< Jeremiah 16 >
1 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
2 Thou shalt not take thyself a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.
3 For thus hath said the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bear them, and concerning their fathers that beget them in this land:
4 A death through diseases of famine shall they die; they shall not be lamented for; nor shall they be buried; for dung upon the face of the earth shall they be: and by the sword and by famine shall they come to their end; and their carcasses shall be for food unto the fowls of heaven, and unto the beasts of the earth.
5 For thus hath said the Lord, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor to condole with them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, yea, kindness and mercy.
6 And both the great and the small shall die in this land, — they shall not be buried, and men shall not lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;
7 Nor shall they break bread for them at their mourning, to comfort them for the dead; nor shall they give them to drink the cup of consolation for their father and for their mother.
8 And into the house of feasting shalt thou not enter, to sit with them, to eat and to drink.
9 For thus hath said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place before your eyes, and in your days, the voice of gladness, and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.
10 And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they should say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord spoken against us all this great evil? and what is our iniquity? and what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?
11 That thou shalt say unto them, Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord, and walked after other gods, and served them, and bowed down unto them, and me they forsook, and my law they kept not;
12 And ye act worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken unto me;
13 Therefore will I hurl you out of this land into the land of which ye had no knowledge, neither ye nor your fathers; and ye will serve there other gods by day and by night; so that I will not grant you any favor.
14 Therefore, behold, days are coming, saith the Lord, when it shall not he said any more, As the Lord liveth, who hath brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
15 But, As the Lord liveth, who hath brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither he had driven them: and I will cause them to return unto their land which I have given unto their fathers.
16 Behold, I will send for many fishermen, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after that will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
17 For my eyes are directed upon all their ways, they are not hidden from my face, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
18 And [thus] will I pay them at the first their two-fold iniquity and their sin; because they have defiled my land, filling my heritage with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols.
19 O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge on the day of trouble, unto thee shall nations come from the ends of the earth, and say, Nothing but falsehood had our fathers inherited, vanity, wherein there is no profit.
20 How? can a man make unto himself gods, which are yet no gods?
21 Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, at this time will I cause them to know, my hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is The Eternal.
