Jeremiah 22; Jeremiah 23; Titus 1

1 Thus saith the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Juda, and there thou shalt speak this word,

2 And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Juda, that sittest upon the throne of David: thou and thy servants, and thy people, who enter in by these gates.

3 Thus saith the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and deliver him that is oppressed out of the hand of the oppressor: and afflict not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly: and shed not innocent blood in this place.

4 For if you will do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house, kings of the race of David sitting upon his throne, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants, and their people.

5 But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.

6 For thus saith the Lord to the house of the king of Juda: Thou art to me Galaad the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities not habitable.

7 And I will prepare against thee the destroyer and his weapons: and they shall cut down thy chosen cedars, and shall cast them headlong into the fire.

8 And many nations shall pass by this city: and they shall say every man to his neighbour: Why hath the Lord done so to this great city?

9 And they shall answer: Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and have adored strange gods, and served them.

10 Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears: lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.

11 For thus saith the Lord to Sellum the son of Josias the king of Juda, who reigned instead of his father, who went forth out of this place: He shall return hither no more:

12 But in the place, to which I have removed him, there shall he die, and he shall not see this land any more.

13 Woe to him that buildeth up his house by injustice, and his chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages.

14 Who saith: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers: who openeth to himself windows, and maketh roofs of cedar, and painteth them with vermilion.

15 Shalt thou reign, because thou comparest thyself to the cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and it was then well with him?

16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy for his own good: was it not therefore because he knew me, saith the Lord?

17 But thy eyes and thy heart are set upon covetousness, and upon shedding innocent blood, and upon oppression, and running after evil works.

18 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda: They shall not mourn for him, Alas, my brother, and, Alas, sister: they shall not lament for him, Alas, my lord, or, Alas, the noble one.

19 He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem.

20 Go up to Libanus, and cry: and lift up thy voice in Basan, and cry to them that pass by, for all thy lovers are destroyed.

21 I spoke to thee in thy prosperity: and thou saidst: I will not hear: this hath been thy way from thy youth, because thou hast not heard my voice.

22 The wind shall feed all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity and then shalt thou be confounded, and ashamed of all thy wickedness.

23 Thou that sittest in Libanus, and makest thy nest in the cedars, how hast thou mourned when sorrows came upon thee, as the pains of a woman in labour?

24 As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence.

25 And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

26 And I will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a strange country, in which you were not born, and there you shall die:

27 And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up their mind to return thither.

28 Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?

29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

30 Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David, and have power any more in Juda.

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.

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of the elect of God and the acknowledging of the truth, which is according to godliness:

2 Unto the hope of life everlasting, which God, who lieth not, hath promised before the times of the world:

3 But hath in due times manifested his word in preaching, which is committed to me according to the commandment of God our Saviour:

4 To Titus, my beloved son according to the common faith, grace and peace, from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Saviour.

5 For this cause I left thee in Crete: that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and shouldest ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee:

6 If any be without crime, the husband of one wife. having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.

7 For a bishop must be without crime, as the steward of God: not proud, not subject to anger, nor given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre:

8 But given to hospitality, gentle, sober, just, holy, continent:

9 Embracing that faithful word which is according to doctrine, that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to convince the gainsayers.

10 For there are also many disobedient, vain talkers and seducers: especially they who are of the circumcision.

11 Who must be reproved, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.

12 One of them a prophet of their own, said: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies.

13 This testimony is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith:

14 Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn themselves away from the truth.

15 All things are clean to the clean: but to them that are defiled and to unbelievers, nothing is clean: but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

16 They profess that they know God: but in their works they deny him: being abominable and incredulous and to every good work reprobate.