I would have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourns for his mother.

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, because you had favor unto them.

[To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

Will not you, O God, who had cast us off? and you, O God, who did not go out with our armies?

But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had nearly slipped.

A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.

And forgot his works, and his wonders that he had shown them.

Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven,

And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the grain of heaven.

How he had worked his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan:

And had turned their rivers into blood; and their streams, that they could not drink.

And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain, which his right hand had purchased.

Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!

For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

He sent Moses his servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen.

They forgot God their savior, who had done great things in Egypt;

Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not turned from your law.

This I had, because I kept your precepts.

They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not your precepts.

Unless your law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction.

[A song of ascents. Of David.] If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, now may Israel say;

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the first of the dust of the world.

And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and weeds had covered its face, and its stone wall was broken down.

I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I have come to greatness, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

I got myself male and female servants, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle more than all that were in Jerusalem before me:

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had made, and on the labor that I had expended on it: and, behold, all was vanity and like grasping the wind, and there was no profit under the sun.

Yea, I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun: because I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me.

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

It was but a little after I passed by them, when I found him whom my soul loves: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spoke: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

I went down into the garden of nuts to see the blossoms of the valley, and to see whether the vine had budded, and the pomegranates were in bloom.

Before I was aware, my desire had made me as the chariots of my noble people.

I would lead you, and bring you into my mother's house, who had instructed me: I would cause you to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.

Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; everyone for its fruit was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

Unless the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.

Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

You made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but you have not looked unto its maker, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.

O LORD our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us: but by you only will we make mention of your name.

Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the thing made say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing formed say of him that formed it, He had no understanding?

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which has gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it had gone down.

The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness:

Behold, for my peace I had great bitterness: but you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.

Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered.

He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet.

O that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea:

Your descendants also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.

Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten for me these, since I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and moving to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

So shall he startle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; we are in desolate places as dead men.

And the sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister unto you: for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor have I had mercy on you.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a wild vine unto me?

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; and you had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.

And I said after she had done all these things, Turn you unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

And I saw, when for all the causes for which backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

How shall I pardon you for this? your children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I punish them they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men; that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised plots against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the belt was ruined, it was profitable for nothing.

But, The LORD lives, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD's house; and said to all the people,

But, The LORD lives, who brought up and who led the descendants of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries where I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

The LORD showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

Then took I the cup from the LORD's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:

Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, You shall surely die.

Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD relented himself of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls.

Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the prophet, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the rest of the elders who were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;

(After Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, had departed from Jerusalem;)

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Why do you prophesy, and say, Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

Now when I had delivered the deed of purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed unto the LORD, saying,

This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Now when all the princes, and all the people, who had entered into the covenant, heard that everyone should let his manservant, and everyone his maidservant, go free, that none should enslave them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.

But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

And you were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor; and you had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name:

But you turned and profaned my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom you had set at liberty, at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.

And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in two, and passed between its parts,

Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a scroll of a book.

When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of the LORD,

Then Micaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.

Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one to another, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words.

And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four columns, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.