The Anselm Project

Chapter 14

¹ The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. ² Judah mourns and its gates languish; they are dark to the earth, and the wailing of Jerusalem has ascended. ³ Their nobles sent their young men to the waters. They came to the cisterns; they found no water. They returned with their vessels empty. They were ashamed and humiliated and covered their heads. ⁴ Because of the ground it was dismayed, for there was no rain in the land. The farmers were ashamed; they covered their heads. ⁵ For even the doe in the field has given birth and abandoned her young, for there was no grass. ⁶ Wild donkeys stood on the bare heights. They panted like jackals for wind; their eyes failed because there was no herb. ⁷ Although our iniquities testify against us, LORD, act for the sake of your name. Our rebellions are many against you; we have sinned. ⁸ Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of distress, why will you be like a sojourner in the land, and like a guest who spreads out to lodge? ⁹ Why will you be like a stunned man, like a mighty one not able to save? And you are in our midst, LORD, and your name is called upon us—do not let us down! ¹⁰ Thus says the LORD to this people: "Thus they have loved to wander, their feet; they have not restrained them; and the LORD has not accepted them. Now he will remember their iniquity and visit their sin." ¹¹ And the LORD said to me, “Do not pray for this people’s good.” ¹² For if they fast, I do not hear their cry, and if they offer up burnt offerings and grain offerings, I do not accept them; for by sword and by famine and by pestilence I myself am finishing them off. ¹³ And I said, "Ah, Lord GOD, behold, the prophets are saying to them, 'You will not see sword and famine; it will not be for you, for I will give you peace of truth in this place.'" ¹⁴ And the LORD said to me, “Falsehood! The prophets are prophesying in my name. I did not send them, nor command them, nor speak to them. They prophesy a vision of falsehood, divination, idols, and delusion of their heart to you.” ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name and I did not send them, they saying, "Sword and famine will not be in this land"; by sword and by famine those prophets will perish. ¹⁶ And the people to whom they are prophets will be thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there is no one burying them—their wives, their sons, and their daughters—and I will pour out their evil upon them. ¹⁷ And you shall say to them this word: "Let my eyes go down tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has suffered a great shattering, a very severe stroke." ¹⁸ If I went out to the field, behold, those slain by the sword; and if I came to the city, behold, sicknesses of famine—for even prophet and even priest have traded about the land and did not know. ¹⁹ Have you utterly rejected Judah? Or have you loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We hoped for peace, but there is no good; and for a time of healing, but behold, terror. ²⁰ We know, LORD, our wickedness and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you. ²¹ Do not spurn us for the sake of your name; do not make vile the throne of your glory; remember—do not break your covenant with us. ²² Are there rains in the vanities of the nations? Or do the heavens give showers? Are you not he, the LORD our God? And we hope in you, for you have made all these.

Chapter 15

¹ Then the LORD said to me: "Even if Moses and Samuel were standing before me, my heart would not be toward this people. Send them away from my presence, and they will go." ² And it will be that when they say to you, "Where shall we go?" then you shall say to them, "Thus says the LORD: 'Those for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for famine, to famine; and those for captivity, to captivity.'" ³ And I will appoint over them four families, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, and the dogs to drag off, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts of the earth, to eat and to corrupt. ⁴ And I will give them as a horror to all kingdoms of the earth because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah, over what he did in Jerusalem. ⁵ For who will have compassion on you, Jerusalem, and who will lament for you, and who will turn aside to ask about your peace? ⁶ You have abandoned me, declares the LORD. You will go backward, and I will stretch out my hand against you and destroy you. I am weary of repenting. ⁷ And I winnowed them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land; I bereaved them. I destroyed my people from their ways—they did not return. ⁸ I have made his widow a bone for me; I writhe days; I have brought upon them the mother of the young man who plundered at noon; I have caused the city and terrors to fall upon her suddenly. ⁹ She who has wearied herself, the one bearing seven, has gasped out her life; her sun has gone down at midday. She has been ashamed and humiliated, and their remnant I will give to the sword before their enemies—the utterance of the LORD. ¹⁰ Woe to me, my mother, for you bore me—a man of judicial controversy and a man of dispute to all the land. They did not lend to me, nor did they lend to me—all who curse me. ¹¹ The LORD said, "If I have not made you remain for good, if I have not met you at a time of evil and at a time of distress to the enemies." ¹² Will iron break iron from the north and bronze? ¹³ I will give your might and your treasures to plunder, not for a price, and in all your sins and in all your territorial boundaries. ¹⁴ And I will make your enemies pass into a land you do not know, for a fire has kindled in my anger against you—it will burn. ¹⁵ You know, LORD, remember me and visit me, and avenge me from my pursuers; on account of the length of your anger do not take me; know that reproach on you is my reproach. ¹⁶ Your words were found, and I ate them, and your word became to me a joy and the joy of my heart, for your name was called upon me, LORD God of Hosts. ¹⁷ I did not sit in the secret counsel of those who play, and I did not rejoice in the presence of your hand. I sat alone because your wrath has filled me. ¹⁸ Why has my pain been eternal, and my stroke incurable, refusing to heal? They have been; you will be to me like deceptive waters, not faithful. ¹⁹ Therefore thus says the LORD: If you return, then I will restore you to stand before my face; and if you bring forth the precious from the contemptible, you will be as my mouth—they will return to you, but you will not return to them. ²⁰ And I will give you to this people as a bronze wall, as a stronghold, and they will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you—oracle of the LORD. ²¹ And I will deliver you from the hand of the evil ones and redeem you from the palm of the terrifying ones.