Jeremiah 23; Jeremiah 24; Jeremiah 25

Jeremiah 23

1 Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord.

2 Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.

3 And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied.

4 And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them: they shall fear no more, and they shall not be dismayed: and none shall be wanting of their number, saith the Lord

5 Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

6 In those days shall Juda be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our just one.

7 Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and they shall say no more: The Lord liveth, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt:

8 But, The Lord liveth, who hath brought out, and brought hither the seed of the house of Israel from the land of the north, and out of all the lands, to which I had cast them forth: and they shall dwell in their own land.

9 To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones tremble: I am become as a drunken man, and as a man full of wine, at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of his holy words.

10 Because the land is full of adulterers, because the land hath mourned by reason of cursing, the fields of the desert are dried up: and their course is become evil, and their strength unlike.

11 For the prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I have found their wickedness, saith the Lord.

12 Therefore their way shall be as a slippery way in the dark: for they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evils upon them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied in Baal and deceived my people Israel.

14 And I have seen the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying in the prophets of Jerusalem: and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, that no man should return from his evil doings, they are all become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrha

15 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold I will feed them with wormwood, and will give them gall to drink: for from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption is gone forth into all the land.

16 Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hearken not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you, and deceive you: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

17 They say to them that blaspheme me: The Lord hath said: You shall have peace: and to every one that walketh in the perverseness of his own heart, they have said: No evil shall come upon you.

18 For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath seen and heard his word? Who hath considered his word and heard it?

19 Behold the whirlwind of the Lord’s indignation shall come forth, and a tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked

20 The wrath of the Lord shall not return till he execute it, and till he accomplish the thought of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand his counsel.

21 I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied

22 If they had stood in my counsel, and had made my words known to my people, I should have turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked doings.

23 Am I, think ye, a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?

24 Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the Lord? do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?

25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, and say: I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and that prophesy the delusions of their own heart?

27 Who seek to make my people forget my name through their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour: as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

28 The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word, let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord?

29 Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

30 Therefore behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who steal my words every one from his neighbour.

31 Behold I am against the prophets, saith the Lord: who use their tongues, and say: The Lord saith it.

32 Behold I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord: and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lying, and by their wonders: when I sent them not, nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord.

33 If therefore this people, or the prophet, or the priest shall ask thee, saying: What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt say to them: You are the burden: for I will cast you away, saith the Lord.

34 And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say: The burden of the Lord: I will visit upon that man, and upon his house.

35 Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour, and to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and what hath the Lord spoken?

36 And the burden of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for every man’s word shall be his burden: for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God

37 Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: What hath the Lord answered thee? and what hath the Lord spoken?

38 But if you shall say: The burden of the Lord: therefore thus saith the Lord: Because you have said this word: The burden of the Lord: and I have sent to you, saying: Say not, The burden of the Lord

39 Therefore behold I will take you away carrying you, and will forsake you, and the city which I gave to you, and to your fathers, out of my presence.

40 And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall never be forgotten.

Jeremiah 24

1 The Lord shewed me: and behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of the Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his chief men, and the craftsmen, and engravers of Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

2 One basket had very good figs, like the figs of the first season: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, because they were bad.

3 And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: Figs, the good figs, very good: and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad.

4 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

5 Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Juda, whom I have sent forth out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good.

6 And I will set my eyes upon them to be pacified, and I will bring them again into this land: and I will build them up, and not pull them down: and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

7 And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: because they shall return to me with their whole heart.

8 And as the very bad figs, that cannot be eaten, because they are bad: thus saith the Lord: So will I give Sedecias the king of Juda, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that have remained in this city, and that dwell in the land of Egypt.

9 And I will deliver them up to vexation, and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a reproach, and a byword, and a proverb, and to be a curse in all places, to which I have cast them out.

10 And I will send among them the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: till they be consumed out of the land which I gave to them, and their fathers.

Jeremiah 25

1 The word that came to Jeremias concerning all the people of Juda, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, (the same is the first year of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon,)

2 Which Jeremias the prophet spoke to all the people of Juda, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:

3 From the thirteenth year of Josias the son of Ammon king of Juda until this day: this is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising before day, and speaking, and you have not hearkened.

4 And the Lord hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and you have not hearkened, nor inclined your ears to hear.

5 When he said: Return ye, every one from his evil way, and from your wicked devices, and you shall dwell in the land which the Lord hath given to you, and your fathers for ever and ever.

6 And go not after strange gods to serve them, and adore them: nor provoke me to wrath by the works of your hands, and I will not afflict you.

7 And you have not heard me, saith the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own hurt.

8 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Because you have not heard my words:

9 Behold I will send, and take all the kindreds of the north, saith the Lord, and Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon my servant: and I will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all the nations that are round about it: and I will destroy them, and make them an astonishment and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

10 And I will take away from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp.

11 And all this land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment: and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

12 And when the seventy years shall be expired, I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans: and I will make it perpetual desolations.

13 And I will bring upon that land all my words, that I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book, all that Jeremias hath prophesied against all nations:

14 For they have served them, whereas they were many nations, and great kings: and I will repay them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their hands.

15 For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Take the cup of wine of this fury at my hand: and thou shalt make all the nations to drink thereof, into which I shall send thee.

16 And they shall drink, and be troubled, and be mad because of the sword, which I shall send among them.

17 And I took the cup at the hand of the Lord, and I presented it to all the nations to drink of it, to which the Lord sent me:

18 To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Juda, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof: to make them a desolation, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a curse, as it is at this day.

19 Pharao the king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people,

20 And all in general: all the kings of the land of Ausitis, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ascalon, and Gaza, and Accaron, and the remnant of Azotus.

21 And Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon.

22 And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon: and the kings of the land of the islands that are beyond the sea.

23 And Dedan, and Thema, and Buz, and all that have their hair cut round.

24 And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the west, that dwell in the desert.

25 And all the kings of Zambri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes:

26 And all the kings of the north far and near, every one against his brother: and all the kingdoms of the earth, which are upon the face thereof: and the king of Sesac shall drink after them.

27 And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and vomit: and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword, which I shall send among you.

28 And if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Drinking you shall drink:

29 For behold I begin to bring evil on the city wherein my name is called upon: and shall you be as innocent and escape free? you shall not escape free: for I will call for the sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts.

30 And thou shalt prophesy unto them all these words, and thou shalt say to them: I The Lord shall roar from on high, and shall utter his voice from his holy habitation: roaring he shall roar upon the place of his beauty: the shout as it were of them that tread grapes shall be given out against all the inhabitants of the earth.

31 The noise is come even to the ends of the earth: for the Lord entereth into judgment with the nations: he entereth into judgment with all flesh; the wicked I have delivered up to the sword, saith the Lord.

32 Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation: and a great whirlwind shall go forth from the ends of the earth.

33 And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end thereof: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be gathered up, nor buried: they shall lie as dung upon the face of the earth.

34 Howl, ye shepherds, and cry: and sprinkle yourselves with ashes, ye leaders of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and your dispersion are accomplished, and you shall fall like precious vessels.

35 And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the leaders of the flock to save themselves.

36 A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the principal of the flock: because the Lord hath wasted their pastures.

37 And the fields of peace have been silent because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

38 He hath forsaken his covert as the lion, for the land is laid waste because of the wrath of the dove, and because of the fierce anger of the Lord.