11 So the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for a good outcome on behalf of this people. 12 When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather, I am going to put an end to them by the sword, famine, and plague.”
13 But I said, “Oh, Lord God! Behold, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see a sword, nor will you have famine; on the contrary, I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds. 15 Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, although it was not I who sent them—yet they keep saying: ‘There will be no sword or famine in this land’—by sword and famine those prophets shall meet their end! 16 And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and there will be no one to bury them—neither them, nor their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters. For I will pour out their own wickedness upon them.
17 You will say this word to them,
‘Let my eyes stream down tears night and day,
And let them not cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a mighty blow,
With a sorely infected wound.
18 If I go out to the country,
There are those killed by the sword!
Or if I enter the city,
There are diseases from famine!
For both prophet and priest
Have wandered around in the land that they do not know.’”
19 Have You completely rejected Judah?
Or have You loathed Zion?
Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing?
We waited for peace, but nothing good came;
And for a time of healing, but behold, terror!
20 We know our wickedness, Lord,
The wrongdoing of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.
21 Do not despise us, for the sake of Your own name;
Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory.
Remember and do not annul Your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the idols of the nations who give rain?
Or can the heavens grant showers?
Is it not You, Lord our God?
Therefore we wait for You,
For You are the one who has done all these things.
1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this people. Send them away from My presence and have them go! 2 And it shall be that when they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you are to tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says:
“Those destined for death, to death;
And those destined for the sword, to the sword;
And those destined for famine, to famine;
And those destined for captivity, to captivity.”’
3 And I will appoint over them four kinds of doom,” declares the Lord: “the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth to devour and destroy. 4 I will make them an object of terror among all the kingdoms of the earth because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.
5 “Indeed, who will have pity on you, Jerusalem,
Or who will mourn for you,
Or who will turn aside to ask about your welfare?
6 You who have forsaken Me,” declares the Lord,
“You keep going backward.
So I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you;
I am tired of relenting!
7 I will winnow them with a winnowing fork
At the gates of the land;
I will bereave them of children, I will destroy My people;
They did not repent of their ways.
8 Their widows will be more numerous before Me
Than the sand of the seas;
I will bring against them, against the mother of a young man,
A destroyer at noon;
I will suddenly bring down on her
Shock and horror.
9 She who gave birth to seven sons withers away;
Her breathing is labored.
Her sun has set while it was still day;
She has been shamed and humiliated.
So I will turn over their survivors to the sword
Before their enemies,” declares the Lord.
10 Woe to me, my mother, that you have given birth to me
As a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land!
I have not lent, nor have people lent money to me,
Yet everyone curses me.
11 The Lord said, “I will certainly set you free for purposes of good;
I will certainly make the enemy plead with you
In a time of disaster and a time of distress.
12 “Can anyone smash iron,
Iron from the north, or bronze?
13 I will give your wealth and your treasures
As plunder without cost,
For all your sins
And within all your borders.
14 Then I will make your enemies bring your possessions
Into a land that you do not know;
For a fire has been kindled in My anger,
And it will burn upon you.”
15 You know, Lord;
Remember me, take notice of me,
And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away;
Know that for Your sake I endure reproach.
16 Your words were found and I ate them,
And Your words became a joy to me and the delight of my heart;
For I have been called by Your name,
Lord God of armies.
17 I did not sit in a circle of revelers and celebrate.
Because of Your hand upon me I sat alone,
For You filled me with indignation.
18 Why has my pain been endless
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream
With water that is unreliable?
19 Therefore, this is what the Lord says:
“If you return, then I will restore you—
You will stand before Me;
And if you extract the precious from the worthless,
You will become My spokesman.
They, for their part, may turn to you,
But as for you, you are not to turn to them.
20 Then I will make you to this people
A fortified wall of bronze;
And though they fight against you,
They will not prevail over you;
For I am with you to save you
And rescue you,” declares the Lord.
21 “So I will rescue you from the hand of the wicked,
And I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent.”
1 The word of the Lord also came to me, saying, 2 “You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.” 3 For this is what the Lord says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who give birth to them, and their fathers who father them in this land: 4 “They will die of deadly diseases, they will not be mourned or buried; they will be like dung on the surface of the ground. And they will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”
5 For this is what the Lord says: “Do not enter a house of mourning, or go to mourn or to console them; for I have withdrawn My peace from this people,” declares the Lord, “and My favor and compassion. 6 Both great people and small will die in this land; they will not be buried, people will not mourn for them, nor will anyone make cuts on himself or have his head shaved for them. 7 People will not break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of consolation to drink for anyone’s father or mother. 8 Moreover, you shall not go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.” 9 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I am going to eliminate from this place, before your eyes and in your time, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of joy, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.
10 “Now it will happen that, when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, ‘For what reason has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? And what is our wrongdoing, or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have abandoned Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and have followed other gods, and served and worshiped them; but they have abandoned Me and have not kept My Law. 12 You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, each one of you is following the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me. 13 So I will hurl you off this land to the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, because I will show you no compassion.’
14 “Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.
9 For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; 11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, 12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
13 For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of mere men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe. 14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, 15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people, 16 hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always reach the limit of their sins. But wrath has come upon them fully.
17 But we, brothers and sisters, having been orphaned from you by absence for a short while—in person, not in spirit—were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. 18 For we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, more than once—and Satan hindered us. 19 For who is our hope, or joy or crown of pride, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? Or is it not indeed you? 20 For you are our glory and joy.
1 Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought it best to be left behind, alone at Athens, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the benefit of your faith, 3 so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. 4 For even when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it happened, as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be for nothing.
6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we also long to see you, 7 for this reason, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith; 8 for now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord. 9 For what thanks can we give to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice because of you before our God, 10 as we keep praying most earnestly night and day that we may see your faces, and may complete what is lacking in your faith?
11 Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; 12 and may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you; 13 so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
1 Listen, Shepherd of Israel,
Who leads Joseph like a flock;
You who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!
2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, awaken Your power,
And come to save us!
3 God, restore us
And make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
4 Lord God of armies,
How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears,
And You have made them drink tears in large measure.
6 You make us an object of contention to our neighbors,
And our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 God of armies, restore us
And make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
8 You removed a vine from Egypt;
You drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground before it,
And it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow,
And the cedars of God with its branches.
11 It was sending out its branches to the sea
And its shoots to the Euphrates River.
12 Why have You broken down its hedges,
So that all who pass that way pick its fruit?
13 A boar from the forest eats it away,
And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
14 God of armies, do turn back;
Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
15 The shoot which Your right hand has planted,
And of the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself.
16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down;
They perish from the rebuke of Your face.
17 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand,
Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
18 Then we will not turn back from You;
Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
19 Lord God of armies, restore us;
Make Your face shine upon us, and we will be saved.
1 These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, transcribed.
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
3 As the heavens for height and the earth for depth,
So the heart of kings is unsearchable.
4 Take away the impurities from the silver,
And there comes out a vessel for the smith;
5 Take away the wicked before the king,
And his throne will be established in righteousness.
