The Living Bible (238 page)

Jeremiah
2

Again the Lord spoke to me and said:

    
²
 Go and shout this in Jerusalem’s streets: This is what the Lord says! I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren deserts.
³
 In those days Israel was a holy people, the first of my children.
*
All who harmed them were counted deeply guilty, and great evil fell on anyone who touched them.

    
^4-5
 O Israel, says the Lord, why did your fathers desert me? What sin did they find in me that turned them away and changed them into fools who worship idols?
⁶
 They ignore the fact that it was I, the Lord, who brought them safely out of Egypt and led them through the barren wilderness, a land of deserts and rocks, of drought and death, where no one lives or even travels.
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 And I brought them into a fruitful land, to eat of its bounty and goodness, but they made it into a land of sin and corruption and turned my inheritance into an evil thing.
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 Even their priests cared nothing for the Lord, and their judges ignored me; their rulers turned against me, and their prophets worshiped Baal and wasted their time on nonsense.

    
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 But I will not give you up—I will plead for you to return to me and will keep on pleading; yes, even with your children’s children in the years to come!

    
^10-11
 Look around you and see if you can find another nation anywhere that has traded in its old gods for new ones—even though their gods are nothing. Send to the west to the island of Cyprus; send to the east to the deserts of Kedar. See if anyone there has ever heard so strange a thing as this. And yet my people have given up their glorious God for silly idols!
¹²
 The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay.
¹³
 For my people have done two evil things: They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters; and they have built for themselves broken cisterns that can’t hold water!

    
¹⁴
 Why has Israel become a nation of slaves? Why is she captured and led far away?

    
¹⁵
 I see great armies marching on Jerusalem with mighty shouts
*
to destroy her and leave her cities in ruins, burned and desolate.
¹⁶
 I see the armies of Egypt rising against her, marching from their cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes to utterly destroy Israel’s glory and power.
¹⁷
 And you have brought this on yourselves by rebelling against the Lord your God when he wanted to lead you and show you the way!

    
¹⁸
 What have you gained by your alliances with Egypt and with Assyria?
¹⁹
 Your own wickedness will punish you. You will see what an evil, bitter thing it is to rebel against the Lord your God, fearlessly forsaking him, says the Lord Almighty.
²⁰
 Long ago you shook off my yoke and broke away from my ties. Defiant, you would not obey me. On every hill and under every tree you’ve bowed low before idols.

    
²¹
 How could this happen? How could this be? For when I planted you, I chose my seed so carefully—the very best. Why have you become this degenerate race of evil men?
²²
 No amount of soap or lye can make you clean. You are stained with guilt that cannot ever be washed away. I see it always before me, the Lord God says.
²³
 You say it isn’t so, that you haven’t worshiped idols? How can you say a thing like that? Go and look in any valley in the land! Face the awful sins that you have done, O restless female camel, seeking for a male!
²⁴
 You are a wild donkey, sniffing the wind at mating time. (Who can restrain your lust?) Any jack wanting you need not search, for you come running to him!
²⁵
 Why don’t you turn from all this weary running after other gods? But you say, “Don’t waste your breath. I’ve fallen in love with these strangers and I can’t stop loving them now!”

    
^26-27
 Like a thief, the only shame that Israel knows is getting caught. Kings, princes, priests, and prophets—all are alike in this. They call a carved-up wooden post their father, and for their mother they have an idol chiseled out from stone. Yet in time of trouble they cry to me to save them!
²⁸
 Why don’ you call on these gods you have made? When danger comes, let
them
go out and save you if they can! For you have as many gods as there are cities in Judah.
²⁹
 Don’t come to me—you are all rebels, says the Lord.
³⁰
 I have punished your children, but it did them no good; they still will not obey. And you yourselves have killed my prophets as a lion kills its prey.

    
³¹
 O my people, listen to the words of God: Have I been unjust to Israel? Have I been to them a land of darkness and of evil? Why then do my people say, “At last we are free from God; we won’t have anything to do with him again!”
³²
 How can you disown your God like that?
*
Can a girl forget her jewels? What bride will seek to hide her wedding dress? Yet for years on end my people have forgotten me—the most precious of their treasures.
*

    
³³
 How you plot and scheme to win your lovers. The most experienced harlot could learn a lot from you!
³⁴
 Your clothing is stained with the blood of the innocent and the poor. Brazenly you murder without a cause.
³⁵
 And yet you say, “I haven’t done a thing to anger God. I’m sure he isn’t angry!”
*
I will punish you severely because you say, “I haven’t sinned!”

    
³⁶
 First here, then there, you flit about, going from one ally to another for their help; but it’s all no good—your new friends in Egypt will forsake you as Assyria did before.
³⁷
 You will be left in despair and cover your face with your hands, for the Lord has rejected the ones that you trust. You will not succeed despite their aid.

Jeremiah
3

There is a law
*
that if a man divorces a woman who then remarries, he is not to take her back again, for she has become corrupted. But though you have left me and married many lovers, yet I have invited you to come to me again, the Lord says.
²
 Is there a single spot in all the land where you haven’t been defiled by your adulteries—your worshiping these other gods?
*
You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a client! You sit alone like a Bedouin in the desert. You have polluted the land with your vile prostitution.
³
 That is why even the springtime rains have failed. For you are a prostitute and completely unashamed.
^4-5
 And yet you say to me, “O Father, you have always been my Friend; surely you won’t be angry about such a little thing! Surely you will just forget it?” So you talk and keep right on doing all the evil that you can.

    
⁶
 This message from the Lord came to me during the reign of King Josiah:

    
Have you seen what Israel does? Like a wanton wife who gives herself to other men at every chance, so Israel has worshiped other gods on every hill, beneath every shady tree.
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 I thought that someday she would return to me and once again be mine; but she didn’t come back. And her faithless sister Judah saw the continued rebellion of Israel.
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 Yet she paid no attention, even though she saw that I divorced faithless Israel. But now Judah too has left me and given herself to prostitution, for she has gone to other gods to worship them.
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 She treated it all so lightly—to her it was nothing at all that she should worship idols made of wood and stone. And so the land was greatly polluted and defiled.
¹⁰
 Then, afterwards, this faithless one “returned” to me, but her “sorrow” was only faked, the Lord God says.
¹¹
 In fact, faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah!

    
¹²
 Therefore, go and say to Israel, O Israel, my sinful people, come home to me again, for I am merciful; I will not be forever angry with you.
¹³
 Only acknowledge your guilt; admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery against him by worshiping idols under every tree; confess that you refused to follow me.
¹⁴
 O sinful children, come home, for I am your Master, and I will bring you again to the land of Israel—one from here and two from there, wherever you are scattered.
¹⁵
 And I will give you leaders after my own heart, who will guide you with wisdom and understanding.

    
¹⁶
 Then, when your land is once more filled with people, says the Lord, you will no longer wish for “the good old days of long ago” when you possessed the Ark of God’s covenant. Those days will not be missed or even thought about, and the Ark will not be reconstructed, for the Lord himself will be among you.
¹⁷
 The whole city of Jerusalem will be known as the throne of the Lord; all nations will come to him there and no longer stubbornly follow their evil desires.
¹⁸
 At that time the people of Judah and of Israel will return together from their exile in the north, to the land I gave their fathers as an inheritance forever.
¹⁹
 And I thought how wonderful it would be for you to be here among my children. I planned to give you part of this beautiful land, the finest in the world. I looked forward to your calling me “Father” and thought that you would never turn away from me again.
²⁰
 But you have betrayed me; you have gone off and given yourself to a host of foreign gods; you have been like a faithless wife who leaves her husband.

    
²¹
 I hear a voice high upon the windswept mountains, crying, crying. It is the sons of Israel who have turned their backs on God and wandered far away.
²²
 O my rebellious children, come back to me again and I will heal you from your sins.

    
And they reply, Yes, we will come, for you are the Lord our God.
²³
 We are weary of worshiping idols on the hills and of having orgies on the mountains. It is all a farce. Only in the Lord our God can Israel ever find her help and her salvation.
²⁴
 From our childhood we have seen everything our fathers had—flocks and herds and sons and daughters—squandered on priests and idols.
²⁵
 We lie in shame and in dishonor, for we and our fathers have sinned from childhood against the Lord our God; we have not obeyed him.