Chapter 41

5:13. The prophets have spoken in the wind, and there was no word of God in them: these things therefore shall befall them.

5:14. Thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: because you have spoken this word, behold I will make my words in thy mouth as fire, and this people as wood, and it shall devour them.

5:15. Behold I will bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, saith the Lord: a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou shalt not know, nor understand what they say.

5:16. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all valiant.

5:17. And they shall eat up thy corn, and thy bread: they shall devour thy sons, and thy daughters: they shall eat up thy flocks, and thy herds: they shall eat thy vineyards, and thy figs: and with the sword they shall destroy thy strong cities, wherein thou trustest.

5:18. Nevertheless in those days, saith the Lord, I will not bring you to utter destruction.

5:19. And if you shall say: Why hath the Lord our God done all these things to us? thou shalt say to them: As you have forsaken me, and served a strange god in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own.

5:20. Declare ye this to the house of Jacob, and publish it in Juda, saying:

5:21. Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not.

5:22. Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it.

5:23. But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away.

5:24. And they have not said in their heart: Let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fulness of the yearly harvest.

5:25. Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

5:26. For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men.

5:27. As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched.

5:28. They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, and they have not judged the judgment of the poor.

5:29. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation?

5:30. Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land.

5:31. The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof?

Jeremias Chapter 6

The evils that threaten Jerusalem. She is invited to return, and walk in the good way, and not to rely on sacrifices without obedience.

6:1. Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction.

6:2. I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman.

6:3. The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand.

6:4. Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday: woe unto us, for the day is declined, for the shadows of the evening are grown longer.

6:5. Arise, and let us go up in the night, and destroy her houses.

6:6. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

6:7. As a cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her wickedness cold: violence and spoil shall be heard in her, infirmity and stripes are continually before me.

6:8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited.

6:9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall gather the remains of Israel, as in a vine, even to one cluster: turn back thy hand, as a grapegatherer into the basket.

6:10. To whom shall I speak? and to whom shall I testify, that he may hear? behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear: behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: and they will not receive it.

6:11. Therefore am I full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the child abroad, and upon the council of the young men together: for man and woman shall be taken, the ancient and he that is full of days.

6:12. And their houses shall be turned over to others, with their lands and their wives together: for I will stretch forth my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord.

6:13. For from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness: and from the prophet even to the priest, all are guilty of deceit.

6:14. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: and there was no peace.

6:15. They were confounded, because they committed abomination: yea, rather they were not confounded with confusion, and they knew not how to blush: wherefore they shall fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall fall down, saith the Lord.

6:16. Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: We will not walk.

6:17. And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. And they said: We will not hearken.

6:18. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what great things I will do to them.

6:19. Hear, O earth: Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts: because they have not heard my words, and they have cast away my law.

6:20. To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Saba, and the sweet smelling cane from a far country? your holocausts are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me.

6:21. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring destruction upon this people, by which fathers and sons together shall fall, neighbour and kinsman shall perish.

6:22. Thus saith the Lord: Behold a people cometh from the land of the north, and a great nation shall rise up from the ends of the earth.

6:23. They shall lay hold on arrow and shield: they are cruel, and will have no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea: and they shall mount upon horses, prepared as men for war, against thee, O daughter of Sion.

6:24. We have heard the fame thereof, our hands grow feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, as a woman in labour.

6:25. Go not out into the fields, nor walk in the highway: for the sword of the enemy, and fear is on every side.

6:26. Gird thee with sackcloth, O daughter of my people, and sprinkle thee with ashes: make thee mourning as for an only son, a bitter lamentation, because the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us.

6:27. I have set thee for a strong trier among my people: and thou shalt know, and prove their way.

6:28. All these princes go out of the way, they walk deceitfully, they are brass and iron: they are all corrupted.

6:29. The bellows have failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder hath melted in vain: for their wicked deeds are not consumed.

6:30. Call them reprobate silver, for the Lord hath rejected them.

Jeremias Chapter 7

The temple of God shall not protect a sinful people, without a sincere conversion. The Lord will not receive the prayers of the prophet for them: because they are obstinate in their sins.

7:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

7:2. Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all ye men of Juda, that enter in at these gates, to adore the Lord.

7:3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Make your ways and your doings good: and I will dwell with you in this place.

7:4. Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord.

7:5. For if you will order well your ways, and your doings: if you will execute judgment between a man and his neighbour,

7:6. If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not after strange gods to your own hurt,

7:7. I will dwell with you in this place: in the land, which I gave to your fathers from the beginning and for evermore.

7:8. Behold you put your trust in lying words, which shall not profit you:

7:9. To steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to swear falsely, to offer to Baalim, and to go after strange gods, which you know not.

7:10. And you have come, and stood before me in this house, in which my name is called upon, and have said: We are delivered, because we have done all these abominations.

7:11. Is this house then, in which my name hath been called upon, in your eyes become a den of robbers? I, I am he: I have seen it, saith the Lord.

7:12. Go ye to my place in Silo, where my name dwelt from the beginning: and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel:

7:13. And now, because you have done all these works, saith the Lord: and I have spoken to you rising up early, and speaking, and you have not heard: and I have called you, and you have not answered:

7:14. I will do to this house, in which my name is called upon, and in which you trust, and to the place which I have given you and your fathers, as I did to Silo.

7:15. And I will cast you away from before my face, as I have cast away all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim.

7:16. Therefore do not thou pray for this people, nor take to thee praise and supplication for them: and do not withstand me: for I will not hear thee.

7:17. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

7:18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to offer libations to strange gods, and to provoke me to anger.

Queen of heaven. . .That is, the moon, which they worshipped under that name.

7:19. Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own countenance?

7:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation is enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

7:21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh.

7:22. For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices.

I commanded them not. . .Viz., such sacrifices as the Jews at this time offered, without obedience; which was the thing principally commanded: so that in comparison with it, the offering of the holocausts and sacrifices was of small account.

7:23. But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.

7:24. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went backward and not forward,

7:25. From the day that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt, even to this day. And I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, from day to day, rising up early and sending.

7:26. And they have not hearkened to me: nor inclined their ear: but have hardened their neck, and have done worse than their fathers.

7:27. And thou shalt speak to them all these words, but they will not hearken to thee: and thou shalt call them, but they will not answer thee.

7:28. And thou shalt say to them: This is a nation which hath not hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction: faith is lost, and is taken away out of their mouth.

7:29. Cut off thy hair, and cast it away: and take up a lamentation on high: for the Lord hath rejected, and forsaken the generation of his wrath,

7:30. Because the children of Juda have done evil in my eyes, saith the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house in which my name is called upon, to pollute it;

7:31. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, to burn their sons, and their daughters in the fire: which I commanded not, nor thought on in my heart.

7:32. Therefore behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and it shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom: but the valley of slaughter: and they shall bury in Topheth, because there is no place.

7:33. And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to drive them away.

7:34. And I will cause to cease out of the cities of Juda, and out of the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

Jeremias Chapter 8

Other evils that shall fall upon the Jews for their impenitence.

8:1. At that time, saith the Lord, they shall cast out the bones of the kings of Juda, and the bones of the princes thereof, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.

8:2. And they shall spread them abroad to the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom have walked, and whom they have sought, and adored: they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth.

8:3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all that shall remain of this wicked kindred in all places, which are left, to which I have cast them out, saith the Lord of hosts.

8:4. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Shall not he that falleth, rise again? and he that is turned away, shall he not turn again?

8:5. Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn revolting? they have laid hold on lying, and have refused to return.

8:6. I attended, and hearkened; no man speaketh what is good, there is none that doth penance for his sin, saying: What have I done? They are all turned to their own course, as a horse rushing to the battle.

8:7. The kite in the air hath known her time: the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord.

8:8. How do you say: We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Indeed the lying pens of the scribes hath wrought falsehood.

8:9. The wise men are confounded, they are dismayed, and taken: for they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.

8:10. Therefore will I give their women to strangers, their fields to others for an inheritance: because from the least even to the greatest all follow covetousness: from the prophet even to the priest all deal deceitfully.

8:11. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: when there was no peace.

8:12. They are confounded, because they have committed abomination: yea rather they are not confounded with confusion, and they have not known how to blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall fall, saith the Lord.

8:13. Gathering I will gather them together, saith the Lord, there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig tree, the leaf is fallen: and I have given them the things that are passed away.

8:14. Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced city, and let us be silent there: for the Lord our God hath put us to silence, and hath given us water of gall to drink: for we have sinned against the Lord.

8:15. We looked for peace and no good came: for a time of healing, and behold fear.

8:16. The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan, all the land was moved at the sound of the neighing of his warriors: and they came and devoured the land, and all that was in it: the city and its inhabitants.

8:17. For behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

8:18. My sorrow is above sorrow, my heart mourneth within me.

8:19. Behold the voice of the daughter of my people from a far country: Is not the Lord in Sion, or is not her king in her? why then have they provoked me to wrath with their idols, and strange vanities?

8:20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

8:21. For the affliction of the daughter of my people I am afflicted, and made sorrowful, astonishment hath taken hold on me.

8:22. Is there no balm in Galaad? or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?

Jeremias Chapter 9

The prophet laments the miseries of his people: and their sins, which are the cause of them. He exhorts them to repentance.

9:1. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

9:2. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors.

9:3. And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord.

9:4. Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully.

9:5. And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity.

9:6. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord.

9:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?

9:8. Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.

9:9. Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?

9:10. For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed.

9:11. And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.

9:12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?

9:13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.

9:14. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.

9:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

9:16. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them till they be consumed.

9:17. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:

9:18. Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.

9:19. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.

9:20. Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbour mourning.

9:21. For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.

9:22. Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.

9:23. Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches:

9:24. But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.

9:25. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised.

9:26. Upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Jeremias Chapter 10

Neither stars nor idols are to be feared, but the great Creator of all things. The chastisement of Jerusalem for her sins.

10:1. Hear ye the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O house of Israel.

10:2. Thus saith the Lord: Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles: and be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear:

10:3. For the laws of the people are vain: for the works of the hand of the workman hath cut a tree out of the forest with an axe.

10:4. He hath decked it with silver and gold: he hath put it together with nails and hammers, that it may not fall asunder.

10:5. They are framed after the likeness of a palm tree, and shall not speak: they must be carried to be removed, because they cannot go. Therefore fear them not, for they can neither do evil nor good.

10:6. There is none like to thee, O Lord: thou art great, and great is thy name in might.

10:7. Who shall not fear thee, O king of nations? for thine is the glory: among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms there is none like unto thee.

10:8. They shall be all proved together to be senseless and foolish: the doctrine of their vanity is wood.

10:9. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tharsis, and gold from Ophaz: the work of the artificer, and of the hand of the coppersmith: violet and purple is their clothing: all these things are the work of artificers.

10:10. But the Lord is the true God: he is the living God, and the everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his threatening.

10:11. Thus then shall you say to them: The gods that have not made heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth, and from among those places that are under heaven.