Along The Way (September 8th - 14th)

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  • Jeremiah 5

    The Utter Corruption of God’s People

    Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,

    look around and take note!

    Search its squares and see

    if you can find one person

    who acts justly

    and seeks truth —

    so that I may pardon Jerusalem.

    Although they say, “As the Lord lives,”

    yet they swear falsely.

    O Lord, do your eyes not look for truth?

    You have struck them,

    but they felt no anguish;

    you have consumed them,

    but they refused to take correction.

    They have made their faces harder than rock;

    they have refused to turn back.

    Then I said, “These are only the poor;

    they have no sense,

    for they do not know the way of the Lord,

    the law of their God.

    Let me go to the rich

    and speak to them;

    surely they know the way of the Lord,

    the law of their God.”

    But they all alike had broken the yoke;

    they had burst the bonds.

    Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them;

    a wolf from the desert shall destroy them.

    A leopard is watching against their cities;

    everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,

    because their transgressions are many;

    their faithlessness is great.

    How can I pardon you?

    Your children have forsaken me

    and have sworn by those who are no gods.

    When I fed them to the full,

    they committed adultery

    and trooped to the houses of prostitutes.

    They were well-fed lusty stallions,

    each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.

    Shall I not punish them for these things?

    says the Lord,

    and shall I not bring retribution

    on a nation such as this?

    Go up through her vine rows and destroy,

    but do not make a full end;

    strip away her branches,

    for they are not the Lord’s.

    For the house of Israel and the house of Judah

    have been utterly faithless to me,

    says the Lord.

    They have spoken falsely of the Lord

    and have said, “He will do nothing.

    No evil will come upon us,

    and we shall not see sword or famine.”

    The prophets are nothing but wind,

    for the word is not in them.

    Thus shall it be done to them!

    Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts:

    Because you have spoken this word,

    I am now making my words in your mouth a fire

    and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them.

    I am going to bring upon you

    a nation from far away, O house of Israel,

    says the Lord.

    It is an enduring nation;

    it is an ancient nation,

    a nation whose language you do not know,

    nor can you understand what they say.

    Their quiver is like an open tomb;

    all of them are mighty warriors.

    They shall eat up your harvest and your food;

    they shall eat up your sons and your daughters;

    they shall eat up your flocks and your herds;

    they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees;

    they shall destroy with the sword

    your fortified cities in which you trust.

    But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not make a full end of you. And when your people say, “Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?” you shall say to them, “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”

    Declare this in the house of Jacob;

    proclaim it in Judah:

    Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,

    who have eyes but do not see,

    who have ears but do not hear.

    Do you not fear me? says the Lord;

    Do you not tremble before me?

    I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,

    a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;

    though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;

    though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

    But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;

    they have turned aside and gone away.

    They do not say in their hearts,

    “Let us fear the Lord our God,

    who gives the rain in its season,

    the autumn rain and the spring rain,

    and keeps for us

    the weeks appointed for the harvest.”

    Your iniquities have turned these away,

    and your sins have deprived you of good.

    For the wicked are found among my people.

    They lie in wait like hunters;

    destroyers, they catch humans.

    Like a cage full of birds,

    their houses are full of treachery;

    therefore they have become great and rich;

    they have grown fat and sleek.

    They know no limits in deeds of wickedness;

    they do not judge with justice

    the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper,

    and they do not defend the rights of the needy.

    Shall I not punish them for these things?

    says the Lord,

    and shall I not bring retribution

    on a nation such as this?

    An appalling and horrible thing

    has happened in the land:

    the prophets prophesy falsely,

    and the priests rule as the prophets direct;

    my people love to have it so,

    but what will you do when the end comes?

  • Jeremiah 6

    The Imminence and Horror of the Invasion

    Flee for safety, O children of Benjamin,

    from the midst of Jerusalem!

    Blow the trumpet in Tekoa,

    and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem,

    for evil looms out of the north

    and great destruction.

    I have likened daughter Zion

    to the loveliest pasture.

    Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her.

    They shall pitch their tents around her;

    they shall pasture, all in their places.

    “Prepare war against her;

    up, and let us attack at noon!”

    “Woe to us, for the day declines;

    the shadows of evening lengthen!”

    “Up, and let us attack by night,

    and destroy her palaces!”

    For thus says the Lord of hosts:

    Cut down her trees;

    cast up a siege ramp against Jerusalem.

    This is the city that must be punished;

    there is nothing but oppression within her.

    As a well keeps its water fresh,

    so she keeps fresh her wickedness;

    violence and destruction are heard within her;

    sickness and wounds are ever before me.

    Take warning, O Jerusalem,

    or I shall turn from you in disgust

    and make you a desolation,

    an uninhabited land.

    Thus says the Lord of hosts:

    Glean thoroughly as a vine

    the remnant of Israel;

    like a grape gatherer, pass your hand again

    over its branches.

    To whom shall I speak and give warning,

    that they may hear?

    See, their ears are closed;

    they cannot listen.

    The word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn;

    they take no pleasure in it.

    But I am full of the wrath of the Lord;

    I am weary of holding it in.

    Pour it out on the children in the street

    and on the gatherings of young men as well;

    both husband and wife shall be taken,

    the elderly and those full of days.

    Their houses shall be turned over to others,

    their fields and wives together;

    for I will stretch out my hand

    against the inhabitants of the land,

    says the Lord.

    For from the least to the greatest of them,

    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

    and from prophet to priest,

    everyone deals falsely.

    They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,

    saying, “Peace, peace,”

    when there is no peace.

    They acted shamefully; they committed abomination,

    yet they were not ashamed;

    they did not know how to blush.

    Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;

    at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

    says the Lord.

    Thus says the Lord:

    Stand at the crossroads and look,

    and ask for the ancient paths,

    where the good way lies; and walk in it,

    and find rest for your souls.

    But they said, “We will not walk in it.”

    Also I raised up sentinels for you:

    “Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!”

    But they said, “We will not give heed.”

    Therefore hear, O nations,

    and know, O congregation, what will happen to them.

    Hear, O earth; I am going to bring disaster on this people,

    the fruit of their schemes,

    because they have not given heed to my words,

    and as for my teaching, they have rejected it.

    Of what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba

    or sweet cane from a distant land?

    Your burnt offerings are not acceptable,

    nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me.

    Therefore thus says the Lord:

    See, I am laying before this people

    stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble;

    parents and children together,

    neighbor and friend shall perish.

    Thus says the Lord:

    See, a people is coming from the land of the north;

    a great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.

    They grasp the bow and the javelin;

    they are cruel and have no mercy;

    their sound is like the roaring sea;

    they ride on horses,

    equipped like a warrior for battle,

    against you, O daughter Zion!

    “We have heard news of them;

    our hands fall helpless;

    anguish has taken hold of us,

    pain as of a woman in labor.

    Do not go out into the field

    or walk on the road,

    for the enemy has a sword;

    terror is on every side.”

    O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth

    and roll in ashes;

    make mourning as for an only child,

    most bitter lamentation,

    for suddenly the destroyer

    will come upon us.

    I have made you a tester and a refiner among my people

    so that you may know and test their ways.

    They are all stubbornly rebellious,

    going about with slanders;

    they are bronze and iron;

    all of them act corruptly.

    The bellows blow fiercely;

    the lead is consumed by the fire;

    in vain the refining goes on,

    for the wicked are not removed.

    They are called “rejected silver,”

    for the Lord has rejected them.

  • Jeremiah 7

    Jeremiah Proclaims God’s Judgment on the Nation

    The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you who enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”

    For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors forever and ever.

    Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!” — only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? I, too, am watching, says the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors just what I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

    The People’s Disobedience

    As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. Is it I whom they provoke? says the Lord. Is it not themselves, to their own hurt? Therefore thus says the Lord God: My anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on humans and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.

    Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels and looked backward rather than forward. From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day, yet they did not listen to me or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

    So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

    Cut off your hair and throw it away;

    raise a lamentation on the bare heights,

    for the Lord has rejected and forsaken

    the generation that provoked his wrath.

    For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire — which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom but the valley of Slaughter, for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the animals of the earth, and no one will frighten them away. And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for the land shall become a waste.

  • Jeremiah 8

    At that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs, and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have followed, and which they have inquired of and worshiped, and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Blind Perversity of the Whole Nation

    You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:

    When people fall, do they not get up again?

    If they go astray, do they not turn back?

    Why then has this people turned away

    in perpetual faithlessness?

    They have held fast to deceit;

    they have refused to return.

    I have given heed and listened,

    but they do not speak honestly;

    no one repents of wickedness,

    saying, “What have I done!”

    All of them turn to their own course

    like a horse plunging headlong into battle.

    Even the stork in the heavens

    knows its times,

    and the turtledove, swallow, and crane

    observe the time of their coming,

    but my people do not know

    the ordinance of the Lord.

    How can you say, “We are wise,

    and the law of the Lord is with us,”

    when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes

    has made it into a lie?

    The wise shall be put to shame;

    they shall be dismayed and taken;

    since they have rejected the word of the Lord,

    what wisdom is in them?

    Therefore I will give their wives to others

    and their fields to conquerors,

    because from the least to the greatest

    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

    from prophet to priest,

    everyone deals falsely.

    They have treated the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly,

    saying, “Peace, peace,”

    when there is no peace.

    They acted shamefully; they committed abomination,

    yet they were not at all ashamed;

    they did not know how to blush.

    Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;

    at the time when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

    says the Lord.

    I will surely gather them, says the Lord;

    there are no grapes on the vine

    nor figs on the fig tree;

    even the leaves are withered,

    and what I gave them has passed away from them.

    Why do we sit still?

    Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities

    and perish there,

    for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish

    and has given us poisoned water to drink

    because we have sinned against the Lord.

    We look for peace but find no good,

    for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

    The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;

    at the sound of the neighing of their stallions

    the whole land quakes.

    They come and devour the land and all that fills it,

    the city and those who live in it.

    See, I am letting snakes loose among you,

    adders that cannot be charmed,

    and they shall bite you,

    says the Lord.

    The Prophet Mourns for the People

    My joy is gone; grief is upon me;

    my heart is sick.

    Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people

    from far and wide in the land:

    “Is the Lord not in Zion?

    Is her King not in her?”

    (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,

    with their foreign idols?”)

    “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

    and we are not saved.”

    For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,

    I mourn, and horror has seized me.

    Is there no balm in Gilead?

    Is there no physician there?

    Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

    not been restored?

  • Jeremiah 9

    O that my head were a spring of water

    and my eyes a fountain of tears,

    so that I might weep day and night

    for the slain of the daughter of my people!

    O that I had in the desert

    a traveler’s lodging place,

    that I might leave my people

    and go away from them!

    For they are all adulterers,

    a band of traitors.

    They bend their tongues like bows;

    they have grown strong in the land for falsehood and not for truth,

    for they proceed from evil to evil,

    and they do not know me, says the Lord.

    Beware of your neighbors,

    and put no trust in any of your kin,

    for all your kin are supplanters,

    and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer.

    They all deceive their neighbors,

    and no one speaks the truth;

    they have taught their tongues to speak lies;

    they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.

    Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit!

    They refuse to know me, says the Lord.

    Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:

    I will now refine and test them,

    for what else can I do with the daughter of my people?

    Their tongue is a deadly arrow;

    it speaks deceit through the mouth.

    They all speak friendly words to their neighbors

    but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.

    Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord,

    and shall I not bring retribution

    on a nation such as this?

    Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains

    and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness,

    because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,

    and the lowing of cattle is not heard;

    both the birds of the air and the animals

    have fled and are gone.

    I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,

    a lair of jackals,

    and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation,

    without inhabitant.

    Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that they may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? And the Lord says: Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accordance with it but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am feeding this people with wormwood and giving them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.

    The People Mourn in Judgment

    Thus says the Lord of hosts:

    Consider and call for the mourning women to come;

    send for the skilled women to come;

    let them quickly raise a dirge over us,

    so that our eyes may run down with tears

    and our eyelids flow with water.

    For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:

    “How we are ruined!

    We are utterly shamed

    because we have left the land,

    because they have cast down our dwellings.”

    Hear, O women, the word of the Lord,

    and let your ears receive the word of his mouth;

    teach to your daughters a dirge

    and each to her neighbor a lament.

    “Death has come up into our windows;

    it has entered our palaces

    to cut off the children from the streets

    and the young men from the squares.”

    Speak! Thus says the Lord:

    “Human corpses shall fall

    like dung upon the open field,

    like sheaves behind the reaper,

    and no one shall gather them.”

    Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom; do not let the mighty boast in their might; do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.

    The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will attend to all those who are circumcised only in the foreskin: Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaved temples who live in the desert. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

  • Jeremiah 10

    Idolatry Has Brought Ruin on Israel

    Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:

    Do not learn the way of the nations

    or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens,

    for the nations are dismayed at them.

    For the customs of the peoples are false:

    a tree from the forest is cut down

    and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;

    they deck it with silver and gold;

    they fasten it with hammers and nails

    so that it cannot move.

    Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,

    and they cannot speak;

    they have to be carried,

    for they cannot walk.

    Do not be afraid of them,

    for they cannot do evil,

    nor is it in them to do good.

    There is none like you, O Lord;

    you are great, and your name is great in might.

    Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?

    For that is your due;

    among all the wise ones of the nations

    and in all their kingdoms

    there is no one like you.

    They are both stupid and foolish;

    the instruction given by idols

    is no better than wood!

    Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish

    and gold from Uphaz.

    They are the work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith;

    their clothing is blue and purple;

    they are all the product of skilled workers.

    But the Lord is the true God;

    he is the living God and the everlasting King.

    At his wrath the earth quakes,

    and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

    Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.

    It is he who made the earth by his power,

    who established the world by his wisdom

    and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

    When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,

    and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.

    He makes lightning for the rain

    and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

    Everyone is stupid and without knowledge;

    goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols,

    for their images are false,

    and there is no breath in them.

    They are worthless, a work of delusion;

    at the time of their punishment they shall perish.

    The portion of Jacob is not like these,

    for he is the one who formed all things,

    and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;

    the Lord of hosts is his name.

    The Coming Exile

    Gather up your bundle from the ground,

    O you who live under siege!

    For thus says the Lord:

    I am going to sling out the inhabitants of the land

    at this time,

    and I will bring distress on them,

    so that they shall feel it.

    Woe is me because of my hurt!

    My wound is severe.

    But I said, “Truly this is my punishment,

    and I must bear it.”

    My tent is destroyed,

    and all my cords are broken;

    my children have gone from me,

    and they are no more;

    there is no one to spread my tent again

    and to set up my curtains.

    For the shepherds are stupid

    and do not inquire of the Lord;

    therefore they have not prospered,

    and all their flock is scattered.

    Hear, a noise! Listen, it is coming —

    a great commotion from the land of the north

    to make the cities of Judah a desolation,

    a lair of jackals.

    I know, O Lord, that the way of humans is not in their control,

    that mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps.

    Correct me, O Lord, but in just measure;

    not in your anger, or you will bring me to nothing.

    Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you

    and on the peoples that do not call on your name,

    for they have devoured Jacob;

    they have devoured him and consumed him

    and have laid waste his habitation.

  • Jeremiah 11 & 12

    Israel and Judah Have Broken the Covenant

    The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be anyone who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron smelter, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God, that I may perform the oath that I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.’ ” Then I answered, “So be it, Lord.”

    And the Lord said to me: Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and do them. For I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, “Obey my voice.” Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of an evil will. So I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.

    And the Lord said to me: Conspiracy exists among the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors of old, who refused to heed my words; they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant that I made with their ancestors. Therefore, thus says the Lord, assuredly I am going to bring disaster upon them that they cannot escape; though they cry out to me, I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they make offerings, but they will never save them in the time of their trouble. For your gods have become as many as your towns, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars to shame you have set up, altars to make offerings to Baal.

    As for you, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble. What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done vile deeds? Can vows and sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult? The Lord once called you, “A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit,” but with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.

    Jeremiah’s Life Threatened

    It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;

    then you showed me their deeds.

    But I was like a gentle lamb

    led to the slaughter.

    And I did not know it was against me

    that they devised schemes, saying,

    “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;

    let us cut him off from the land of the living,

    so that his name will no longer be remembered!”

    But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,

    who try the heart and the mind,

    let me see your retribution upon them,

    for to you I have committed my cause.

    Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the people of Anathoth who seek your life and say, “You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hand” — therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: I am going to punish them; the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine, and not even a remnant shall be left of them. For I will bring disaster upon the people of Anathoth, the year of their punishment.

    Jeremiah Complains to God

    You will be in the right, O Lord,

    when I lay charges against you,

    but let me put my case to you.

    Why does the way of the guilty prosper?

    Why do all who are treacherous thrive?

    You plant them, and they take root;

    they grow and bring forth fruit;

    you are near in their mouths

    yet far from their hearts.

    But you, O Lord, know me;

    you see me and test me; my heart is with you.

    Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,

    and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

    How long will the land mourn

    and the grass of every field wither?

    For the wickedness of those who live in it,

    the animals and the birds are swept away,

    and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.”

    God Replies to Jeremiah

    If you have raced with runners and they have wearied you,

    how will you compete with horses?

    And if you trust in a safe land,

    how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan?

    For even your kinsfolk and your own family,

    even they have dealt treacherously with you;

    they are in full cry after you;

    do not believe them,

    though they speak friendly words to you.

    I have forsaken my house;

    I have abandoned my heritage;

    I have given the beloved of my heart

    into the hands of her enemies.

    My heritage has become to me

    like a lion in the forest;

    she has lifted up her voice against me —

    therefore I hate her.

    Is the hawk hungry for my heritage?

    Are the vultures all around her?

    Go, assemble all the wild animals;

    bring them to devour her.

    Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard;

    they have trampled down my portion;

    they have made my pleasant portion

    a desolate wilderness.

    They have made it a desolation;

    desolate, it mourns to me.

    The whole land is made desolate,

    but no one lays it to heart.

    Upon all the bare heights in the desert,

    spoilers have come,

    for the sword of the Lord devours

    from one end of the land to the other;

    no one shall be safe.

    They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;

    they have tired themselves out but profit nothing.

    They shall be ashamed of their harvests

    because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

    Thus says the Lord concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: I am about to pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. And after I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again to their heritage and to their land, every one of them. And then, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, “As the Lord lives,” as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. But if any nation will not listen, then I will completely uproot it and destroy it, says the Lord

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Weekly Greeting - September 8th, 2023

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Bethlehem News - September 8th, 2023