Jeremiah 16
16
The LORD's Will for Jeremiah's Life
1Again the LORD spoke to me and said, 2“Do not marry or have children in a place like this. 3I will tell you what is going to happen to the children who are born here and to their parents. 4They will die of terrible diseases, and no one will mourn for them or bury them. Their bodies will lie like piles of manure on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation, and their bodies will be food for the birds and the wild animals.
5“You must not enter a house where there is mourning. Do not grieve for anyone. I will no longer bless my people with peace or show them love and mercy. 6The rich and the poor will die in this land, but no one will bury them or mourn for them. No one will gash himself or shave his head to show his grief. 7No one will eat or drink with anyone to comfort him when a loved one dies. No one will show sympathy, not even for someone who has lost his father or mother.
8“Do not enter a house where people are feasting. Do not sit down with them to eat and drink. 9#Jer 7.34; 25.10; Rev 18.23Listen to what I, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, have to say. I will silence the sounds of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. The people here will live to see this happen.
10“When you tell them all this, they will ask you why I have decided to punish them so harshly. They will ask what crime they are guilty of and what sin they have committed against the LORD their God. 11Then tell them that the LORD has said, ‘Your ancestors turned away from me and worshipped and served other gods. They abandoned me and did not obey my teachings. 12But you have done even worse than your ancestors. All of you are stubborn and evil, and you do not obey me. 13So then, I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. And there you will serve other gods day and night, and I will show you no mercy.’ ”
The Return from Exile
14The LORD says, “The time is coming when people will no longer swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. 15Instead, they will swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of a northern land and out of all the other countries where I had scattered them. I will bring them back to their own country, to the land that I gave their ancestors. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
The Coming Punishment
16The LORD says, “I am sending for many fishermen to come and catch these people. Then I will send for many hunters to hunt them down on every mountain and hill and in the caves among the rocks. 17I see everything they do. Nothing is hidden from me; their sins do not escape my sight. 18I will make them pay double for their sin and wickedness, because they have defiled my land with idols that are as lifeless as corpses, and have filled it with their false gods.”
Jeremiah's Prayer of Confidence in the LORD
19 LORD, you are the one who protects me and gives me strength; you help me in times of trouble. Nations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say, “Our ancestors had nothing but false gods, nothing but useless idols. 20Can people make their own gods? No, if they did, those would not really be gods.”
21“So then,” says the LORD, “once and for all I will make the nations know my power and my might; they will know that I am the LORD.”
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Jeremiah 16: GNBDC
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Jeremias (Jeremiah) 16
16
1And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2Thou shalt not take thee a wife neither shalt thou have sons and daughters in this place.
3For thus saith the Lord, concerning the sons and daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their fathers of whom they were born in this land:
4They shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed with the sword and with famine: and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of the air and for the beasts of the earth.
5For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor to comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, my mercy and commiserations.
6Both the great and the little shall die in the land. They shall not be buried nor lamented: and men shall not cut themselves nor make themselves bald for them.
7And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them to drink of the cup, to comfort them for their father and mother.
8And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them and to eat and drink:
9For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will take away out of this place in your sight, and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
10And when thou shalt tell this people all these words and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced against us all this great evil? What is our iniquity? and what is our sin, that we have sinned against the Lord our God?
11Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord, and went after strange gods and served them and adored them: and they forsook me and kept not my law.
12And you also have done worse than your fathers: for, behold, every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.
13So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor you fathers: and there you shall serve strange gods, day and night, which shall not give you any rest.
14Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought for the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt:
15But, the Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands to which I cast them out. And I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers.
16Behold, I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this, I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.
17For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes.
18And I will repay first their double iniquities and their sins: because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
19O Lord, my might and my strength and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them.
20Shall a man make gods unto himself, and there are no gods?
21Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will shew them my hand and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.