Part 886

5:17. And they shall eat up thy corn, and thy bread: they shall devour thy sons, and thy daughters: they shall eat up thy flocks, and thy herds: they shall eat thy vineyards, and thy figs: and with the sword they shall destroy thy strong cities, wherein thou trustest.

5:18. Nevertheless in those days, saith the Lord, I will not bring you to utter destruction.

5:19. And if you shall say: Why hath the Lord our God done all these things to us? thou shalt say to them: As you have forsaken me, and served a strange god in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own.

5:20. Declare ye this to the house of Jacob, and publish it in Juda, saying:

5:21. Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not.

5:22. Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it.

5:23. But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away.

5:24. And they have not said in their heart: Let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fulness of the yearly harvest.

5:25. Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

5:26. For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men.

5:27. As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched.

5:28. They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, and they have not judged the judgment of the poor.

5:29. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation?

5:30. Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land.

5:31. The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof?

Jeremias Chapter 6

The evils that threaten Jerusalem. She is invited to return, and walk in the good way, and not to rely on sacrifices without obedience.

6:1. Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction.

6:2. I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman.

6:3. The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand.

6:4. Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday: woe unto us, for the day is declined, for the shadows of the evening are grown longer.

6:5. Arise, and let us go up in the night, and destroy her houses.

6:6. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

6:7. As a cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her wickedness cold: violence and spoil shall be heard in her, infirmity and stripes are continually before me.

6:8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited.

6:9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall gather the remains of Israel, as in a vine, even to one cluster: turn back thy hand, as a grapegatherer into the basket.

6:10. To whom shall I speak? and to whom shall I testify, that he may hear? behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear: behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: and they will not receive it.

6:11. Therefore am I full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the child abroad, and upon the council of the young men together: for man and woman shall be taken, the ancient and he that is full of days.