Chapter 139

14:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, whom I did not send, that say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.

14:16. And the people to whom they prophesy, shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there shall be none to bury them: they and their wives, their sons and their daughters, and I will pour out their own wickedness upon them.

14:17. And thou shalt speak this word to them: Let my eyes shed down tears night and day, and let them not cease, because the virgin daughter of my people is afflicted with a great affliction, with an exceeding grievous evil.

14:18. If I go forth into the fields, behold the slain with the sword: and if I enter into the city, behold them that are consumed with famine. The prophet also and the priest are gone into a land which they knew not.

14:19. Hast thou utterly cast away Juda, or hath thy soul abhorred Sion? why then hast thou struck us, so that there is no healing for us? we have looked for peace, and there is no good: and for the time of healing, and behold trouble.

14:20. We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, the iniquities of our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.

14:21. Give us not to be a reproach, for thy name's sake, and do not disgrace in us the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.

14:22. Are there any among the graven things of the Gentiles that can send rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou the Lord our God, whom we have looked for? for thou hast made all these things.

Jeremias Chapter 15

God is determined to punish the Jews for their sins. The prophet's complaint, and God's promise to him.

15:1. And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not towards this people: cast them out from my sight, and let them go forth.

15:2. And if they shall say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death: and such as are for the sword, to the sword: and such as are for famine, to famine: and such as are for captivity, to captivity.

15:3. And I will visit them with four kinds, saith the Lord: The sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

15:4. And I will give them up to the rage of all the kingdoms of the earth: because of Manasses the son of Ezechias the king of Juda, for all that he did in Jerusalem.

15:5. For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go to pray for thy peace?

15:6. Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and I will destroy thee: I am weary of entreating thee.

15:7. And I will scatter them with a fan in the gates of the land: I have killed and destroyed my people, and yet they are not returned from their ways.

15:8. Their widows are multiplied unto me above the sand of the sea: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young man a spoiler at noonday: I have cast a terror on a sudden upon the cities.

15:9. She that hath borne seven is become weak, her soul hath fainted away: her sun is gone down, while it was yet day: she is confounded, and ashamed: and the residue of them I will give up to the sword in the sight of their enemies, saith the Lord.

15:10. Woe is me, my mother: why hast thou borne me a man of strife, a man of contention to all the earth? I have not lent on usury, neither hath any man lent to me on usury: yet all curse me.

15:11. The Lord saith to me: Assuredly it shall be well with thy remnant, assuredly I shall help thee in the time of affliction, and in the time of tribulation against the enemy.

15:12. Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass?

Shall iron be allied, etc... Shall the iron, that is, the strength of Juda, stand against the stronger iron of the north, that is, of Babylon: or enter into an alliance upon equal footing with it? No certainly: but it must be broken by it.

15:13. Thy riches and thy treasures I will give unto spoil for nothing, because of all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

15:14. And I will bring thy enemies out of a land, which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in my rage, it shall burn upon you.

15:15. O Lord, thou knowest, remember me, and visit me, and defend me from them that persecute me, do not defend me in thy patience: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach.

Do not defend me in thy patience... That is, let not thy patience and longsuffering, which thou usest towards sinners, keep thee from making haste to my assistance.

15:16. Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was to me a joy and gladness of my heart: for thy name is called upon me, O Lord God of hosts.

15:17. I sat not in the assembly of jesters, nor did I make a boast of the presence of thy hand: I sat alone, because thou hast filled me with threats.

15:18. Why is my sorrow become perpetual, and my wound desperate so as to refuse to be healed? it is become to me as the falsehood of deceitful waters that cannot be trusted.

15:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord: If thou wilt be converted, I will convert thee, and thou shalt stand before my face; and thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.

15:20. And I will make thee to this people as a strong wall of brass: and they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

15:21. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the mighty.

Jeremias Chapter 16

The prophet is forbid to marry. The Jews shall be utterly ruined for their idolatry: but shall at length be released from their captivity, and the Gentiles shall be converted.

16:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

16:2. Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons and daughters in this place.

16:3. For 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:

16:4. They 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.

16:5. For 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.

16:6. Both the great and the little shall die in this land: they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.

16:7. And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them for their father and mother.

16:8. And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink:

16:9. For 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.

16:10. And 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?

16:11. Thou 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.

16:12. And 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.

16:13. So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor your fathers: and there you shall serve strange gods day and night, which shall not give you any rest.

16:14. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

16:15. But, 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.

16:16. Behold 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.

16:17. For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes.

16:18. And 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.

16:19. O 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.

16:20. Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods?

16:21. Therefore 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.

Jeremias Chapter 17

For their obstinacy in sin the Jews shall be led captive. He is cursed that trusteth in flesh. God alone searcheth the heart, giving to every one as he deserves. The prophet prayeth to be delivered from his enemies, and preacheth up the observance of the sabbath.

17:1. The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars.

17:2. When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon the high mountains,

17:3. Sacrificing in the field: I will give thy strength, and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders.

17:4. And thou shalt be left stripped of thy inheritance, which I gave thee: and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in my wrath, it shall burn for ever.

17:5. Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

17:6. For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert in a salt land, and not inhabited.

Tamaric... A barren shrub that grows in the driest parts of the wilderness.

17:7. Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.

17:8. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.

17:9. The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?

17:10. I am the Lord who search the heart, and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices.

17:11. As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool.

17:12. A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification.

17:13. O Lord, the hope of Israel: all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.

17:14. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

17:15. Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come.

17:16. And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight.

17:17. Be not thou a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of affliction.

17:18. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them.

Let them be confounded, etc... Such expressions as these in the writings of the prophets, are not to be understood as imprecations proceeding from malice or desire of revenge: but as prophetic predictions of evils that were about to fall upon impenitent sinners, and approbations of the ways of divine justice.

17:19. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem:

17:20. And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda, and al Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates.

17:21. Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls, and carry no burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem.

17:22. And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

17:23. But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction.

17:24. And it shall come to pass: if you will hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burdens by the gates of this city on the sabbath day: and if you will sanctify the sabbath day, to do no work therein:

17:25. Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited for ever.

17:26. And they shall come from the cities of Juda, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plains, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing holocausts, and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense, and they shall bring in an offering into the house of the Lord.

17:27. But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day, and not to carry burdens, and not to bring them in by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day: I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

Jeremias Chapter 18

As the clay in the hand of the potter, so is Israel in God's hand. He pardoneth penitents, and punisheth the obstinate. They conspire against Jeremias, for which he denounceth to them the miseries that hang over them.

18:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

18:2. Arise, and go down into the potter's house, and there thou shalt hear my words.

18:3. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold he was doing a work on the wheel.

18:4. And the vessel was broken which he was making of clay with his hands: and turning he made another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make it.

18:5. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

18:6. Cannot I do with you, as this potter, O house of Israel, saith the Lord? behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

18:7. I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it.

18:8. If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them.

18:9. And I will suddenly speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build up and plant it.

18:10. If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it.

18:11. Now therefore tell the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: let every man of you return from his evil way, and make ye your ways and your doings good.

18:12. And they said; We have no hopes: for we will go after our own thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his evil heart.

18:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who hath heard such horrible things, as the virgin of Israel hath done to excess?

18:14. Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can the cold waters that gush out and run down, be taken away?

18:15. Because my people have forgotten me, sacrificing in vain, and stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk by them in a way not trodden:

18:16. That their land might be given up to desolation, and to a perpetual hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and wag his head.

18:17. As a burning wind will I scatter them before the enemy: I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction.

18:18. And they said: Come, and let us invent devices against Jeremias: for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words.

18:19. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries.

18:20. Shall evil be rendered for good, because they have digged a pit for my soul? Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for them, and to turn away thy indignation from them.

Remember, etc... This is spoken in the person of Christ, persecuted by the Jews, and prophetically denouncing the evils that should fall upon them in punishment of their crimes.

18:21. Therefore deliver up their children to famine, and bring them into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of children and widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be stabbed with the sword in battle.

18:22. Let a cry be heard out of their houses: for thou shalt bring the robber upon them suddenly: because they have digged a pit to take me, and have hid snares for my feet.

18:23. But thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me unto death: not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from thy sight: let them be overthrown before thy eyes, in the time of thy wrath do thou destroy them.

Jeremias Chapter 19

Under the type of breaking a potter's vessel, the prophet foresheweth the desolation of the Jews for their sins.

19:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go, and take a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests:

19:2. And go forth into the valley of the son of Ennom, which is by the entry of the earthen gate: and there thou shalt proclaim the words that I shall tell thee.

19:3. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, O ye kings of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle:

19:4. Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place: and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Juda: and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents.

19:5. And they have built the high places of Baalim, to burn their children with fire for a holocaust to Baalim: which I did not command, nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind.

19:6. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom, but the valley of slaughter.

19:7. And I will defeat the counsel of Juda and of Jerusalem in this place: and I will destroy them with the sword in the sight of their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and I will give their carcasses to be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth.

19:8. And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

19:9. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons, and with the flesh of their daughters: and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege, and in the distress wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

19:10. And thou shalt break the bottle in the sight of the men that shall go with thee.

19:11. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people, and this city, as the potter's vessel is broken, which cannot be made whole again: and they shall be buried in Topheth, because there is no other place to bury in.

19:12. Thus will I do to this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof: and I will make this city as Topheth.

19:13. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Juda shall be unclean as the place of Topheth: all the houses upon whose roofs they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings to strange gods.

19:14. Then Jeremias came from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord, and said to all the people:

19:15. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring in upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof all the evils that I have spoken against it: because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

Jeremias Chapter 20

The prophet is persecuted: he denounces captivity to his persecutors, and bemoans himself.

20:1. Now Phassur the son of Emmer, the priest, who was appointed chief in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremias prophesying these words.

20:2. And Phassur struck Jeremias the prophet, and put him in the stocks, that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord.

20:3. And when it was light the next day, Phassur brought Jeremias out of the stocks. And Jeremias said to him: The Lord hath not called thy name Phassur, but fear on every side.

Phassur... This name signifies increase and principality: and therefore is here changed to Magor-Missabib, or fear on every side: to denote the evils that should come upon him in punishment of his opposing the word of God.

20:4. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver thee up to fear, thee and all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thy eyes shall see it, and I will give all Juda into the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall carry them away to Babylon, and shall strike them with the sword.

20:5. And I will give all the substance of this city, and all its labour, and every precious thing thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Juda will I give into the hands of their enemies: and they shall pillage them, and take them away, and carry them to Babylon.

20:6. But thou Phassur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall go into captivity, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there thou shalt be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied a lie.

20:7. Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived: thou hast been stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I am become a laughingstock all the day, all scoff at me.