1The word of the LORD came to me, saying:2You shall not take a wife for yourself, and sons and daughters shall not be born for you in this place.3For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters, the ones born in this place, and concerning their Hebrew slave girls, the ones birthing them, and concerning their fathers, the ones begetting them in this land.4From deaths of sicknesses they will die. They will not be lamented and not be buried. They will be as dung upon the face of the ground, and by sword and by famine they will be finished. Their carcasses will be for food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.5For thus says the LORD: Do not enter a house of feasting, do not go to mourn, and do not lament for them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the LORD—the steadfast love and the mercies.6And they will die, the great ones and the small ones, in this land. They will not be buried, and no one will mourn for them. They will not gash themselves, and they will not shave themselves bald for them.7And they will not break bread for them in mourning to comfort them over the dead, and they will not make them drink the cup of consolation over his father or over his mother.8And you shall not enter a house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.9For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am causing to cease from this place before your eyes and in your days the voice of rejoicing and the voice of joy, the voice of bridegroom and the voice of bride.10And it will be that when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, "Why has the LORD spoken all this great evil against us? And what is our iniquity and what is our sin that we have sinned against the LORD our God?"11And you shall say to them, “Because your fathers abandoned me,” says the LORD, “and they went after other gods and served them and prostrated themselves to them. But they abandoned me and did not keep my Torah.”12And you have done evil worse than your fathers, and behold, you are walking, each man after the stubbornness of his evil heart, not listening to me.13And I will hurl you out from upon this earth to the earth which you and your fathers have not known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, which I will not show you mercy.14Therefore behold, days are coming, says the LORD, and it will not be said anymore, "As the living LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt."15For instead, "As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where he drove them from there," and he will restore them to their land that I gave to their fathers.16Behold, I am sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they will fish them. And after that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from upon every mountain and from upon every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.17For my eyes are on all their ways. They have not been hidden from me, nor has their iniquity been stored up out from before my eyes.18And I will repay first double for their iniquity and their sin because they profaned my land with the carcasses of their abominations, and they filled my inheritance with their abominations.19O LORD, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of distress. To you nations will come from the ends of the earth, and they will say, "Surely we inherited falsehood from our fathers, vanity, and there is no profit in them."20Shall a man make gods for himself, and they not gods?21Therefore, behold, I will make them know at this time. I will make them know my hand and my might, and they will know that my name is the LORD.
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Chapter 17
1The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, with a thorn point, plowed on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars.2as a memorial of their sons, their altars and their Asherahs upon a lush tree, upon the high hills.3Your mountains in the field of your wealth, all your treasuries, I will give for spoil on your corpses, in the sin offering, all your borders.4And you will release it from you, your inheritance which I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you did not know, for a fire I have kindled in my anger, and until forever it will burn.5Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in humanity, makes flesh his arm, and turns his heart away from the LORD.6He will be like a juniper in the desert plain and will not see when good comes. He will dwell among parched places in the wilderness, a land of salt, and he will not sit.7Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and the LORD will be his trust.8And he will be like a tree planted by waters, and by a channel he will send out his roots, and he will not see when heat comes, and his leaf will be fresh, and in a year of drought he will not be anxious, and he will not cease from making fruit.9The heart is crooked above all things, and it is incurable—who can understand it.10I, the LORD, search the heart, test the kidneys, and give to man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.11He is like a partridge that does not hatch what she has laid; he makes wealth and not by justice. In the middle of his days it will abandon him, and in his end he will be a fool.12A throne of glory on high from the first, the place of our sanctuary.13O hope of Israel, the LORD, all who abandon you will dry up, and those who turn aside on the earth will be written down, because they have abandoned the fountain of living waters, the LORD.14Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for you are my praise.15Behold, they are saying to me, "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now."16And I did not hasten from being a shepherd after you, and a day of man I did not desire; you know what came out of my lips before your face—it was.17Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of moral evil.18Let my pursuers dry up and not me; let them be shattered and not me. Bring upon them a day of evil and double their shattering.