That you have forgotten the Lord your Maker,
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth,
That you continually tremble with fear all day long because of the rage of the oppressor,
As he takes aim to destroy?
And where is the rage of the oppressor?

All of us like sheep have gone astray,
We have turned, each one, to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wickedness of us all [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]
To fall on Him [instead of us].

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth [to complain or defend Himself];
Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before her shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.

Therefore, I will divide and give Him a portion with the great [kings and rulers],
And He shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
Because He [willingly] poured out His life to death,
And was counted among the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore and took away the sin of many,
And interceded [with the Father] for the transgressors.

“Enlarge the site of your tent [to make room for more children];
Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not spare them;
Lengthen your tent ropes
And make your pegs (stakes) firm [in the ground].

“Why do you spend money for that which is not bread,
And your earnings for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight in abundance.

Let the wicked leave (behind) his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion (mercy) on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

“For you will go out [from exile] with joy
And be led forth [by the Lord Himself] with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Do not let the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will most certainly separate me from His people.”
And do not let the eunuch say, “Look, I am a dry tree.”

“Among the smooth stones of the ravine
Is your portion, they (the idols) are your lot;
Even to them you have poured out a drink offering,
You have offered a grain offering.
Should I be quiet concerning these things [leaving them unpunished—bearing them with patience]?

“When you cry out [for help], let your [ridiculous] collection of idols save you.
But the wind will carry them all away,
A [mere] breath will take them.
But he who takes refuge in Me will possess the land [Judea]
And will inherit My holy mountain.”

“I have seen his [willful] ways, but I will heal him;
I will lead him [also] and will restore comfort to him and to those who mourn for him,

“[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose,
To undo the bonds of wickedness,
To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free
And break apart every [enslaving] yoke?

“Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your healing (restoration, new life) will quickly spring forth;
Your righteousness will go before you [leading you to peace and prosperity],
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

And if you offer yourself to [assist] the hungry
And satisfy the need of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.

“And your people will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up and restore the age-old foundations [of buildings that have been laid waste];
You will be called Repairer of the Breach,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Therefore justice is far from us,
And righteousness does not overtake us.
We [expectantly] hope for light, but only see darkness;
We hope for gleam of light, but we walk in darkness and gloom.

“Arise [from spiritual depression to a new life], shine [be radiant with the glory and brilliance of the Lord]; for your light has come,
And the glory and brilliance of the Lord has risen upon you.

“Nations will come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.

“Your gates will be open continually;
They shall not be shut day or night,
So that people may bring to you the wealth of the nations—
With their kings led in procession.

“For the nation or the kingdom which will not serve you [Jerusalem] shall perish,
And the nations [that refuse to serve] shall be utterly ruined.

“The sun will no longer be your light by day,
Nor shall the bright glow of the moon give light to you,
But the Lord will be an everlasting light for you;
And your God will be your glory and splendor.

“Your sun will no longer set,
Nor will your moon wane;
For the Lord will be your everlasting light,
And the days of your mourning will be over.

Who led them through the depths [of the Red Sea],
Like a horse in the wilderness, [so that] they did not stumble?

Like the cattle that go down into the valley [to find better pasture and rest],
The Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
So You led Your people [O Lord]
To make for Yourself a beautiful and glorious name [preparing the way for the acknowledgment of Your name by all nations].

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble [with awe-filled reverence] at His word:
“Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My Name’s sake,
Have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy.’
But they will be put to shame.

I will set up a [miraculous] sign among them, and from them I will send survivors to the nations: Tarshish, Pul (Put), Lud, Meshech, Tubal and Javan, to the distant islands and coastlands that have not heard of My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare and proclaim My glory among the nations.

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see the branch of an almond tree.”

“They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
Who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and of pits,
Through a land of drought and of the deep darkness [of the shadow of death],
Through a land that no man passed through
And where no man lived?’

“Have you not brought this on yourself
By abandoning (rejecting) the Lord your God
When He led you in the way?

“But where are your gods
Which you made for yourself?
Let them get up, if they can save you
In the time of your trouble!
For [as many as] the number of your cities
Are your gods, O Judah. [Why do not your many man-made idols run to help you?]

“O generation [that you are], consider and regard carefully the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel [like a land without food],
A land of thick and deep darkness [like a path without light]?
Why do My people say, ‘We [have broken loose and we] are free to roam [at will];
We will no longer come to You’?

Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor and humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,
“Blow the trumpet in the land;
Cry aloud and say,
‘Assemble yourselves, and let us go
Into the fortified cities.’

News of one [terrible] disaster comes close after another,
For the whole land is devastated;
Suddenly my tents are spoiled and destroyed,
My [tent] curtains [ruined] in a moment.

I looked at the earth [in my vision], and behold, it was [as at the time of creation] formless and void;
And to the heavens, and they had no light.

I looked, and behold, the fertile land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were pulled down
Before the [presence of the] Lord, before His fierce anger.

‘They do not say in their heart,
“Let us now fear and worship the Lord our God [with profound awe and reverence],
Who gives rain in its season,
Both the autumn and the spring rain,
Who keeps for us
The appointed weeks of the harvest.”

“[They shout], ‘Prepare for war against her;
Arise, let us [take her by surprise and] attack her at noon.
But alas, the daylight pales,
The evening shadows grow long.

‘Arise, let us [awaken to] attack her at night
And destroy her [fortified] palaces!’”

The bellows blow fiercely,
The lead is consumed by the fire;
In vain they continue refining,
But the wicked are not separated and removed.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have [persistently] sent you all My servants the prophets, sending them daily, early [and late].

Why are we sitting still [the people wonder]?
Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities
And let us die there,
For the Lord our God has decreed our ruin
And given us bitter and poisonous water to drink,
Because we have sinned against the Lord.

“Let everyone beware of his neighbor
And do not trust any brother.
For every brother is a supplanter [like Jacob, a deceiver, ready to grab his brother’s heel],
And every neighbor goes around as a slanderer.

Who is the wise man who may understand this [without any doubt]? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

“Let them hurry and take up a wailing for us,
That our eyes may shed tears
And our eyelids flow with water.

Now hear the word of the Lord, O you women,
And let your ear hear the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters a song of mourning,
And each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge.

Thus says the Lord, “Let not the one who is wise and skillful boast in his insight; let not the one who is mighty and powerful boast in his strength; let not the one who is rich boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] abundance;

but let the one who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me [and acknowledges Me and honors Me as God and recognizes without any doubt], that I am the Lord who practices lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these things I delight,” says the Lord.

But I was like a gentle and tame lamb brought to the slaughter;
And I did not know that they had devised plots and schemes against me, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;
Let us cut him off from the land of the living,
That his name be remembered no longer.”

But, O Lord of hosts, who judges righteously,
Who tests the feelings and the heart (mind),
Let me see Your vengeance on them,
For to You I have committed my cause.

You, O Lord are [uncompromisingly] righteous and consistently just when I plead my case with You;
Yet let me discuss issues of justice with You:
Why has the way of the wicked prospered?
Why are those who deal in treachery (deceit) at ease and thriving?

Give glory to the Lord your God,
Before He brings darkness
And before your feet stumble
On the dark and shadowy mountains,
And while you are longing for light
He turns it into the shadow of death,
And makes it into thick darkness.

“This is your destiny, the portion [of judgment] measured to you
From Me,” says the Lord,
“Because you have forgotten Me
And trusted in [pagan] lies [the counterfeit gods, and the pretense of alliance].”

Though they fast, I will not hear their cry; and though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them [because they are done as obligations, and not as acts of loving obedience]. Instead I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

“Therefore [Jeremiah] you will say this word to them,
‘Let my eyes flow with tears night and day,
And let them never cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a great blow,
With a very serious and severely infected wound.

Then the Lord said to me, “Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me [interceding for them], My heart would still not be [turned with favor] toward this people [Judah]. Send them away from My presence and out of My sight and let them go!

Therefore, thus says the Lord [to Jeremiah],
“If you repent [and give up this mistaken attitude of despair and self-pity], then I will restore you [to a state of inner peace]
So that you may stand before Me [as My obedient representative];
And if you separate the precious from the worthless [examining yourself and cleansing your heart from unwarranted doubt concerning My faithfulness],
You will become My spokesman.
Let the people turn to you [and learn to value My values]—
But you, you must not turn to them [with regard for their idolatry and wickedness].

“Like the partridge that hatches eggs which she has not laid,
So is he who makes a fortune in ways that are unjust.
It will be lost to him before his days are over,
And in the end he will be [nothing but] a fool.”

Behold, they keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the Lord [that is, the disaster that you prophesied]?
Let it come now!”

Let those who persecute me be shamed, but as for me, protect me from shame;
Let them lose courage, but let me be undaunted.
Bring on them a day of tragedy,
And destroy them with double destruction!

Then [my enemies] said, “Come and let us work out schemes against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest [as Jeremiah predicts], nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with our tongue [by making charges against him before the king], and let us ignore anything he says.”

Therefore, give their children over to the famine;
Give them over to the power of the sword.
And let their wives become childless and widowed;
Let their men meet death [by virulent disease],
Their young men be struck down by the sword in battle.

Let an outcry be heard from their houses
When You suddenly bring [a troop of] raiders upon them,
For they have dug a pit to capture me
And have hidden snares for my feet.

Yet You, O Lord, know
All their deadly plotting against me;
Do not forgive their wickedness
Or blot out their sin from Your sight.
But let them be overthrown before You;
Deal with them in the time of Your anger.

For I have heard the whispering and defaming words of many,
“Terror on every side!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
All my familiar and trusted friends,
[Those who are] watching for my fall, say,
“Perhaps he will be persuaded and deceived; then we will overcome him,
And take our revenge on him.”

But, O Lord of hosts, You who examine the righteous,
Who see the heart and the mind,
Let me see Your vengeance on them;
For to You I have committed my cause.

Cursed be the day on which I was born;
Do not bless the day on which my mother gave birth to me!

And let that man be like the cities
Which the Lord overthrew without regret.
Let him hear an outcry in the morning
And a shout of alarm at noon;

he will die in the place where they led him captive and not see this land again.

but [they will say], ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries to which I had driven them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”

The prophet who has a dream may tell his dream; but he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat [for nourishment]?” says the Lord.

“For these twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you over and over again, but you have not listened.

Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones [grinding meal] and the light of the lamp [to light the night].

But the nation which will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, that nation I will let remain on its own land,” says the Lord, “to cultivate it and live in it.”’”

Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

But if they are [true] prophets, and if the word of the Lord is [really spoken] by them, let them now entreat the Lord of hosts that the articles which are [still] left in the house of the Lord, in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem may not go to Babylon.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to the dreams which they dream or to yours,

“For there will be a day when the watchmen
On the hills of Ephraim cry out,
‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
To the Lord our God.’”

“They will come with weeping [in repentance and for joy],
And by [their] prayer [for the future] I will lead them;
I will make them walk by streams of waters,
On a straight path in which they will not stumble,
For I am a Father to Israel,
And Ephraim (Israel) is My firstborn.”

Thus says the Lord,
Who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for light by night,
Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar;
The Lord of hosts is His name:

and he will lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him [for evaluation and judgment],” says the Lord. “If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed”’?”

that every man should let his Hebrew slaves, male and female, go free, so that no one should make a slave of a Jew, his brother.

So all the princes and all the people who had entered into the covenant agreed that everyone would let his male servant and his female servant go free, and that no one would keep them in bondage any longer; they obeyed, and set them free.

But afterward they backed out [of the covenant] and made the male servants and the female servants whom they had set free return [to them], and brought the male servants and the female servants again into servitude.

“At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself [into servitude] or who has been sold to you and has served you six years, you shall release him from [serving] you; but your forefathers did not listen [submissively] to Me or obey Me.

But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans [who rule Babylon] and for fear of the army of the Arameans.’ So we have lived in Jerusalem.”

Then the princes said to Baruch, “Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and do not let anyone know where you are.”

Therefore now, please listen, O my lord the king; please let my petition come before you and be acceptable and do not make me return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I may not die there.”

Therefore the princes (court officials) said to the king, “Please [we implore you] let this man [Jeremiah] be put to death; for [speaking] in this way he discourages and weakens [the will of] the soldiers who remain in this city and he discourages and weakens [the will of] all the people by speaking such words to them; for this man is not seeking the well-being of these people, but rather their harm.”

So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down [into the cistern] with ropes. Now there was no water in the cistern but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went into the palace of the king to a place under the storeroom and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.

Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no man know about this conversation and you will not die.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had released him from Ramah, when he had taken him bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being taken as exiles to Babylon.

While Jeremiah was still hesitating, the captain of the bodyguard said, “Go on back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed [governor] over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people; or else go wherever it seems right for you to go.” So the captain of the bodyguard gave him an allowance of food and a gift and let him go.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke secretly to Gedaliah in Mizpah, saying, “Let me go and kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and not a man will know [who is responsible]. Why should he kill you and cause all the Jews who are gathered near you to be scattered and the remnant of Judah to perish?”

and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our petition be presented before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, that is, for all this remnant [of the people of Judah]; for we were once many, but now [only] a few of us are left, as you see with your own eyes, [so please pray]

Do not let the swift man run,
Nor the mighty man escape;
In the north by the river Euphrates
They have stumbled and fallen.

Charge, you horses,
And drive like madmen, you chariots!
Let the warriors go forward:
Ethiopia and Put (Libya) who handle the shield,
And the Lydians who handle and bend the bow.

“He will make many stumble and fall;
Yes, they have fallen one on another.
Then they said, ‘Arise, and let us go back
To our own people and to the land of our birth,
Away from the sword of the oppressor.’