Jeremiah 5-6

Jeremiah 5

¹Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

²And though they say, By the living Lord; truly their oaths are false.

³O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

⁴Then I said, But these are the poor: they are foolish, for they have no knowledge of the way of the Lord or of the behaviour desired by their God.

⁵I will go to the great men and have talk with them; for they have knowledge of the way of the Lord and of the behaviour desired by their God. But as for these, their one purpose is a broken yoke and burst bands.

⁶And so a lion from the woods will put them to death, a wolf of the waste land will make them waste, a leopard will keep watch on their towns, and everyone who goes out from them will be food for the beasts; because of the great number of their sins and the increase of their wrongdoing.

⁷How is it possible for you to have my forgiveness for this? your children have given me up, taking their oaths by those who are no gods: when I had given them food in full measure, they were false to their wives, taking their pleasure in the houses of loose women.

⁸They were full of desire, like horses after a meal of grain: everyone went after his neighbour's wife.

⁹Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

¹⁰Go up against her vines and make waste; let the destruction be complete: take away her branches, for they are not the Lord's.

¹¹For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have been very false to me, says the Lord.

¹²They would have nothing to do with the Lord, saying, He will do nothing, and no evil will come to us; we will not see the sword or be short of food:

¹³And the prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them; so it will be done to them.

¹⁴For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, has said: Because you have said this, I will make my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and they will be burned up by it.

¹⁵See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people of Israel, says the Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a nation whose language is strange to you, so that you may not get the sense of their words.

¹⁶Their arrows give certain death, they are all men of war.

¹⁷They will take all the produce of your fields, which would have been food for your sons and your daughters: they will take your flocks and your herds: they will take all your vines and your fig-trees: and with the sword they will make waste your walled towns in which you put your faith.

¹⁸But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not let your destruction be complete.

¹⁹And it will come about, when you say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us? that you will say to them, As you gave me up, making yourselves servants to strange gods in your land, so will you be servants to strange men in a land which is not yours.

²⁰Say this openly in Jacob and give it out in Judah, saying,

²¹Give ear now to this, O foolish people without sense; who have eyes but see nothing, and ears without the power of hearing:

²²Have you no fear of me? says the Lord; will you not be shaking with fear before me, who have put the sand as a limit for the sea, by an eternal order, so that it may not go past it? and though it is ever in motion, it is not able to have its way; though the sound of its waves is loud, they are not able to go past it.

²³But the heart of this people is uncontrolled and turned away from me; they are broken loose and gone.

²⁴And they do not say in their hearts, Now let us give worship to our God, who gives the rain, the winter and the spring rain, at the right time; who keeps for us the ordered weeks of the grain-cutting.

²⁵Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

²⁶For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

²⁷As the fowl-house is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: for this reason they have become great and have got wealth.

²⁸They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in works of evil: they give no support to the cause of the child without a father, so that they may do well; they do not see that the poor man gets his rights.

²⁹Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

³⁰A thing of wonder and fear has come about in the land;

³¹The prophets give false words and the priests give decisions by their direction; and my people are glad to have it so: and what will you do in the end?

Jeremiah 6

¹Go in flight out of Jerusalem, so that you may be safe, you children of Benjamin, and let the horn be sounded in Tekoa, and the flag be lifted up on Beth-haccherem: for evil is looking out from the north, and a great destruction.

²The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be cut off by my hand.

³Keepers of sheep with their flocks will come to her; they will put up their tents round her; everyone will get food in his place.

⁴Make war ready against her; up! let us go up when the sun is high. Sorrow is ours! for the day is turned and the shades of evening are stretched out.

⁵Up! let us go up by night, and send destruction on her great houses.

⁶For this is what the Lord of armies has said: Let trees be cut down and an earthwork be placed against Jerusalem: sorrow on the false town! inside her there is nothing but cruel ways.

⁷As the spring keeps its waters cold, so she keeps her evil in her: the sound of cruel and violent behaviour is in her; before me at all times are disease and wounds.

⁸Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

⁹This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything will be taken from the rest of Israel as the last grapes are taken from the vine; let your hand be turned to the small branches, like one pulling off grapes.

¹⁰To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may take note? see, their ears are stopped, and they are not able to give attention: see, the word of the Lord has been a cause of shame to them, they have no delight in it.

¹¹For this reason I am full of the wrath of the Lord, I am tired of keeping it in: may it be let loose on the children in the street, and on the band of the young men together: for even the husband with his wife will be taken, the old man with him who is full of days.

¹²And their houses will be handed over to others, their fields and their wives together: for my hand will be stretched out against the people of the land, says the Lord.

¹³For from the least of them even to the greatest, everyone is given up to getting money; from the prophet even to the priest, everyone is working deceit.

¹⁴And they have made little of the wounds of my people, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

¹⁵Let them be put to shame because they have done disgusting things. They had no shame, they were not able to become red with shame: so they will come down with those who are falling: when my punishment comes on them, they will be made low, says the Lord.

¹⁶This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it.

¹⁷And I put watchmen over you, saying, Give attention to the sound of the horn; but they said, We will not give attention.

¹⁸So then, give ear, you nations, and ...

¹⁹Give ear, O earth: see, I will make evil come on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not given attention to my words, and they would have nothing to do with my law.

²⁰To what purpose does sweet perfume come to me from Sheba, and spices from a far country? your burned offerings give me no pleasure, your offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.

²¹For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will put stones in the way of this people: and the fathers and the sons together will go falling over them; the neighbour and his friend will come to destruction.

²²The Lord has said, See, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

²³Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Zion.

²⁴The news of it has come to our ears; our hands have become feeble: trouble has come on us and pain, like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

²⁵Go not out into the field or by the way; for there is the sword of the attacker, and fear on every side.

²⁶O daughter of my people, put on haircloth, rolling yourself in the dust: give yourself to sorrow, as for an only son, with most bitter cries of grief; for he who makes waste will come on us suddenly.

²⁷I have made you a tester among my people, so that you may have knowledge of their way and put it to the test.

²⁸All of them are turned away, going about with false stories; they are brass and iron: they are all workers of deceit.

²⁹The blower is blowing strongly, the lead is burned away in the fire: they go on heating the metal to no purpose, for the evil-doers are not taken away.

³⁰They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has given them up.