16 This is what the Lord says:
“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,
Where the good way is, and walk in it;
Then you will find a resting place for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
17 And I set watchmen over you, saying,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ‘We will not listen.’
18 Therefore hear, you nations,
And know, you congregation, what is among them.
19 Hear, earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people,
The fruit of their plans,
Because they have not listened to My words,
And as for My Law, they have rejected it also.
20 For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba,
And the sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt offerings are not acceptable
And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.”
21 Therefore, this is what the Lord says:
“Behold, I am placing stumbling blocks before this people.
And they will stumble against them,
Fathers and sons together;
Neighbor and friend will perish.”
22 This is what the Lord says:
“Behold, there is a people coming from the north land,
And a great nation will be stirred up from the remote parts of the earth.
23 They seize bow and spear;
They are cruel and have no mercy;
Their voice roars like the sea,
And they ride on horses,
Lined up as a man for the battle
Against you, daughter of Zion!”
24 We have heard the report of it;
Our hands are limp.
Anguish has seized us,
Pain like that of a woman in childbirth.
25 Do not go out into the field,
And do not walk on the road;
For the enemy has a sword,
Terror is on every side.
26 Daughter of my people, put on sackcloth
And roll in ashes;
Mourn as for an only son,
A most bitter mourning.
For suddenly the destroyer
Will come against us.
27 “I have made you an assayer and an examiner among My people,
So that you may know and put their way to the test.”
28 All of them are stubbornly rebellious,
Going about as a slanderer;
They are bronze and iron.
They are, all of them, corrupt.
29 The bellows blow fiercely,
The lead is consumed by the fire;
In vain the refining goes on,
But the wicked are not separated.
30 They call them rejected silver,
Because the Lord has rejected them.
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord!’” 3 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5 For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a person and his neighbor, 6 if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor follow other gods to your own ruin, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8 “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, offer sacrifices to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, 10 then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are saved!’—so that you may do all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I Myself have seen it,” declares the Lord.
12 “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord, “and I spoke to you, speaking again and again, but you did not listen, and I called you but you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh. 15 I will hurl you out of My sight, just as I have hurled out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.
16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not plead with Me; for I am not listening to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to provoke Me to anger. 19 Are they provoking Me?” declares the Lord. “Is it not themselves instead, to their own shame?” 20 Therefore this is what the Lord God says: “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on human and animal life, and on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”
21 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 22 For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them on the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you shall walk entirely in the way which I command you, so that it may go well for you.’ 24 Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked by their own advice and in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and they went backward and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, sending them daily, again and again. 26 Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.
27 “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God or accept discipline; trustworthiness has perished and has been eliminated from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair and throw it away,
And take up a song of mourning on the bare heights;
For the Lord has rejected and forsaken
The generation of His wrath.’
30 For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight,” declares the Lord. “They have put their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.
32 “Therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place. 33 The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34 Then I will eliminate from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a site of ruins.
1 “At that time,” declares the Lord, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its leaders, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. 2 They will spread them out to the sun, the moon, and to all the heavenly lights, which they have loved, which they have served, which they have followed, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered nor buried; they will be like dung on the face of the ground. 3 And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places to which I have driven them,” declares the Lord of armies.
4 “You shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:
“Do people fall and not get up?
Does one turn away and not repent?
5 Why has this people, Jerusalem,
Turned away in continual apostasy?
They hold on to deceit,
They refuse to return.
6 I have listened and heard,
They have spoken what is not right;
No one repented of his wickedness,
Saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turned to his own course,
Like a horse charging into the battle.
7 Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons;
And the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane
Keep to the time of their migration;
But My people do not know
The judgment of the Lord.
8 See to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception in accordance with human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of the world, rather than in accordance with Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over every ruler and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision performed without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, 14 having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16 Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— 17 things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding firmly to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of man? 23 These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
1 Listen, my people, to my instruction;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will tell riddles of old,
3 Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
4 We will not conceal them from their children,
But we will tell the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His power and His wondrous works that He has done.
5 For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers
That they were to teach them to their children,
6 So that the generation to come would know, the children yet to be born,
That they would arise and tell them to their children,
7 So that they would put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God,
But comply with His commandments,
8 And not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not prepare its heart
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows,
Yet they turned back on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the covenant of God
And refused to walk in His Law;
11 They forgot His deeds
And His miracles that He had shown them.
12 He performed wonders before their fathers
In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,
And He made the waters stand up like a heap.
14 Then He led them with the cloud by day
And all the night with a light of fire.
15 He split the rocks in the wilderness
And gave them plenty to drink like the ocean depths.
16 He brought forth streams from the rock
And made waters run down like rivers.
17 Yet they still continued to sin against Him,
To rebel against the Most High in the desert.
18 And in their heart they put God to the test
By asking for food that suited their taste.
19 Then they spoke against God;
They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
20 Behold, He struck the rock so that waters gushed out,
And streams were overflowing;
Can He also provide bread?
Will He prepare meat for His people?”
21 Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath;
And a fire was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also mounted against Israel,
22 Because they did not believe in God
And did not trust in His salvation.
23 Yet He commanded the clouds above
And opened the doors of heaven;
24 He rained down manna upon them to eat,
And gave them food from heaven.
25 Man ate the bread of angels;
He sent them food in abundance.
26 He made the east wind blow in the sky
And by His power He directed the south wind.
27 When He rained meat upon them like the dust,
Even winged fowl like the sand of the seas,
28 He let them fall in the midst of their camp,
All around their dwellings.
29 So they ate and were well filled,
And He satisfied their longing.
30 Yet before they had abandoned their longing,
While their food was in their mouths,
31 The anger of God rose against them
And killed some of their strongest ones,
And subdued the choice men of Israel.
26 One who gives a right answer
Kisses the lips.
