'People' in the Bible

Who, like Me, can announce the future?Let him say so and make a case before Me,since I have established an ancient people.Let these gods declare the coming things,and what will take place.

Such people do not comprehendand cannot understand,for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see,and their minds so they cannot understand.

I was angry with My people;I profaned My possession,and I placed them under your control.You showed them no mercy;you made your yoke very heavy on the elderly.

This is what the Lord,the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, saysto one who is despised,to one abhorred by people,to a servant of rulers:“Kings will see and stand up,and princes will bow down,because of the Lord, who is faithful,the Holy One of Israel—and He has chosen you.”

This is what the Lord says:I will answer you in a time of favor,and I will help you in the day of salvation.I will keep you, and I will appoint youto be a covenant for the people,to restore the land,to make them possess the desolate inheritances,

Shout for joy, you heavens!Earth, rejoice!Mountains break into joyful shouts!For the Lord has comforted His people,and will have compassion on His afflicted ones.

Pay attention to Me, My people,and listen to Me, My nation;for instruction will come from Me,and My justice for a light to the nations.I will bring it about quickly.

Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,the people in whose heart is My instruction:do not fear disgrace by men,and do not be shattered by their taunts.

I have put My words in your mouth,and covered you in the shadow of My hand,in order to plant the heavens,to found the earth,and to say to Zion, “You are My people.”

Wake yourself, wake yourself up!Stand up, Jerusalem,you who have drunk the cup of His furyfrom the hand of the Lord;you who have drunk the goblet to the dregs—the cup that causes people to stagger.

This is what your Lord says—Yahweh, even your God,who defends His people—“Look, I have removedthe cup of staggering from your hand;that goblet, the cup of My fury.You will never drink it again.

For this is what the Lord God says:“At first My people went down to Egypt to live there,then Assyria oppressed them without cause.

So now what have I here”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“that My people are taken away for nothing?Its rulers wail”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.

Therefore My people will know My name;therefore they will know on that daythat I am He who says:Here I am.”

Be joyful, rejoice together,you ruins of Jerusalem!For the Lord has comforted His people;He has redeemed Jerusalem.

He was despised and rejected by men,a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.He was like someone people turned away from;He was despised, and we didn’t value Him.

No foreigner who has joined himself to the Lordshould say,“The Lord will exclude me from His people”;and the eunuch should not say,“Look, I am a dried-up tree.”

“Cry out loudly, don’t hold back!Raise your voice like a trumpet.Tell My people their transgressionand the house of Jacob their sins.

Some of you will rebuild the ancient ruins;you will restore the foundations laid long ago;you will be called the repairer of broken walls,the restorer of streets where people live.

Then all your people will be righteous;they will possess the land forever;they are the branch I planted,the work of My hands,so that I may be glorified.

Their descendants will be known among the nations,and their posterity among the peoples.All who see them will recognizethat they are a people the Lord has blessed.

Go out, go out through the gates;prepare a way for the people!Build it up, build up the highway;clear away the stones!Raise a banner for the peoples.

And they will be called the Holy People,the Lord’s Redeemed;and you will be called Cared For,A City Not Deserted.

He said, “They are indeed My people,children who will not be disloyal,”and He became their Savior.

Then He remembered the days of the past,the days of Moses and his people.Where is He who brought them out of the seawith the shepherds of His flock?Where is He who put His Holy Spirit among the flock?

Like cattle that go down into the valley,the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.You led Your people this wayto make a glorious name for Yourself.

Your holy people had a possessionfor a little while,but our enemies have trampled downYour sanctuary.

Lord, do not be terribly angryor remember our iniquity forever.Please look—all of us are Your people!

I spread out My hands all day longto a rebellious peoplewho walk in the wrong path,following their own thoughts.

These people continually provoke Meto My face,sacrificing in gardens,burning incense on bricks,

Sharon will be a pasture for flocks,and the Valley of Achor a place for cattle to lie down,for My people who have sought Me.

Then be glad and rejoice foreverin what I am creating;for I will create Jerusalem to be a joyand its people to be a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalemand be glad in My people.The sound of weeping and cryingwill no longer be heard in her.

People will build houses and live in them;they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They will not labor without successor bear children destined for disaster,for they will be a people blessed by the Lordalong with their descendants.

It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?(But they were not gods!)Yet My people have exchanged their Gloryfor useless idols.

For My people have committed a double evil:They have abandoned Me,the fountain of living water,and dug cisterns for themselves,cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

Evil generation,pay attention to the word of the Lord!Have I been a wilderness to Israelor a land of dense darkness?Why do My people claim,“We will go where we want;we will no longer come to You”?

Can a young woman forget her jewelryor a bride her wedding sash?Yet My people have forgotten Mefor countless days.

I said, “Oh no, Lord God, You have certainly deceived this people and Jerusalem, by announcing, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to My dear people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

“For My people are fools;they do not know Me.They are foolish children,without understanding.They are skilled in doing what is evil,but they do not know how to do what is good.”

Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says:Because you have spoken this word,I am going to make My wordsbecome fire in your mouth.These people are the wood,and the fire will consume them.

When people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You will respond to them: Just as you abandoned Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Hear this,you foolish and senseless people.They have eyes, but they don’t see.They have ears, but they don’t hear.

But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.They have turned aside and have gone away.

for wicked men live among My people.They watch like fowlers lying in wait.They set a trap;they catch men.

The prophets prophesy falsely,and the priests rule by their own authority.My people love it like this.But what will you do at the end of it?

Listen, earth!I am about to bring disaster on these people,the fruit of their own plotting,for they have paid no attention to My word.They have rejected My instruction.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:I am going to place stumbling blocks before these people;fathers and sons together will stumble over them;friends and neighbors will also perish.

My dear people, dress yourselves in sackclothand roll in the dust.Mourn as you would for an only son,a bitter lament,for suddenly the destroyer will come on us.

I have appointed you to be an assayer among My people—a refiner—so you may know and assay their way of life.

“Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and there call out this word: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.

“But return to My place that was at Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at first. See what I did to it because of the evil of My people Israel.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not offer a cry or a prayer on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you.

However, I did give them this command: Obey Me, and then I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.

The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away.

“You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says:Do people fall and not get up again?If they turn away, do they not return?

Why have these people turned away?Why is Jerusalem always turning away?They take hold of deceit;they refuse to return.

Even the stork in the skyknows her seasons.The turtledove, swallow, and craneare aware of their migration,but My people do not knowthe requirements of the Lord.

They have treated superficially the brokennessof My dear people,claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’when there is no peace.

Listen—the cry of my dear peoplefrom a far away land,“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,her King not within her?”Why have they provoked me to angerwith their carved images,with their worthless foreign idols?

I am broken by the brokennessof my dear people.I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?Is there no physician there?So why has the healing of my dear peoplenot come about? >

If my head were a spring of water,my eyes a fountain of tears,I would weep day and nightover the slain of my dear people.

If only I had a traveler’s lodging placein the wilderness,I would abandon my peopleand depart from them,for they are all adulterers,a solemn assembly of treacherous people.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:I am about to refine them and test them,for what else can I dobecause of My dear people?

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

Who should not fear You,King of the nations?It is what You deserve.For among all the wise people of the nationsand among all their kingdoms,there is no one like You.

which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.’ I declared: ‘Obey Me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God,’

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me at the time of their disaster.

Therefore, here is what the Lord says concerning the people of Anathoth who want to take your life. They warn, “You must not prophesy in the name of Yahweh, or you will certainly die at our hand.”

They will have no remnant, for I will bring disaster on the people of Anathoth in the year of their punishment.”

How long will the land mournand the grass of every field wither?Because of the evil of its residents,animals and birds have been swept away,for the people have said,“He cannot see what our end will be.”

This is what the Lord says: “Concerning all My evil neighbors who attack the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people, Israel, I am about to uproot them from their land, and I will uproot the house of Judah from them.

If they will diligently learn the ways of My people—to swear by My name, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ just as they taught My people to swear by Baal—they will be built up among My people.

These evil people, who refuse to listen to Me, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who have followed other gods to serve and worship—they will be like this underwear, of no use at all.

Just as underwear clings to one’s waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“so that they might be My people for My fame, praise, and glory, but they would not obey.

Judah mourns;her gates languish.Her people are on the ground in mourning;Jerusalem’s cry rises up.

This is what the Lord says concerning these people:Truly they love to wander;they never rest their feet.So the Lord does not accept them.Now He will remember their guiltand punish their sins.

Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of these people.

The people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. There will be no one to bury them—they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will pour out their own evil on them.”

You are to speak this word to them:Let my eyes overflow with tears;day and night may they not stop,for the virgin daughter of my peoplehas been destroyed by a great disaster,an extremely severe wound.

Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My compassions would not reach out to these people. Send them from My presence, and let them go.

I scattered them with a winnowing forkat the gates of the land.I made them childless; I destroyed My people.They would not turn from their ways.

I will deliver you from the power of evil peopleand redeem you from the control of the ruthless.

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

Then people will come from the cities of Judah and from the area around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the Judean foothills, from the hill country and from the Negev bringing burnt offerings and sacrifice, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

Yet My people have forgotten Me.They burn incense to false idolsthat make them stumble in their wayson the ancient roadsand walk on new paths, not the highway.

This is what the Lord says: “Go, buy a potter’s clay jar. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests

“Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the people traveling with you,

and you are to proclaim to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: I will shatter these people and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be mended. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there is no other place for burials.

Jeremiah came back from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple, and proclaimed to all the people,

Sing to the Lord!Praise the Lord,for He rescues the life of the needyfrom the hand of evil people.

Afterward’”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officers, and the people—those in this city who survive the plague, the sword, and the famine—I will hand over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, to their enemies, yes, to those who want to take their lives. He will put them to the sword; he won’t spare them or show pity or compassion.’

“But you must say to this people, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, I am presenting to you the way of life and the way of death.

You are to say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David—you, your officers, and your people who enter these gates.

For if you conscientiously carry out this word, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this palace riding on chariots and horses—they, their officers, and their people.