not listen or obey. They each walked in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, till I brought upon them all the threats of this covenant which they had failed to observe as I commanded them.#2 Kgs 17:14.
9A conspiracy has been found, the Lord said to me, among the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 10They have returned to the crimes of their ancestors who refused to obey my words. They also have followed and served other gods; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their ancestors.#Dt 31:16; Ez 20:21–30. 11Therefore, thus says the Lord: See, I am bringing upon them a disaster they cannot escape. Though they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.#Jer 14:12; Mi 3:4. 12Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they have been offering incense. But these gods will give them no help whatever in the time of their disaster.#Dt 32:37–38.
13For as many as your cities
are your gods, O Judah!
As many as the streets of Jerusalem
are the altars for sacrifice to Baal.#Jer 2:28; Hos 10:1.
14Now, you must not intercede for this people; do not raise on their behalf a cry or prayer! I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their disaster.#Jer 7:16; 14:11.
Sacrifices of No Avail
15What right has my beloved in my house,
while she devises her plots?
Can vows and sacred meat turn away
your disaster from you?
Will you still be jubilant
16when you hear the great tumult?
The Lord has named you
“a spreading olive tree, a pleasure to behold”;
Now he sets fire to it,
its branches burn.
17The Lord of hosts who planted you has decreed disaster for you because of the evil done by the house of Israel and by the house of Judah, who provoked me by sacrificing to Baal.#Is 5:2.
The Plot Against Jeremiah. 18I knew it because the Lord informed me: at that time you showed me their doings.
19Yet I was like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, not knowing that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered.”#Jer 18:18; 20:10; Wis 2:20.
20But, you, Lord of hosts, just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!#Jer 15:15.
21Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life and say, “Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord; otherwise you shall die by our hand.”#Am 7:13, 16. 22Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: I am going to punish them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and daughters shall die by famine.#Jer 18:21–22. 23None shall be spared among them, for I will bring disaster upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their punishment.#Jer 23:12.
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