Jeremiah 16
16
Jeremiah Must Live His Message
1The Lord said to me:
2Jeremiah, don't get married and have children—Judah is no place to raise a family. 3I'll tell you what's going to happen to children and their parents here. 4They will die of horrible diseases and of war and starvation. No one will give them a funeral or bury them, and their bodies will be food for the birds and wild animals. And what's left will lie on the ground like manure.
5When someone dies, don't visit the family or show any sorrow. I will no longer love or bless or have any pity on the people of Judah. 6Rich and poor alike will die and be left unburied. No one will mourn and show their sorrow by cutting themselves or shaving their heads.#16.6 mourn and show their sorrow by cutting themselves or shaving their heads: A custom in some Canaanite religions. 7No one will bring food and wine to help comfort those who are mourning the death of their father or mother.
8Don't even set foot in a house where there is eating and drinking and celebrating. 9#Jr 7.34; 25.10; Rev 18.23. Warn the people of Judah that I, the Lord All-Powerful, will put an end to all their parties and wedding celebrations. 10They will ask, “Why has the Lord our God threatened us with so many disasters? Have we done something wrong or sinned against him?”
11Then tell them I have said:
People of Judah, your ancestors turned away from me; they rejected my laws and teachings and started worshiping other gods. 12And you have done even worse! You are stubborn, and instead of obeying me, you do whatever evil comes to your mind. 13So I will throw you into a land that you and your ancestors know nothing about, a place where you will have to worship other gods both day and night. And I won't feel the least bit sorry for you.
14A time will come when you will again worship me. But you will no longer call me the Living Lord who rescued Israel from Egypt. 15Instead, you will call me the Living Lord who rescued you from that country in the north and from the other countries where I had forced you to go.
Someday I will bring you back to this land that I gave your ancestors. 16But for now, I am sending enemies who will catch you like fish and hunt you down like wild animals in the hills and the caves.
17I can see everything you are doing, even if you try to hide your sins from me. 18I will punish you double for your sins, because you have polluted my own land. You have filled it with lifeless idols that remind me of dead bodies.
The Lord Gives Strength
I prayed to the Lord:
19Our Lord, you are the one
who gives me strength
and protects me like a fortress
when I am in trouble.
People will come to you
from distant nations and say,
“Our ancestors worshiped
false and useless gods,
20worthless idols
made by human hands.”
21Then the Lord replied,
“That's why I will teach them
about my power,
and they will know that I
truly am the Lord.”
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Jeremiah 16: CEVDCI
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 16
16
Jeremiah’s Life-Style and Message
1The word of the Lord also came to me, saying, 2“You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.” 3For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them and their fathers who begot them in this land: 4“They shall die #Jer. 15:2gruesome deaths; they shall not be #Jer. 22:18; 25:33lamented nor shall they be #Jer. 14:16; 19:11buried, but they shall be #Ps. 83:10; Jer. 8:2; 9:22like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their #Ps. 79:2; Is. 18:6; Jer. 7:33; 34:20corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.”
5For thus says the Lord: #Ezek. 24:17, 22, 23“Do not enter the house of mourning, nor go to lament or bemoan them; for I have taken away My peace from this people,” says the Lord, “lovingkindness and mercies. 6Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried; #Jer. 22:18neither shall men lament for them, #Lev. 19:28; Deut. 14:1; Jer. 41:5; 47:5cut themselves, nor #Is. 22:12; Jer. 7:29make themselves bald for them. 7Nor shall men break bread in mourning for them, to comfort them for the dead; nor shall men give them the cup of consolation to #Prov. 31:6drink for their father or their mother. 8Also you shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink.”
9For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, #Is. 24:7, 8; Jer. 7:34; 25:10; Ezek. 26:13; Hos. 2:11; Rev. 18:23I will cause to cease from 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“And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, #Deut. 29:24; 1 Kin. 9:8; Jer. 5:19‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11then you shall say to them, #Deut. 29:25; 1 Kin. 9:9; 2 Chr. 7:22; Neh. 9:26–29; Jer. 22:9‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the Lord; ‘they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshiped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. 12And you have done #Jer. 7:26worse than your fathers, for behold, #Jer. 3:17; 18:12each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listens to Me. 13#Deut. 4:26; 28:36, 63Therefore I will cast you out of this land #Jer. 15:14into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, where I will not show you favor.’
God Will Restore Israel
14“Therefore behold, the #Is. 43:18; Jer. 23:7, 8; (Ezek. 37:21–25)days are coming,” says the Lord, “that it shall no more be said, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 15but, ‘The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the #Jer. 3:18north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For #Jer. 24:6; 30:3; 32:37I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers.
16“Behold, I will send for many #Amos 4:2; Hab. 1:15fishermen,” says the Lord, “and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. 17For My #2 Chr. 16:9; Job 34:21; Ps. 90:8; Prov. 5:21; Jer. 23:24; 32:19; Zech. 4:10; (Luke 12:2; 1 Cor. 4:5); Heb. 4:13eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes. 18And first I will repay #Is. 40:2; Jer. 17:18; Rev. 18:6double for their iniquity and their sin, because #(Ezek. 43:7)they have defiled My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols.”
19O Lord, #Ps. 18:1, 2; Is. 25:4my strength and my fortress,
#Jer. 17:17My refuge in the day of affliction,
The Gentiles shall come to You
From the ends of the earth and say,
“Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
Worthlessness and #Is. 44:10unprofitable things.”
20Will a man make gods for himself,
#Ps. 115:4–8; Is. 37:19; Jer. 2:11; 5:7; Hos. 8:4–6; Gal. 4:8Which are not gods?
21“Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know,
I will cause them to know
My hand and My might;
And they shall know that #Ex. 15:3; Ps. 83:18; Is. 43:3; Jer. 33:2; Amos 5:8My name is the Lord.
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The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.