Jeremiah 13
13
Linen Waistband and Wine Jugs
1Thus Adonai said to me: “Go, and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, and do not put it in water.”
2So I got a waistband in keeping with the word of Adonai, and put it on my waist.
3Then the word of Adonai came to me a second time, saying:
4“Take the waistband that you bought, which is on your waist, and get up, go to Perath and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”
5So I went and hid it at Perath, as Adonai commanded me.
6Now it came to pass after many days that Adonai said to me: “Get up, go to Perath, and take the waistband that I commanded you to hide there.”
7So I went to Perath, dug it up and took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. But to my surprise, the waistband was marred, worth nothing at all.
8Then the word of Adonai came to me, saying,
9thus says Adonai: “Just so I will mar the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10This wicked people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, and go after other gods to serve them and worship them, will be just like this waistband—worth nothing at all.
11For just as the waistband clings to a man’s waist, so I will make the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me,” declares Adonai, “to be to Me a people, a name, a praise and a glory. But they would not obey.”
12Moreover, speak this word to them, thus says Adonai, the God of Israel: “Every jug should be filled with wine.” When they say to you, ‘Don’t we know very well that every jug should be filled with wine?’
13Then you will say to them, thus says Adonai, ‘I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the kohanim, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness.
14And I will smash them against each other, even fathers and sons,’ says Adonai. ‘I will show no pity, nor regret, nor compassion, to keep Me from destroying them.’”
Darkness and Downfall
15Hear and give ear! Do not be haughty! For Adonai has spoken.
16Give glory to Adonai your God, before it grows dark, and before your feet stumble on mountains at dusk. When you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death, and turns it into deep darkness.
17But if you will not listen, my soul will sob in secret before such pride, and my eyes will weep bitterly and overflow with tears, for Adonai’s flock will be taken captive.
18Say to the king and the queen mother: “Sit down low, for your glorious crown has fallen from your head.”
19The towns of the South will be shut up, with no one to open them. All Judah is taken into exile— utterly swept into exile.
20Lift up your eyes and see those coming from the north. Where is the flock given to you, Your beautiful sheep?
21What will you say, when He sets up the allies you cultivated for yourself, over you as head? Will not labor pains seize you, like a woman in travail?
22Suppose you say in your heart, “Why did these things happen to me?” Because of your great iniquity, your skirts are uncovered and your heels suffer violence.
23Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Or the leopard his spots? So, could you do good, that are accustomed to doing evil?
24“Therefore I will scatter them like drifting straw in the desert wind.
25This is your lot, the portion measured for you from Me.” It is a declaration of Adonai. “For you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.
26Therefore I will also uncover your skirts over your face, expose your shame.
27Your adulteries, your lustful neighings, the lewdness of your prostitution— on the hills in the field I have seen your loathsome acts. Oy you, Jerusalem! You are unclean! How much longer?”
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Copyright © 2014 - Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society
Jeremiah 13
13
People Who Do Only What They Want to Do
1-2 God told me, “Go and buy yourself some linen shorts. Put them on and keep them on. Don’t even take them off to wash them.” So I bought the shorts as God directed and put them on.
3-5Then God told me, “Take the shorts that you bought and go straight to Perath and hide them there in a crack in the rock.” So I did what God told me and hid them at Perath.
6-7Next, after quite a long time, God told me, “Go back to Perath and get the linen shorts I told you to hide there.” So I went back to Perath and dug them out of the place where I had hidden them. The shorts by then had rotted and were worthless.
8-11 God explained, “This is the way I am going to ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem—a wicked bunch of people who won’t obey me, who do only what they want to do, who chase after all kinds of no-gods and worship them. They’re going to turn out as rotten as these old shorts. Just as shorts clothe and protect, so I kept the whole family of Israel under my care”—God’s Decree—“so that everyone could see they were my people, a people I could show off to the world and be proud of. But they refused to do a thing I said.
12“And then tell them this, ‘God’s Message, personal from the God of Israel: Every wine jug should be full of wine.’
“And they’ll say, ‘Of course. We know that. Every wine jug should be full of wine!’
13-14“Then you’ll say, ‘This is what God says: Watch closely. I’m going to fill every person who lives in this country—the kings who rule from David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, the citizens of Jerusalem—with wine that will make them drunk. And then I’ll smash them, smash the wine-filled jugs—old and young alike. Nothing will stop me. Not an ounce of pity or mercy or compassion will slow me down. Every last drunken jug of them will be smashed!’”
The Light You Always Took for Granted
15-17Then I said, Listen. Listen carefully: Don’t stay stuck in your ways!
It’s God’s Message we’re dealing with here.
Let your lives glow bright before God
before he turns out the lights,
Before you trip and fall
on the dark mountain paths.
The light you always took for granted will go out
and the world will turn black.
If you people won’t listen,
I’ll go off by myself and weep over you,
Weep because of your stubborn arrogance,
bitter, bitter tears,
Rivers of tears from my eyes,
because God’s sheep will end up in exile.
* * *
18-19Tell the king and the queen-mother,
“Come down off your high horses.
Your dazzling crowns
will tumble off your heads.”
The villages in the Negev will be surrounded,
everyone trapped,
And Judah dragged off to exile,
the whole country dragged to oblivion.
* * *
20-22Look, look, Jerusalem!
Look at the enemies coming out of the north!
What will become of your flocks of people,
the beautiful flocks in your care?
How are you going to feel when the people
you’ve played up to, looked up to all these years
Now look down on you? You didn’t expect this?
Surprise! The pain of a woman having a baby!
Do I hear you saying,
“What’s going on here? Why me?”
The answer’s simple: You’re guilty,
hugely guilty.
Your guilt has your life endangered,
your guilt has you writhing in pain.
23Can an African change skin?
Can a leopard get rid of its spots?
So what are the odds on you doing good,
you who are so long-practiced in evil?
24-27“I’ll blow these people away—
like wind-blown leaves.
You have it coming to you.
I’ve measured it out precisely.”
God’s Decree.
“It’s because you forgot me
and embraced the Big Lie,
that so-called god Baal.
I’m the one who will rip off your clothes,
expose and shame you before the watching world.
Your obsessions with gods, gods, and more gods,
your goddess affairs, your god-adulteries.
Gods on the hills, gods in the fields—
every time I look you’re off with another god.
O Jerusalem, what a sordid life!
Is there any hope for you!”
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.