Aug 22 - Jeremiah 22-24
Jeremiah
1Thus says the Lord: "Descend to the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word2And you shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, who sits upon the throne of David: you and your servants, and your people, who enter through these gates3Thus says the Lord: Exercise judgment and justice, and free anyone who is oppressed by violence from the hand of a false accuser. And do not be willing to sadden the new arrival, or the orphan, or the widow, nor should you burden them unfairly. And you shall not shed innocent blood in this place4For if you will indeed accomplish this word, then there will enter through the gates of this house kings from the stock of David, sitting on his throne, and riding on chariots and on horses: they, and their servants, and their people5But if you will not listen to these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house will be in desolation6For thus says the Lord about the house of the king of Judah: You are to me like Gilead, the head of Lebanon. Certainly, I will make you desolate, with uninhabitable cities7And I will sanctify over you the destroying man and his weapons. And they will cut down your select cedars and throw them violently into the fire8And many nations will pass through this city. And each one will say to his neighbor: ‘Why has the Lord acted in this way toward this great city?9And they will answer: ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, and they adored strange gods and served them.10You should not choose to weep for the dead, nor should you mourn over them with tears. Lament for him who is departing, for he will return no more, nor will he see his native land again11For thus says the Lord to Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned in place of his father, who has departed from this place: He will not return here again12Instead, he will die in the place to which I have transferred him, and he will not see this land anymore13Woe to one who builds his house with injustice and his upper rooms without judgment, who oppresses his friend without cause and does not pay him his wages14And he says: ‘I will build a broad house for myself, with spacious upper rooms.’ He makes windows for himself, and he builds the roof out of cedar, and he paints it with red ocher15Will you reign because you compare yourself to the cedar? Did your father not eat and drink, and act with judgment and justice, so that it would be well with him16He judged the case of the poor and the indigent for their good. Was this not because he knew me, says the Lord17Yet truly, your eyes and your heart are toward avarice and the shedding of innocent blood, and toward false accusations and the pursuit of evil deeds18Because of this, thus says the Lord toward Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will not mourn for him by saying, ‘Alas,’ to a brother, or, ‘Alas,’ to a sister. They will not make a noise for him and say, ‘Alas,’ to a master, or, ‘Alas,’ to a nobleman19He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, having rotted and been thrown out of the gates of Jerusalem20Ascend to Lebanon and cry out! And utter your voice in Bashan, and cry out to those passing by. For all your lovers have been crushed21I spoke to you in your abundance, and you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, for you have not listened to my voice22The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. And then you will be confounded, and you will be ashamed of all your wickedness23You who sit in Lebanon, and who nest in the cedars, in what way did you mourn when suffering came to you, like the suffering of a woman giving birth24As I live, says the Lord, if Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a ring on my right hand, I would remove him from there25And I will deliver you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you dread, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans26And I will send you, and your mother who conceived you, into a foreign land, in which you were not born, and there you shall die27And to the land about which they lift up their mind, thinking to return there, they shall not return28Is this man, Jeconiah, a broken earthenware vessel? Is he a vessel which is entirely unpleasing? Why have they been cast out, he and his offspring, cast out even into a land that they have not known29O earth, O earth, O earth! Listen to the word of the Lord30Thus says the Lord: Write: this man is barren; he is a man who will not prosper in his days. For there will not be a man from among his offspring who will sit upon the throne of David, or have authority in Judah, anymore.
1"Woe to the shepherds who scatter and tear apart the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord2Because of this, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to the shepherds who pasture my people: You have scattered my flock, and you have driven them away, and you have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you because of your evil pursuits, says the Lord3And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from the entire earth, from the places to which I had cast them out. And I will return them to their own fields. And they will increase and be multiplied4And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they will pasture them. They will no longer dread, and they will no longer fear. And no one among their number will be seeking more, says the Lord5Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch. And a king will reign, and he will be wise. And he will exercise judgment and justice upon the earth6In those days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in confidence. And this is the name that they will call him: ‘The Lord, our Just One.7Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of Egypt,8but instead, ‘As the Lord lives, who led away and brought back the offspring of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from the entire earth,’ from the places to which I had cast them out. And they will live in their own land.9To the prophets: "My heart is crushed within me. All my bones are trembling. I have become like an inebriated man, and like a man maddened by wine, before the face of the Lord, and before the face of his holy words10For the earth is full of adulterers! And the earth has mourned before the face of evil talk. The plains of the desert have dried up, and their course has become hazardous, and their firmness has become uneven.11"For both the prophet and the priest have become polluted, and I have found their wickedness within my own house, says the Lord12For this reason, their way will be like a slippery path in the dark. For they will be impelled forward, and they will fall in it. For I will bring evils over them, in the year of their visitation, says the Lord13And I have seen the foolishness of the prophets of Samaria. They have prophesied in Baal, and they have deceived my people Israel14And in the prophets of Jerusalem, I have seen the likeness of adulterers and the path of falsehood. And they have strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that each one would not convert from his malice. They have all become to me like Sodom, and its inhabitants have become like Gomorrah.15Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts to the prophets: "Behold, I will feed them absinthe, and I will give them gall to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption has gone forth over the entire earth.16Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Do not choose to listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you. They speak a vision from their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord17To those who blaspheme me, they say: ‘The Lord has said: You shall have peace.’ And to every one who walks in the depravity of his own heart, they have said: ‘No evil will overwhelm you.’ 18For who has been present in the counsel of the Lord, and who has seen and heard his word? Who has considered his word and heard it19Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord’s indignation will go forth, and a tempest will break out; it will overwhelm the head of the impious20The fury of the Lord will not return until it succeeds, and until it completes the plan of his heart. In the last days, you will understand this counsel21"I did not send these prophets, yet they hurry forward. I was not speaking to them, yet they were prophesying22If they had stood in my counsel, and if I had made my words known to my people, certainly I would have turned them away from their evil ways and from their most wicked plans23Do you not realize that I am a God close by, says the Lord, and not a God far away24If a man is hidden in concealed places, do I not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill up heaven and earth, says the Lord25I have heard what the prophets have said, prophesying falsehoods in my name, and also saying: ‘I have dreamed! I have dreamed!26How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who predict what is false, and who prophesy deceptions from their own heart27They want to cause my people to forget my name, by means of their dreams, which each of them describes to his neighbor, just as their fathers forgot my name for the sake of Baal28The prophet who has had a dream, let him describe the dream. And he who receives my word, let him speak my word in truth. For what has the chaff to do with the wheat, says the Lord29Are not my words like a fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer crushing rock30Therefore, behold: I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words, each one from his neighbor31Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who take up their tongues and say: ‘The Lord says it.32Behold, I am against the prophets, who dream what is false, says the Lord; who explain and so seduce my people with their falsehoods and with their miracles, though I did not send them, nor did I command them. They have offered nothing beneficial to this people, says the Lord33Therefore, if this people, or a prophet, or a priest questions you, saying, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden. And certainly I will cast you away, says the Lord.34And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ I will visit upon that man and upon his house35And then you will speak in this way, each one to his neighbor and to his brother: ‘What has the Lord answered? And what has the Lord said?36And the burden of the Lord will be no longer be called to mind. For each one’s own word will be a burden. For you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts, our God37And then you will speak in this way to the prophet: ‘What has the Lord answered you? And what has the Lord spoken?38But if you say, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ then because of this, thus says the Lord: Since you have spoken this word, ‘The burden of the Lord!’ though I sent to you telling you not to say: ‘The burden of the Lord,39because of this, behold, I will take you away, like a burden, and I will forsake you, as well as the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, before my face40And I will give you over to an everlasting reproach and an eternal disgrace, which shall never be wiped away into oblivion.
1The Lord revealed to me, and behold, two baskets full of figs were set before the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, carried away Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and his leaders, and the craftsmen and engravers of Jerusalem, and led them into Babylon2One basket had exceedingly good figs, like the figs usually found early in the season, and the other basket had exceedingly bad figs, which could not be eaten because they were so bad3And the Lord said to me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said: "Figs: the good figs are very good, and the bad figs are very bad and cannot be eaten because they are so bad.4And the word of the Lord came to me, saying5"Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Just like these good figs, so will I regard as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent from this place into the land of the Chaldeans6And I will set my eyes upon them, so as to be pleased. And I will lead them back into this land. And I will build them up, and I will not tear them down. And I will plant them, and I will not uproot them7And I will give them a heart, so that they may know me, that I am the Lord. And they will be my people, and I will be their God. For they shall return to me with their whole heart8And just like the very bad figs, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad, thus says the Lord: so will I regard Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his leaders, and the rest of Jerusalem, those who have remained in this city, and those who are living in the land of Egypt9And I will give them over, with upheaval and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a disgrace, and a parable, and a proverb, and a curse in all the places to which I have cast them out10And I will send among them the sword, and famine, and pestilence: until they have been worn away from the land, which I gave to them and to their fathers.