Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Jeremiah 10
Made gods and the living God
House of Israel, hear the word the LORD has spoken about you.
This is what the LORD says:
“Do not learn the way of the nations
or be terrified by signs in the sky,
though the nations are terrified by them.
The peoples’ customs are emptiness.
Someone cuts a tree from the forest;
a craftworker shapes it with a tool.
They adorn it with silver and gold,
fasten it with nails and hammers
so it will not wobble.
Like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
they cannot speak.
They must be carried, because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them:
they can do no harm,
and they have no power to do good.”
No one is like you, LORD.
You are great;
your name is great in might.
Who would not fear you, King of the nations?
It is your due.
Among all the nations’ wise ones
and throughout their kingdoms,
no one is like you.
All together they are senseless and foolish;
the instruction of empty idols is only wood.
Beaten silver comes from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz,
the work of a craftworker and a goldsmith’s hands.
Blue and purple are their clothing;
all of it is skilled workers’ handiwork.
But the LORD is the true God;
he is the living God and everlasting King.
The earth trembles at his anger;
the nations cannot endure his fury.
This is what you are to tell them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will vanish from the earth and from beneath these heavens.”
He made the earth by his power,
established the world by his wisdom,
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
When he gives voice, waters roar in the heavens.
He raises clouds from the ends of the earth,
makes lightning for the rain,
and brings wind out of his storehouses.
Everyone is senseless, without knowledge;
every goldsmith is shamed by the carved image.
The image he casts is a lie;
there is no breath in them.
They are emptiness, objects of mockery.
When they are called to account, they will perish.
Jacob’s portion is not like these,
for he is the one who forms everything.
Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the LORD of hosts is his name.
The ruined tent
Gather your bundle from the ground,
you who live under siege.
For this is what the LORD says:
“This time I am slinging out the land’s inhabitants.
I will press them hard,
so that they feel it.”
Oh, my brokenness!
My wound is severe.
Yet I said, “This is my sickness,
and I must bear it.”
My tent is destroyed;
all its ropes are snapped.
My children have gone from me and are no more.
There is no one left to pitch my tent
or hang its curtains.
The shepherds have become senseless
and have not sought the LORD.
So they have not prospered,
and their whole flock is scattered.
Listen—a report is coming!
A great uproar from the northern land,
to turn Judah’s cities into a wasteland,
a home for jackals.
I know, LORD, that people do not own their way;
those who walk cannot direct their own steps.
Correct me, LORD, but with justice,
not in your anger,
or you will reduce me to nothing.
Pour out your fury on the nations that do not know you,
on the families that do not call on your name.
For they have devoured Jacob—
devoured him and consumed him—
and laid waste his home.