Jeremiah
13
- This is what the LORD said to me: "Go
and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch
water."
- So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed,
and put it around my waist.
- Then the word of the LORD came to me a second
time:
- "Take the belt you bought and are wearing
around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in
the rocks."
- So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD
told me.
- Many days later the LORD said to me, "Go
now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there."
- So I went to Perath and dug up the belt
and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and
completely useless.
- Then the word of the LORD came to me:
- "This is what the LORD says: 'In the
same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
- These wicked people, who refuse to listen
to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other
gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt -- completely useless
!
- For as a belt is bound around a man's waist,
so I bound the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to me,'
declares the LORD, 'to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But
they have not listened.'
- "Say to them: 'This is what the LORD,
the God of Israel, says: Every wineskin should be filled with wine.' And if
they say to you, 'Don't we know that every wineskin should be filled with
wine ?'
- then tell them, 'This is what the LORD says:
I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the
kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living
in Jerusalem.
- I will smash them one against the other,
fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or
compassion to keep me from destroying them.'"
- Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant,
for the LORD has spoken.
- Give glory to the LORD your God before he
brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You
hope for light, but he will turn it to thick darkness and change it to deep
gloom.
- But if you do not listen, I will weep in
secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with
tears, because the LORD'S flock will be taken captive.
- Say to the king and to the queen mother,
"Come down from your thrones, for your glorious crowns will fall from
your heads."
- The cities in the Negev will be shut up,
and there will be no one to open them. All Judah will be carried into exile,
carried completely away.
- Lift up your eyes and see those who are
coming from the north. Where is the flock that was entrusted to you, the sheep
of which you boasted ?
- What will you say when the LORD sets over
you those you cultivated as your special allies? Will not pain grip you like
that of a woman in labor ?
- And if you ask yourself, "Why has this
happened to me?" -- it is because of your many sins that your skirts
have been torn off and your body mistreated.
- Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the
leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
- "I will scatter you like chaff driven
by the desert wind.
- This is your lot, the portion I have decreed
for you," declares the LORD, "because you have forgotten me and
trusted in false gods.
- I will pull up your skirts over your face
that your shame may be seen --
- your adulteries and lustful neighings, your
shameless prostitution! I have seen your detestable acts on the hills and
in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you be unclean ?"
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