Jeremiah 15

¹Then the Lord said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! ²And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord:

“Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence,

and those who are for the sword, to the sword;

those who are for famine, to famine,

and those who are for captivity, to captivity.”

³“I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, says the Lord: the sword to slay, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. ⁴And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasʹseh the son of Hezekiʹah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.

⁵“Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem,

or who will bemoan you?

Who will turn aside

to ask about your welfare?

⁶You have rejected me, says the Lord,

you keep going backward;

so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you;—

I am weary of relenting.

⁷I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork

in the gates of the land;

I have bereaved them, I have destroyed my people;

they did not turn from their ways.

⁸I have made their widows more in number

than the sand of the seas;

I have brought against the mothers of young men

a destroyer at noonday;

I have made anguish and terror

fall upon them suddenly.

⁹She who bore seven has languished;

she has swooned away;

her sun went down while it was yet day;

she has been shamed and disgraced.

And the rest of them I will give to the sword

before their enemies,

says the Lord.”

¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me. ¹¹So let it be, O Lord, if I have not entreated thee for their good, if I have not pleaded with thee on behalf of the enemy in the time of trouble and in the time of distress! ¹²Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

¹³“Your wealth and your treasures I will give as spoil, without price, for all your sins, throughout all your territory. ¹⁴I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled which shall burn for ever.”

¹⁵O Lord, thou knowest;

remember me and visit me,

and take vengeance for me on my persecutors.

In thy forbearance take me not away;

know that for thy sake I bear reproach.

¹⁶Thy words were found, and I ate them,

and thy words became to me a joy

and the delight of my heart;

for I am called by thy name,

O Lord, God of hosts.

¹⁷I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,

nor did I rejoice;

I sat alone, because thy hand was upon me,

for thou hadst filled me with indignation.

¹⁸Why is my pain unceasing,

my wound incurable,

refusing to be healed?

Wilt thou be to me like a deceitful brook,

like waters that fail?

¹⁹Therefore thus says the Lord:

“If you return, I will restore you,

and you shall stand before me.

If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,

you shall be as my mouth.

They shall turn to you,

but you shall not turn to them.

²⁰And I will make you to this people

a fortified wall of bronze;

they will fight against you,

but they shall not prevail over you,

for I am with you

to save you and deliver you,

says the Lord.

²¹I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,

and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”