The Living Bible (243 page)

Jeremiah
16

On yet another occasion God spoke to me, and said:

    
²
 You must not marry and have children here.
³
 For the children born in this city and their mothers and fathers
⁴
 shall die from terrible diseases. No one shall mourn for them or bury them, but their bodies shall lie on the ground to rot and fertilize the soil. They shall die from war and famine, and their bodies shall be picked apart by vultures and wild animals.
⁵
 Do not mourn or weep for them, for I have removed my protection and my peace from them—taken away my loving-kindness and my mercies.
⁶
 Both great and small shall die in this land, unburied and unmourned, and their friends shall not cut themselves nor shave their heads as signs of sorrow (as is their heathen custom).
⁷
 No one shall comfort the mourners with a meal nor send them a cup of wine expressing grief for their parents’ death.

    
⁸
 As a sign to them of these sad days ahead,
*
don’t you join them anymore in their feasts and parties—don’t even eat a meal with them.
⁹
 For the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: In your own lifetime, before your very eyes, I will end all laughter in this land—the happy songs, the marriage feasts, the songs of bridegrooms and of brides.

    
¹⁰
 And when you tell the people all these things and they ask, “Why has the Lord decreed such terrible things against us? What have we done to merit such treatment? What is our sin against the Lord our God?”
¹¹
 tell them the Lord’s reply is this: Because your fathers forsook me. They worshiped other gods and served them; they did not keep my laws,
¹²
 
and you have been worse than your fathers were!
You follow evil to your hearts’ content and refuse to listen to me.
¹³
 Therefore, I will throw you out of this land and chase you into a foreign land where neither you nor your fathers have been before, and there you can go ahead and worship your idols all you like—and I will grant you no favors!

    
^14-15
 But there will come a glorious day, says the Lord, when the whole topic of conversation will be that God is bringing his people home from a nation in the north, and from many other lands where he had scattered them. You will look back no longer to the time when I rescued you from your slavery in Egypt. That mighty miracle will scarcely be mentioned anymore. Yes, I will bring you back again, says the Lord, to this same land I gave your fathers.

    
¹⁶
 Now I am sending for many fishermen to fish you from the deeps where you are hiding from my wrath. I am sending for hunters to chase you down like deer in the forests or mountain goats on inaccessible crags. Wherever you run to escape my judgment, I will find you and punish you.
¹⁷
 For I am closely watching you, and I see every sin. You cannot hope to hide from me.

    
¹⁸
 And I will punish you doubly for all your sins because you have defiled my land with your detestable idols and filled it up with all your evil deeds.

    
¹⁹
 O Lord, my Strength and Fortress, my Refuge in the day of trouble, nations from around the world will come to you saying, “Our fathers have been foolish, for they have worshiped worthless idols!
²⁰
 Can men make God? The gods they made are not real gods at all.”

    
²¹
 And when they come in that spirit, I will show them
*
my power and might and make them understand at last that I alone am God.

Jeremiah
17

My people sin as though commanded to, as though their evil were laws chiseled with an iron pen or diamond point upon their stony hearts or on the corners of their altars.
^2-3
 Their youths do not forget to sin, worshiping idols beneath each tree, high in the mountains or in the open country down below. And so I will give all your treasures to your enemies as the price that you must pay for all your sins.
⁴
 And the wonderful heritage I reserved for you will slip out of your hand, and I will send you away as slaves to your enemies in distant lands. For you have kindled a fire of my anger that shall burn forever.

    
⁵
 The Lord says: Cursed is the man who puts his trust in mortal man and turns his heart away from God.
⁶
 He is like a stunted shrub in the desert, with no hope for the future; he lives on the salt-encrusted plains in the barren wilderness; good times pass him by forever.

    
⁷
 But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord his hope and confidence.
⁸
 He is like a tree planted along a riverbank, with its roots reaching deep into the water—a tree not bothered by the heat nor worried by long months of drought. Its leaves stay green, and it goes right on producing all its luscious fruit.

    
⁹
 The heart is the most deceitful thing there is and desperately wicked. No one can really know how bad it is!
¹⁰
 Only the Lord knows! He searches all hearts and examines deepest motives so he can give to each person his right reward, according to his deeds—how he has lived.

    
¹¹
 Like a bird that fills her nest with young she has not hatched and which will soon desert her and fly away, so is the man who gets his wealth by unjust means. Sooner or later he will lose his riches and at the end of his life become a poor old fool.

    
¹²
 But our refuge is your throne, eternal, high, and glorious.
¹³
 O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all who turn away from you shall be disgraced and shamed; they are registered for earth and not for glory, for they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters.
¹⁴
 Lord, you alone can heal me, you alone can save, and my praises are for you alone.

    
¹⁵
 Men scoff at me and say, “What is this word of the Lord you keep talking about? If these threats of yours are really from God, why don’t they come true?”

    
¹⁶
 Lord, I don’t want the people crushed by terrible calamity. The plan is yours, not mine. It is
your
message I’ve given them, not my own.
I
don’t want them doomed!
¹⁷
 Lord, don’t desert me now! You alone are my hope.
¹⁸
 Bring confusion and trouble on all who persecute me, but give me peace. Yes, bring double destruction upon them!

    
¹⁹
 Then the Lord said to me, Go and stand in the gates of Jerusalem, first at the gate where the king goes out, and then at each of the other gates,
²⁰
 and say to all the people: Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and all the people of this nation, and all you citizens of Jerusalem.
^21-22
 The Lord says: Take warning and live; do no unnecessary
*
work on the Sabbath day, but make it a holy day. I gave this commandment to your fathers,
²³
 but they didn’t listen or obey. They stubbornly refused to pay attention and be taught.

    
²⁴
 But if you obey me, says the Lord, and refuse to work on the Sabbath day and keep it separate, special and holy,
²⁵
 then this nation shall continue forever. There shall always be descendants of David sitting on the throne here in Jerusalem; there shall always be kings and princes riding in pomp and splendor among the people, and this city shall remain forever.
²⁶
 And from all around Jerusalem and from the cities of Judah and Benjamin, from the Negeb and from the lowlands west of Judah, the people shall come with their burnt offerings and grain offerings and incense, bringing their sacrifices to praise the Lord in his Temple.

    
²⁷
 But if you will not listen to me, if you refuse to keep the Sabbath holy, if on the Sabbath you bring in loads of merchandise through these gates of Jerusalem, just as on other days, then I will set fire to these gates. The fire shall spread to the palaces and utterly destroy them, and no one shall be able to put out the raging flames.

Jeremiah
18

Here is another message to Jeremiah from the Lord:

    
²
 Go down to the shop where clay pots and jars are made, and I will talk to you there.
³
 I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel.
⁴
 But the jar that he was forming didn’t turn out as he wished, so he kneaded it into a lump and started again.

    
⁵
 Then the Lord said:
⁶
 O Israel, can’t I do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
⁷
 Whenever I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be taken up and destroyed,
⁸
 then if that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned.
⁹
 And if I announce that I will make a certain nation strong and great,
¹⁰
 but then that nation changes its mind, turns to evil, and refuses to obey me, then I, too, will change my mind and not bless that nation as I had said I would.

    
¹¹
 Therefore, go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem, saying: Hear the word of the Lord. I am planning evil against you now instead of good; turn back from your evil paths and do what is right.

    
¹²
 But they replied, “Don’t waste your breath. We have no intention whatever of doing what God says. We will continue to live as we want to, free from any restraint, full of stubbornness and wickedness!”

    
¹³
 Then the Lord said: Even among the heathen, no one has ever heard of such a thing! My people have done something too horrible to understand.
¹⁴
 The snow never melts high up in the Lebanon mountains. The cold, flowing streams from the crags of Mount Hermon never run dry.
¹⁵
 These can be counted on. But not my people! For they have deserted me and turned to foolish idols. They have turned away from the ancient highways of good and walk the muddy paths of sin.
¹⁶
 Therefore, their land shall become desolate, so that all who pass by will gasp and shake their heads in amazement at its utter desolation.
¹⁷
 I will scatter my people before their enemies as the east wind scatters dust; and in all their trouble I will turn my back on them and refuse to notice their distress.

    
¹⁸
 Then the people said, “Come, let’s get rid of Jeremiah. We have our own priests and wise men and prophets—we don’t need his advice. Let’s silence him that he may speak no more against us, nor bother us again.”

    
¹⁹
 
O Lord, help me! See what they are planning to do to me!
²⁰
 Should they repay evil for good? They have set a trap to kill me, yet I spoke well of them to you and tried to defend them from your anger.
²¹
 Now, Lord, let their children starve to death and let the sword pour out their blood! Let their wives be widows and be bereft of all their children! Let their men die in epidemics and their youths die in battle!
²²
 Let screaming be heard from their homes as troops of soldiers come suddenly upon them, for they have dug a pit for me to fall in, and they have hidden traps along my path.
²³
 Lord, you know all their murderous plots against me. Don’t forgive them, don’t blot out their sin, but let them perish before you; deal with them in your anger.