Jeremiah 9; Jeremiah 10; Jeremiah 11; 1 Timothy 6

1 Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

2 Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors.

3 And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord.

4 Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully.

5 And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity.

6 Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord.

7 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?

8 Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.

9 Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?

10 For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts they are gone away and departed.

11 And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.

12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?

13 And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.

14 But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.

15 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

16 And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them till they be consumed.

17 Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:

18 Let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.

19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.

20 Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbour mourning.

21 For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.

22 Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.

23 Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches:

24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.

25 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised.

26 Upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

1 Hear ye the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O house of Israel.

2 Thus saith the Lord: Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles: and be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear:

3 For the laws of the people are vain: for the works of the hand of the workman hath cut a tree out of the forest with an axe.

4 He hath decked it with silver and gold: he hath put it together with nails and hammers, that it may not fall asunder.

5 They are framed after the likeness of a palm tree, and shall not speak: they must be carried to be removed, because they cannot go. Therefore fear them not, for they can neither do evil nor good.

6 There is none like to thee, O Lord: thou art great, and great is thy name in might.

7 Who shall not fear thee, O king of nations? for thine is the glory: among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms there is none like unto thee.

8 They shall be all proved together to be senseless and foolish: the doctrine of their vanity is wood.

9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tharsis, and gold from Ophaz: the work of the artificer, and of the hand of the coppersmith: violet and purple is their clothing: all these things are the work of artificers.

10 But the Lord is the true God: he is the living God, and the everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his threatening.

11 Thus then shall you say to them: The gods that have not made heaven and earth, let them perish from the earth, and from among those places that are under heaven.

12 He that maketh the earth by his power, that prepareth the world by his wisdom, and stretcheth out the heavens by his knowledge.

13 At his voice he giveth a multitude of waters in the heaven, and lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings for rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

14 Every man is become a fool for knowledge, every artist is confounded in his graven idol: for what he hath cast is false, and there is no spirit in them.

15 They are vain things, and a ridiculous work: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

16 The portion of Jacob is not like these: for it is he who formed all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.

17 Gather up thy shame out of the land, thou that dwellest in a siege.

18 For thus saith he Lord: Behold I will cast away far off the inhabitants of the land at this time: and I will afflict them, so that they may be found.

19 Woe is me for my destruction, my wound is very grievous. But I said: Truly this is my own evil, and I will bear it.

20 My tabernacle is laid waste, all my cords are broken: my children are gone out from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

21 Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord: therefore have they not understood, and all their flock is scattered.

22 Behold the sound of a noise cometh, a great commotion out of the land of the north: to make the cities of Juda a desert, and a dwelling for dragons.

23 I know, O Lord, that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a man to walk, and to direct his steps.

24 Correct me, O Lord, but yet with judgment: and not in thy fury, lest thou bring me to nothing.

25 Pour out thy indignation upon the nations that have not known thee, and upon the provinces that have not called upon thy name: because they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have destroyed his glory.

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremias, saying:

2 Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

3 And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Cursed is the man that shall not hearken to the words of this covenant,

4 Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying: Hear ye my voice, and do all things that I command you: and you shall be my people, and I will be your God:

5 That I may accomplish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. And I answered and said: Amen, O Lord.

6 And the Lord said to me: Proclaim aloud all these words in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of the covenant, and do them:

7 For protesting I conjured your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt even to this day: rising early I conjured them, and said: Hearken ye to my voice:

8 And they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear: but walked every one in the perverseness of his own wicked heart: and I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not.

9 And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy is found among the men of Juda, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

10 They are returned to the former iniquities of their fathers, who refused to hear my words: so these likewise have gone after strange gods, to serve them: the house of Israel, and the house of Juda have made void my covenant, which I made with their fathers.

11 Wherefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring in evils upon them, which they shall not be able to escape: and they shall cry to me, and I will not hearken to them.

12 And the cities of Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall go, and cry to the gods to whom they offer sacrifice, and they shall not save them in the time of their affliction.

13 For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Juda: and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem thou hast set up altars of confusion, altars to offer sacrifice to Baalim.

14 Therefore do not thou pray for this people, and do not take up praise and prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time of their cry to me, in the time of their affliction.

15 What is the meaning that my beloved hath wrought much wickedness in my house? shall the holy flesh take away from thee thy crimes, in which thou hast boasted?

16 The Lord called thy name, a plentiful olive tree, fair, fruitful, and beautiful: at the noise of a word, a great fire was kindled in it, and the branches thereof are burnt.

17 And the Lord of hosts that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee: for the evils of the house of Israel, and of the house of Juda, which they have done to themselves, to provoke me, offering sacrifice to Baalim.

18 But thou, O Lord, hast shewn me, and I have known: then thou shewedst me their doings.

19 And I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more.

20 But thou, O Lord of Sabaoth, who judgest justly, and triest the reins and the hearts, let me see thy revenge on them: for to thee have I revealed my cause.

21 Therefore thus saith the Lord to the men of Anathoth, who seek thy life, and say: Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of the Lord, and thou shalt not die in our hands.

22 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will visit upon them: their young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine.

23 And there shall be no remains of them: for I will bring in evil upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their visitation.

1 Whosoever are servants under the yoke, let them count their masters worthy of all honour; lest the name of the Lord and his doctrine be blasphemed.

2 But they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but serve them the rather, because they are faithful and beloved, who are partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

3 If any man teach otherwise and consent not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to that doctrine which is according to godliness,

4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and strifes of words; from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions,

5 Conflicts of men corrupted in mind and who are destitute of the truth, supposing gain to be godliness.

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

7 For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out.

8 But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content.

9 For they that will become rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition.

10 For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.

11 But thou, O man of God, fly these things: and pursue justice, godliness, faith, charity, patience, mildness.

12 Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art called and be it confessed a good confession before many witnesses.

13 I charge thee before God who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, a good confession:

14 That thou keep the commandment without spot, blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,

15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords:

16 Who only hath immortality and inhabiteth light inaccessible: whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and empire everlasting. Amen.

17 Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God (who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy)

18 To do good, to be rich in good work, to give easily, to communicate to others,

19 To lay up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life.

20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called.

21 Which some promising, have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.