Shared Word Translation
Jeremiah 16
The word of the LORD came to me, saying:
You must not take a wife for yourself, nor have sons or daughters in this place.
For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who father them in this land:
They will die deaths of disease. They will not be mourned or buried; they will become dung on the surface of the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.
For thus says the LORD: Do not enter a house of mourning; do not go to mourn or show sympathy for them. For I have taken away my peace from this people, declares the LORD—steadfast love and compassion.
Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and no one will mourn for them, cut themselves, or shave their head for them.
No one will break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; no one will give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or their mother.
And do not enter a house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.
For thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Look, before your eyes and in your days, I am bringing to an end in this place the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of bridegroom and the voice of bride.
When you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, “Why has the LORD spoken against us all this great disaster? What is our iniquity? What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?”
then say to them, “Because your ancestors forsook me, declares the LORD, and went after other gods, served them, and bowed down to them. They forsook me and did not keep my instruction.
But you have acted more wickedly than your ancestors. Look, each of you follows the stubbornness of your evil heart, refusing to listen to me.
So I will hurl you from this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will give you no favor.”
Therefore, look, days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no longer be said, “As the LORD lives, who brought up the people of Israel from the land of Egypt,”
but, “As the LORD lives, who brought up the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their land, which I gave to their ancestors.
Look, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks.
For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from before me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
First I will repay double for their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their detestable things and filled my inheritance with their abominations.
O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of distress, to you nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Surely our ancestors inherited only falsehood, emptiness, and things in which there is no benefit.”
Can a human make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods.
Therefore, look, this time I will make them know; I will make them know my hand and my might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.