The Living Bible (240 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
Then the Lord said to Jeremiah:
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Go over to the entrance of the Temple of the Lord and give this message to the people: O Judah, listen to this message from God. Listen to it, all of you who worship here.
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The Lord, the God of Israel says: Even yet, if you quit your evil ways, I will let you stay in your own land.
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But don’t be fooled by those who lie to you and say that since the Temple of the Lord is here, God will never let Jerusalem be destroyed.
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You may remain under these conditions only: If you stop your wicked thoughts and deeds and are fair to others;
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if you stop exploiting orphans, widows, and foreigners, and stop your murdering; if you stop worshiping idols as you do now to your hurt,
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then, and only then, will I let you stay in this land that I gave to your fathers to keep forever.
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You think that because the Temple is here, you will never suffer? Don’t fool yourselves!
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Do you really think that you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship Baal and all of those new gods of yours,
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and then come here and stand before me in my Temple and chant, “We are saved!”—only to go right back to all these evil things again?
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Is my Temple but a den of robbers in your eyes? For I see all the evil going on in there.
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Go to Shiloh, the city I first honored with my name, and see what I did to her because of all the wickedness of my people Israel.
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And now, says the Lord, I will do the same thing here because of all this evil you have done. Again and again I spoke to you about it, rising up early and calling, but you refused to hear or answer. Yes, I will destroy this Temple, as I did in Shiloh—this Temple called by my name, which you trust for help, and this place I gave to you and to your fathers.
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And I will send you into exile, just as I did your brothers, the people of Ephraim.
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Pray no more for these people, Jeremiah. Neither weep for them nor pray nor beg that I should help them, for I will not listen.
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Don’t you see what they are doing throughout the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
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No wonder my anger is great! Watch how the children gather wood and the fathers build fires, and the women knead dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven
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and to their other idol-gods!
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Am I the one that they are hurting? asks the Lord. Most of all they hurt themselves, to their own shame.
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So the Lord God says: I will pour out my anger, yes, my fury on this place—people, animals, trees, and plants will be consumed by the unquenchable fire of my anger.
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The Lord, the God of Israel says: Away with your offerings and sacrifices!
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It wasn’t offerings and sacrifices I wanted from your fathers when I led them out of Egypt. That was not the point of my command.
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But what I told them was:
Obey
me, and I will be your God and you shall be my people; only do as I say, and all shall be well!
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But they wouldn’t listen; they kept on doing whatever they wanted to, following their own stubborn, evil thoughts. They went backward instead of forward.
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Ever since the day your fathers left Egypt until now, I have kept on sending them my prophets, day after day.
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But they wouldn’t listen to them or even try to hear. They are hard and stubborn and rebellious—worse even than their fathers were.
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Tell them everything that I will do to them, but don’t expect them to listen. Cry out your warnings, but don’t expect them to respond.
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Say to them: “This is the nation that refuses to obey the Lord its God and refuses to be taught. She continues to live a lie.”
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O Jerusalem, shave your head in shame and weep alone upon the mountains; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken this people of his wrath.
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For the people of Judah have sinned before my very eyes, says the Lord. They have set up their idols right in my own Temple, polluting it.
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They have built the altar called Topheth in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and there they burn to death their little sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods—a deed so horrible I’ve never even thought of it, let alone commanded it to be done.
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The time is coming, says the Lord, when that valley’s name will be changed from Topheth or Ben-hinnom Valley, to the Valley of Slaughter; for there will be so many slain to bury that there won’t be room enough for all the graves, and they will dump the bodies in that valley.
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The bodies of my people shall be food for the birds and animals, and no one shall be left to scare them away.
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I will end the happy singing and laughter and the joyous voices of the bridegrooms and brides in the streets of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah. For the land shall lie in desolation.
Then, says the Lord, the enemy shall break open the graves of the kings of Judah and of the princes, and the graves of the priests, prophets, and people,
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and dig out their bones and spread them out on the ground before the sun and moon and stars—the gods of my people!—whom they have loved and worshiped. Their bones shall not be gathered up again nor buried but shall be scattered like dung upon the ground.
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And those of this evil nation who are still left alive shall long to die rather than live where I will scatter them, says the Lord Almighty.
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Once again give them this message from the Lord: When a person falls, he jumps up again; when he is on the wrong road and discovers his mistake, he goes back to the fork where he made the wrong turn. But these people keep on along their evil path, even though I warn them.
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I listen to their conversation and what do I hear? Is anyone sorry for sin? Does anyone say, “What a terrible thing I have done”? No, all are rushing pell-mell down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse rushing to the battle!
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The stork knows the time of her migration, as does the turtledove, the crane, and the swallow. They all return at God’s appointed time each year; but not my people! They don’t accept the laws of God.
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How can you say, “We understand his laws,” when your teachers have twisted them up to mean a thing I never said?
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These wise teachers of yours will be shamed by exile for this sin, for they have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they then so wise?
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I will give their wives and their farms to others; for all of them, great and small, prophet and priest, have one purpose in mind—to get what isn’t theirs.
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They give useless medicine for my people’s grievous wounds, for they assure them all is well when that isn’t so at all!
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Are they ashamed because they worship idols? No, not in the least; they don’t even know how to blush! That is why I will see to it that they lie among the fallen. I will visit them with death.
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Their figs and grapes will disappear, their fruit trees will die, and all the good things I prepared for them will soon be gone.
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Then the people will say, “Why should we wait here to die? Come, let us go to the walled cities and perish there. For the Lord our God has decreed our doom and given us a cup of poison to drink because of all our sins.
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We expected peace, but no peace came; we looked for health, but there was only terror.”
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The noise of war resounds from the northern border.
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The whole land trembles at the approach of the terrible army, for the enemy is coming and is devouring the land and everything in it—the cities and people alike.
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For I will send these enemy troops among you like poisonous snakes that you cannot charm. No matter what you do, they will bite you and you shall die.
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My grief is beyond healing; my heart is broken.
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Listen to the weeping of my people all across the land.
“Where is the Lord?” they ask. “Has God deserted us?”
“Oh, why have they angered me with their carved idols and strange evil rites?” the Lord replies.
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“The harvest is finished; the summer is over, and we are not saved.”
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I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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Is there no medicine in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why doesn’t God do something? Why doesn’t he help?
Oh, that my eyes were a fountain of tears; I would weep forever; I would sob day and night for the slain of my people!
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Oh, that I could go away and forget them and live in some wayside shack in the desert, for they are all adulterous, treacherous men.
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“They bend their tongues like bows to shoot their arrows of untruth. They care nothing for right and go from bad to worse; they care nothing for me,” says the Lord.
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Beware of your neighbor! Beware of your brother! All take advantage of one another and spread their slanderous lies.
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With practiced tongues they fool and defraud each other; they wear themselves out with all their sinning.
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“They pile evil upon evil, lie upon lie, and utterly refuse to come to me,” says the Lord.
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Therefore, the Lord Almighty says this: “See, I will melt them in a crucible of affliction. I will refine them and test them like metal. What else can I do with them?
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For their tongues aim lies like poisoned spears. They speak cleverly to their neighbors while planning to kill them.
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Should not I punish them for such things as this?” asks the Lord. “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
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Sobbing and weeping, I point to their mountains and pastures, for now they are desolate, without a living soul. Gone is the lowing of cattle, gone the birds and wild animals. All have fled.
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“And I will turn Jerusalem into heaps of ruined houses where only jackals have their dens. The cities of Judah shall be ghost towns, with no one living in them.”
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Who is wise enough to understand all this? Where is the Lord’s messenger to explain it? Why is the land a wilderness so that no one dares even to travel through?
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“Because,” the Lord replies, “my people have forsaken my commandments and not obeyed my laws.
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Instead, they have done whatever they pleased and worshiped the idols of Baal, as their fathers told them to.”
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Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Look! I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink.
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I will scatter them around the world, to be strangers in distant lands; and even there the sword of destruction shall chase them until I have utterly destroyed them.
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The Lord Almighty says: “Send for the mourners! Quick! Begin your crying! Let the tears flow from your eyes.
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Hear Jerusalem weeping in despair. ‘We are ruined! Disaster has befallen us! We must leave our land and homes!’”
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Listen to the words of God, O women who wail. Teach your daughters to wail and your neighbors too.
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For death has crept in through your windows into your homes. He has killed off the flower of your youth. Children no longer play in the streets; the young men gather no more in the squares.
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Tell them this, says the Lord: Bodies shall be scattered across the fields like manure, like sheaves after the mower, and no one will bury them.
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The Lord says: Let not the wise man bask in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his riches.
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Let them boast in this alone: That they truly know me, and understand that I am the Lord of justice and of righteousness whose love is steadfast; and that I love to be this way.
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A time is coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised in body but not in spirit—the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, Arabs, and yes, even you people of Judah. For all these pagan nations also circumcise themselves. Unless you circumcise your hearts by loving me, your circumcision is only a heathen rite like theirs, and nothing more.