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Day 200 and 62
therefore, this is what the Lord God of heaven's armies says.
Because the people are talking like this, my messages will flame out of your mouth
and burn the people like kindling wood.
Oh, Israel, I will bring a distant nation against you, says the Lord.
It is a mighty nation, an ancient nation, a people whose language you do not know.
Whose speech you cannot understand, their weapons are deadly.
Their warriors are mighty.
They will devour the food of your harvest.
They will devour your sons and daughters.
They will devour your flocks and herds.
They will devour your grapes and figs, and they will destroy your fortified
towns, which you think are so safe.
Yet, even in those days, I will not blot you out completely.
Says the Lord.
And when your people ask, why did the Lord our God do all this to us?
You must reply.
You rejected him and gave yourselves to foreign gods in your own land.
Now you will serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.
Make this announcement to Israel and say this to Judah.
Listen, you foolish and senseless people with eyes that do not see,
and ears that do not hear have you?
No respect for me.
Why don't you tremble in my presence?
I the Lord define the ocean's, sandy shoreline as an everlasting
boundary that the waters cannot cross.
The waves may toss and roar, but they can never pass the boundaries.
I set.
But my people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.
They have turned away and abandoned me.
They do not say from the heart, let us live in awe of the Lord our God,
for he gives us rain each spring and fall assuring us of a harvest.
When the time is right, your wickedness has deprived you
of these wonderful blessings.
Your sin has robbed you of all these good things.
Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait for victims
like a hunter hiding in a blind.
They continually set traps to catch people like a cage filled with birds.
Their homes are filled with evil plots, and now they're great and rich.
They're fat and sleek, and there is no limit to their wicked deeds.
They refuse to provide justice to orphans and deny the rights of the poor.
Should I not punish them for this, says the Lord.
Should I not avenge myself against such a nation?
A horrible and shocking thing has happened in this land.
The prophets give false prophecies and the priests rule with an iron hand worse.
Yet my people like it that way.
But what will you do when the end comes?
Run for your lives.
You people of Benjamin get out of Jerusalem.
Sound the alarm in Tacoma.
Send up a signal at Beth Hacker.
A powerful army is coming from the north, coming with disaster and destruction.
Oh Jerusalem.
You are my beautiful and delicate daughter, but I will destroy you.
Enemies will surround you like shepherds camped around the city.
Each chooses a place for his troops to devour.
They shout, prepare for battle attack at noon.
No, it's too late.
The day is fading and the evening shadows are falling.
Well, then let's attack at night and destroy her palaces.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says.
Cut down the trees for battering rams.
Build siege ramps against the walls of Jerusalem.
This is the city to be punished for.
She is wicked through and through.
She spouts evil like a fountain.
Her streets echo with the sounds of violence and destruction.
I always see her sickness and sores.
Listen to this warning, Jerusalem, or I will turn from you in disgust.
Listen, or I will turn you into a heap of ruins, a land where no one lives.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says.
Even the few who remain in Israel will be picked over again.
As when a harvester checks each vine a second time to pick the grapes that
were missed, to whom can I give warning?
Who will listen when I speak?
Their ears are closed and they cannot hear.
They scorn the word of the Lord.
They don't want to listen at all.
So now I am filled with the Lord's fury.
Yes, I am tired of holding it in.
I will pour out my fury on children playing in the streets and on gatherings
of young men on husbands and wives, and on those who are old and gray.
Their homes will be turned over to their enemies, as will
their fields and their wives.
For I will raise my powerful fist against the people of this land, says
the Lord from the least to the greatest.
Their lives are ruled by greed.
From prophets to priests, they're all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments for my people's mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace when there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions?
Not at all.
They don't even know how to blush.
Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered.
They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.
This is what the Lord says.
Stop at the crossroads and look around.
Ask for the old godly way and walk in it.
Travel its path and you will find rest for your souls.
But you reply, no, that's not the road we want.
I posted watchmen over you who said, listen for the sound of the alarm, but
you replied, no, we won't pay attention.
Therefore, listen to this all you nations take note of my people's situation.
Listen, all the earth, I will bring disaster on my people.
It is the fruit of their own schemes because they refuse to listen to me.
They have rejected my word.
There's no use offering me sweet frankincense from Sheba.
Keep your fragrance calamus imported from distant lands.
I will not accept your burnt offerings.
Your sacrifices have no pleasing aroma for me.
Therefore, this is what the Lord says.
I will put obstacles in my people's path.
Fathers and sons will both fall over them.
Neighbors and friends will die together.
This is what the Lord says.
Look, a great army coming from the north, a great nation is rising
against you from far off lands.
They are armed with bows and spears.
They are cruel and show no mercy.
They sound like a roaring sea.
As they ride forward on horses, they are coming in battle
formation, planning to destroy you.
Beautiful Jerusalem.
We have heard reports about the enemy and we wr our hands in fright.
Pangs of anguish have gripped us like those of a woman in labor.
Don't go out to the fields, don't travel on the roads.
The enemy's sword is everywhere and terrorizes us at every turn.
Oh, my people.
Dress yourselves in burlap and sit among the ashes, mourn and weep bitterly.
As for the loss of an only son, for suddenly the destroying
armies will be upon you.
Jeremiah, I have made you a tester of medals that you may
determine the quality of my people.
They're the worst kind of rebel, full of slander.
They are as hard as bronze and iron and they lead others into corruption.
The bellows fiercely fan the flames to burn out the corruption, but it does not
purify them for the wickedness remains.
I will label them rejected silver for I the Lord am discarding them.
The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah.
He said, go to the entrance of the Lord's temple and give
this message to the people.
Oh, Judah, listen to this message from the Lord.
Listen to it.
All of you who worship here, this is what the Lord of Heaven's
armies, the God of Israel says.
Even now, if you quit your evil ways, I will let you stay in your
own land, but don't be fooled by those who promise you safety.
Simply because the Lord's temple is here, they chant.
The Lord's temple is here, the Lord's temple is here.
But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds
and start treating each other with justice only if you stop exploiting
foreigners, orphans, and widows.
Only if you stop your murdering and only if you stop harming
yourselves by worshiping idols.
Then I will let you stay in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever.
Don't be fooled into thinking that you will never suffer
because the temple is here.
It's a lie.
Do you really think you can steal murder, commit adultery, lie and burn
incense to bail and all those other new gods of yours, and then come here and
stand before me in my temple and chant.
We are safe.
Only to go right back to all those evils again, don't you yourselves
admit that this temple, which bears my name, has become a den of thieves.
Surely I see all the evil going on there.
I the Lord have spoken.
Go now to the place that Shiloh, where I once put the tabernacle that bore my name.
See what I did there because of all the wickedness of my people, the Israelites.
While you were doing these wicked things, says the Lord, I spoke to you about it
repeatedly, but you would not listen.
I called out to you but you refused to answer.
So just as I destroyed Shiloh, I will now destroy this temple that bears my name,
this temple that you trust in for help.
This place that I gave to you and your ancestors.
And I will send you out of my sight into exile just as I did your
relatives, the people of Israel.
Pray no more for these people.
Jeremiah, do not weep or pray for them.
And don't beg me to help them for I will not listen to you.
Don't you see what they're doing throughout the towns of Judah
and in the streets of Jerusalem?
No wonder I am so angry.
Watch how the children gather wood and the fathers build sacrificial fires.
See how the women need dough and make cakes to offer to the queen
of heaven, and they pour out liquid offerings to their other idle gods.
Am I the one they are hurting?
Asks the Lord.
Most of all, they hurt themselves to their own shame.
So this is what the sovereign Lord says.
I will pour out my terrible fury on this place.
It's people, animals, trees, and crops will be consumed by the
unquenchable fire of my anger.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says, take
your burnt offerings and your other sacrifices and eat them yourselves.
When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings
and sacrifices I wanted from them.
This is what I told them.
Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people.
Do everything as I say, and all will be well, but my
people would not listen to me.
They kept doing whatever they wanted, following the stubborn
desires of their evil hearts.
They went backward instead of forward.
From the day your ancestors left Egypt until now, I have continued to
send my servants the prophets day in and day out, but my people have not
listened to me or even tried to hear.
They have been stubborn and sinful, even worse than their ancestors.
Tell them all this, but do not expect them to listen.
Shout out your warnings, but do not expect them to respond.
Say to them, this is the nation whose people will not obey the Lord their
God, and who refuse to be taught truth has vanished from among them
it is no longer heard on their lips.
Shave your head in mourning and weep alone on the mountains.
For the Lord has rejected and forsaken this generation
that has provoked his fury.
The people of Judah have sinned before my very eyes says the Lord.
They have set up their abominable idols right in the temple that
bears my name, defiling it.
They have built pagan shrines at tophi, the garbage dump in the valley
of Ben Heim, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire.
I have never commanded such a horrible deeded.
It never even crossed my mind to command such a thing.
So beware for the time is coming, says the Lord.
When that garbage dump will no longer be called tophi or the Valley of Ben
Heim, but the valley of slaughter, they will bury the bodies in tophi
until there is no more room for them.
The bodies of my people will be food for the vultures and wild animals, and
no one will be left to scare them away.
I will put an end to the happiest singing and laughter in the streets of Jerusalem.
The joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides will no longer be
heard in the towns of Judah.
The land will lie in complete desolation in that day, says the Lord.
The enemy will break open the graves of the kings and officials of Judah and
the graves of the priests, prophets, and common people of Jerusalem.
They will spread out their bones on the ground before the
sun, moon, and stars the gods.
My people have loved, served and worshiped.
Their bones will not be gathered up again or buried, but will be
scattered on the ground like manure.
And the people of this evil nation who survive will wish to die rather
than live where I will send them.
I the Lord of Heaven's armies have spoken.
Jeremiah.
Say to the people, this is what the Lord says.
When people fall down, don't they get up again?
When they discover they're on the wrong road, don't they turn back?
Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path?
Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back?
They clinging tightly to their lies and will not turn around.
I listen to their conversations and don't hear a word of truth.
Is anyone sorry for doing wrong?
Does anyone say what a terrible thing I have done?
No.
All are running down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse scalloping into battle.
Even the stork that flies across the sky knows the time of her migration, as do the
turtle dove, the swallow and the crane.
They all return at the proper time each year, but not my people.
They do not know the Lord's laws.
How can you say we are wise because we have the word of the Lord.
When your teachers have twisted it by writing lies, these wise
teachers will fall into the trap of their own foolishness.
For they have rejected the word of the Lord.
Are they so wise?
After all, I will give their wives to others and their farms to strangers
from the least to the greatest.
Their lives are ruled by greed.
I.
Yes.
Even my prophets and priests are like that.
They are all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments for my people's mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace when there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of these disgusting actions?
Not at all.
They don't even know how to blush.
Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered.
They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.
I will surely consume them.
There will be no more harvests of figs and grapes.
Their fruit trees will all die.
Whatever I gave them will soon be gone.
I the Lord have spoken.
Then the people will say, why should we wait here to die?
Come let's go to the fortified towns and die there.
For the Lord, our God has decreed our destruction and has given us
a cup of poison to drink because we sinned against the Lord.
We hoped for peace, but no peace came.
We hoped for a time of healing, but found only terror.
The snorting of the enemy's war horses can be heard all the way
from the land of Dan in the north.
The naying of their stallions makes the whole land tremble.
They're coming to devour the land and everything in it, cities and people alike.
I will send these enemy troops among you like poisonous snakes.
You cannot charm.
They will bite you and you will die.
I the Lord have spoken.
My grief is beyond healing.
My heart is broken.
Listen to the weeping of my people.
It can be heard all across the land.
Has the Lord abandoned Jerusalem?
The people ask, is her king no longer there?
Oh, why have they provoked my anger with their carved idols
and their worthless foreign gods?
Says the Lord.
The harvest is finished and the summer is gone.
The people cry.
Yet we are not saved.
I hurt with the hurt of my people.
I mourn and am overcome with grief.
Is there no medicine in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why is there no healing for the wounds of my people?
If only my head were a pool of water and my eyes a fountain of tears.
I would weep day and night for all my people who have been slaughtered.
Oh, that I could go away and forget my people and live in a traveler's shack in
the desert for they're all adulterers.
A pack of treacherous liars.
My people bend their tongues like bows to shoot out lies.
They refuse to stand up for the truth.
They only go from bad to worse.
They do not know me, says the Lord.
Beware of your neighbor.
Don't even trust your brother.
For brother takes advantage of brother and friend, slander's friend.
They all fool and defraud each other.
No one tells the truth.
With practiced tongues they tell lies.
They wear themselves out with all their sinning.
They pile lie upon lie and utterly refuse to acknowledge me, says the Lord.
Therefore, this is what the Lord of heaven's armies says.
See, I will melt them down in a crucible and test them like metal.
What else can I do with my people?
For their tongues, shoot lies like poisoned arrows.
They speak friendly words to their neighbors while scheming
in their heart to kill them.
Should I not punish them for this?
Says the Lord.
Should I not avenge myself against such a nation, I will weep for the mountains
and wail for the wilderness pastures for they are desolate and empty of life.
The lowing of cattle is herd.
No more the birds and wild animals have all fled.
I will make Jerusalem into a heap of ruins, says the Lord.
It will be a place haunted by jackals.
The towns of Judah will be ghost towns with no one living in them.
Who is wise enough to understand all this, who has been instructed by the
Lord and can explain it to others.
Why has the land been so ruined that no one dares to travel through it?
The Lord replies.
This has happened because my people have abandoned my instructions.
They have refused to obey what I said.
Instead, they have stubbornly followed their own desires and worshiped the images
of Baal as their ancestors taught them.
So now this is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel
says, look, I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink.
I will scatter them around the world in places they and
their ancestors never heard of.
And even there, I will chase them with the sword until I
have destroyed them completely.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says.
Consider all this and call for the mourners.
Send for the women who mourn at funerals quick.
Begin your weeping.
Let the tears flow from your eyes.
Hear the people of Jerusalem crying in despair.
We are ruined.
We are completely humiliated.
We must leave our land because our homes have been torn down.
Listen you women to the words of the Lord.
Open your ears to what he has to say.
Teach your daughters to teach one another.
How to lament for death has crept in through our windows
and has entered our mansions.
It has killed off the flower of our youth.
Children no longer play in the streets, and young men no
longer gather in the squares.
This is what the Lord says.
Bodies will be scattered across the fields like clumps of
manure, like bundles of grain.
After the harvest, no one will be left to bury them.
This is what the Lord says.
Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom or the powerful boast in
their power, or the rich boast in their riches, but those who wish to
boast should boast in this alone.
That they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who demonstrates
unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I the Lord have spoken.
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, the people who live
in the desert in remote places.
And yes, even the people of Judah and like all these pagan nations, the people
of Israel also have uncircumcised hearts.
Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you.
O Israel.
This is what the Lord says.
Do not act like the other nations who try to read their future in the stars.
Do not be afraid of their predictions.
Even though other nations are terrified by them, their ways are futile and foolish.
They cut down a tree and a craftsman carves an idol.
They decorate it with gold and silver and then fasten it securely with
hammer and nails so it won't fall over.
Their gods are like helpless, scarecrows in a cucumber field.
They cannot speak and they need to be carried because they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of such gods for they can neither harm
you, nor do you any good Lord.
There is no one like you.
For you are great and your name is full of power.
Who would not fear you?
Oh, king of Nations.
That title belongs to you alone among all the wise people of the earth and
in all the kingdoms of the world.
There is no one like you.
People who worship idols are stupid and foolish.
The things they worship are made of wood.
They bring beaten sheets of silver from Tarshish and gold, from ufa.
They give these materials to skillful craftsmen who make their idols.
Then they dress these gods in royal blue and purple robes made by expert tailors.
But the Lord is the only true God.
He is the living God and the everlasting king.
The whole earth trembles at his anger.
The nations cannot stand up to his wrath.
Say this to those who worship other gods, your so-called Gods.
Who did not make the heavens and earth will vanish from the
earth and from under the heavens.
But the Lord made the earth by his power and he preserves it by his wisdom.
With his own understanding, he stretched out the heavens.
When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain.
He causes the clouds to rise over the earth.
He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses.
The whole human race is foolish and has no knowledge.
The craftsmen are disgraced by the idols they make for their
carefully shaped works are a fraud.
These idols have no breath or power.
Idols are worthless.
They are ridiculous Lies.
On the day of reckoning, they will all be destroyed.
But the God of Israel is no idol.
He is the creator of everything that exists.
Including Israel, his own special possession.
The Lord of Heaven's armies is his name.
Pack your bags and prepare to leave.
The siege is about to begin for this is what the Lord says.
Suddenly I will fling out all you who live in this land.
I will pour great troubles upon you and at last you will feel my anger.
My wound is severe and my grief is great.
My sickness is incurable, but I must bear it.
My home is gone and no one is left to help me rebuild it.
My children have been taken away and I will never see them again.
The shepherds of my people have lost their senses.
They no longer seek wisdom from the Lord.
Therefore, they fail completely and their flocks are scattered.
Listen, hear the terrifying roar of great armies as they roll down from
the north, the towns of Judah will be destroyed and become a haunt for jackals.
I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own.
We are not able to plan our own course.
So correct me Lord, but please be gentle.
Do not correct me in anger for I would die.
Pour out your wrath on the nations that refuse to acknowledge you on the peoples
that do not call upon your name for they have devoured your people Israel.
They have devoured and consumed them making the land a desolate wilderness.
This concludes today's immerse reading experience.
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