Jeremiah 5-6

Jeremiah 5

¹Go to and fro in streets of Jerusalem, And see, I pray you, and know, And seek in her broad places, if ye find a man, If there be one doing judgment, seeking stedfastness -- Then am I propitious to her.

²And if they say, ‘Jehovah liveth,' Surely to a falsehood they swear.

³Jehovah, Thine eyes, are they not on stedfastness? Thou hast smitten them, and they have not grieved, Thou hast consumed them, They have refused to receive instruction, They made their faces harder than a rock, They have refused to turn back.

⁴And I -- I said, ‘Surely these are poor, They have been foolish, For they have not known the way of Jehovah, The judgment of their God.

⁵I get me to the great, and I speak with them, For they have known the way of Jehovah, The judgment of their God.' Surely they together have broken the yoke, They have drawn away the bands.

⁶Therefore smitten them hath a lion out of the forest, A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them, A leopard is watching over their cities, Every one who is going out of them is torn, For many have been their transgressions, Mighty have been their backslidings.

⁷For this I am not propitious to thee, Thy sons have forsaken Me, And are satisfied by that which is not god, I satisfy them, and they commit adultery, And at the house of a harlot They gather themselves together.

⁸Fed horses -- they have been early risers, Each to the wife of his neighbour they neigh.

⁹For these do I not lay a charge? An affirmation of Jehovah, And on a nation such as this, Doth not My soul avenge itself?

¹⁰Go ye up on her walls, and destroy, And a completion make not, Turn aside her branches, for they are not Jehovah's,

¹¹For dealt treacherously against Me have the house of Israel, And the house of Judah, an affirmation of Jehovah.

¹²They have lied against Jehovah, And they say, ‘It is not He, Nor come in against us doth evil, Yea, sword and famine we do not see.

¹³And the prophets become wind, And the word is not in them,' -- thus it is done by them.

¹⁴Therefore, thus said Jehovah, God of Hosts, Because of your speaking this word, Lo, I am making My words in thy mouth become fire, And this people wood, and it hath devoured them.

¹⁵Lo, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, an affirmation of Jehovah, A nation -- strong it is, a nation -- from of old it is, A nation -- thou knowest not its tongue, Nor understandest what it speaketh.

¹⁶Its quiver is as an open sepulchre, All of them -- mighty ones.

¹⁷And it hath consumed thy harvest and thy bread, They consume thy sons, and thy daughters, It consumeth thy flock, and thy herd, It consumeth thy vine, and thy fig-tree, It maketh poor thy fenced cities, In which thou art trusting -- by the sword.

¹⁸And even in those days, an affirmation of Jehovah, I do not make you a completion.

¹⁹And it hath come to pass, when ye say, ‘For what hath Jehovah our God done to us all these?' That thou hast said unto them, ‘As ye have forsaken Me, And serve the gods of a foreigner in your land, So do ye serve strangers in a land not yours.

²⁰Declare ye this in the house of Jacob, And sound ye it in Judah, saying,

²¹Hear ye, I pray you, this, O people, foolish and without heart, Eyes they have, and they see not, Ears they have, and they hear not.

²²Me do ye not fear, an affirmation of Jehovah? From My presence are ye not pained? Who hath made sand the border of the sea, A limit age-during, and it passeth not over it, They shake themselves, and they are not able, Yea, sounded have its billows, and they pass not over.

²³And this people hath an apostate and rebellious heart, They have turned aside, and they go on.

²⁴And they have not said in their heart, ‘Let us fear, we pray you, Jehovah our God, who is giving rain, The sprinkling and the gathered, in its season, The appointed weeks of harvest He keepeth for us.'

²⁵Your iniquities have turned these away, And your sins have kept the good from you.

²⁶For the wicked have been found among My people. It looketh about the covering of snares, They have set up a trap -- men they capture.

²⁷As a cage full of fowls, So their houses are full of deceit, Therefore they have been great, and are rich.

²⁸They have been fat, they have shone, Yea, they have overpassed the acts of the evil, Judgment they have not judged, The judgment of the fatherless -- and they prosper, And the judgment of the needy they have not judged.

²⁹For these do not I inspect, an affirmation of Jehovah, On a nation such as this, Doth not My soul avenge itself?

³⁰An astonishing and horrible thing hath been in the land.

³¹The prophets have prophesied falsely, And the priests bear rule by their means, And My people have loved it so, And what do they at its latter end?

Jeremiah 6

¹Strengthen yourselves, sons of Benjamin, From the midst of Jerusalem, And in Tekoa blow ye a trumpet, And over Beth-Haccerem lift ye up a flame, For evil hath been seen from the north, And great destruction.

²The comely and the delicate one I have cut off, The daughter of Zion.

³Unto her come do shepherds and their droves, They have stricken tents by her round about, They have fed each in his own station.

⁴Sanctify ye against her the battle, Rise, and we go up at noon. Wo to us, for turned hath the day, For stretched out are the shades of evening,

⁵‘Rise, and we go up by night, And we destroy her palaces.'

⁶For thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Cut down her wood, And pour out against Jerusalem a mount, She is the city to be inspected, Wholly -- she is oppression in her midst.

⁷As the digging of a well, is for its waters, So she hath digged for her wickedness, Violence and spoil is heard in her, Before My face continually are sickness and smiting.

⁸Be instructed, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul be alienated from thee, Lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.

⁹Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: They surely glean, as a vine, the remnant of Israel, Put back thy hand, as a gatherer to the baskets.

¹⁰To whom do I speak, and testify, and they hear? Lo, their ear is uncircumcised, And they are not able to attend. Lo, a word of Jehovah hath been to them for a reproach, They delight not in it.

¹¹And with the fury of Jehovah I have been filled, (I have been weary of containing,) To pour it on the suckling in the street, And on the assembly of youths together, For even husband with wife are captured, An elder with one full of days,

¹²And their houses have been turned to others, Fields and wives together, For I stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land, An affirmation of Jehovah.

¹³For from their least unto their greatest, Every one is gaining dishonest gain, And from prophet even unto priest, Every one is dealing falsely,

¹⁴And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people slightly, Saying, ‘Peace, peace!' and there is no peace.

¹⁵They were ashamed when they did abomination! Yea, they are not at all ashamed, Yea, blushing they have not known, Therefore they do fall among those falling, In the time I have inspected them, They stumble, said Jehovah.

¹⁶Thus said Jehovah: Stand ye by the ways and see, and ask for paths of old, Where is this -- the good way? and go ye in it, And find rest for yourselves. And they say, ‘We do not go.'

¹⁷And I have raised up for you watchmen, Attend ye to the voice of the trumpet. And they say, ‘We do not attend.'

¹⁸Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O company, That which is upon them.

¹⁹Hear, O earth, lo, I am bringing evil on this people, The fruit of their devices, For to My words they gave no attention, And My law -- they kick against it.

²⁰Why is this to Me? frankincense from Sheba cometh, And the sweet cane from a land afar off, Your burnt-offerings are not for acceptance, And your sacrifices have not been sweet to Me.

²¹Therefore thus said Jehovah: Lo, I do give to this people stumbling blocks, And stumbled against them have fathers and sons together, The neighbour and his friend do perish.

²²Thus said Jehovah: Lo, a people hath come from a north country, And a great nation is stirred up from the sides of the earth.

²³Bow and javelin they take hold of, Fierce it is, and they have no mercy, Their voice as a sea doth sound, And on horses they ride, set in array as a man of war, Against thee, O daughter of Zion.

²⁴‘We have heard its sound, feeble have been our hands, Distress hath seized us, pain as of a travailing woman.

²⁵Go not forth to the field, And in the way walk not, For a sword hath the enemy, fear is round about.

²⁶O daughter of My people, Gird on sackcloth, and roll thyself in ashes, The mourning of an only one make for thee, A lamentation most bitter, For suddenly come doth the spoiler against us.

²⁷A watch-tower I have given thee, Among My people a fortress, And thou knowest, and hast tried their way.

²⁸All of them are turned aside by apostates, Walking slanderously -- brass and iron, All of them are corrupters.

²⁹The bellows have been burnt, By fire hath the lead been consumed, In vain hath a refiner refined, And the wicked have not been drawn away.

³⁰‘Silver rejected,' they have called to them, For Jehovah hath kicked against them!