Jeremiah 18:22–23

²⁶¶ O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

⁵The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.

³⁴¶ Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel.

³⁵And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.

³⁶A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and an howling of the principal of the flock, shall be heard: for the Lord hath spoiled their pasture.

¹⁰And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.

¹¹Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.

³⁰Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.

⁵Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.

⁶They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.

⁷Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the people, O God.

¹⁶A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.

¹THE burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops?

²Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.

³All thy rulers are fled together, they are bound by the archers: all that are found in thee are bound together, which have fled from far.

⁴Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.

²⁰Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.

¹⁰¶ For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.

¹⁹¶ My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

²⁰Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.

³¹For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.

²Thus saith the Lord; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.

³At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

³A voice of crying shall be from Horonaim, spoiling and great destruction.

⁴Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.

⁵For in the going up of Luhith continual weeping shall go up; for in the going down of Horonaim the enemies have heard a cry of destruction.

²⁰Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

²¹For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.

¹⁵¶ Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.

¹²They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.

⁴That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.

⁵They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?

⁴Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.

²²Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.

²³Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.

²⁴Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

²⁵Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.

²⁶For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.

²⁷Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness.

²⁸Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

⁹And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

⁴Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity:

⁵And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee: for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders.

¹⁴Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

³And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?

¹⁸¶ And the Lord hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou shewedst me their doings.

¹⁹But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

²³And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

¹⁵¶ O Lord, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.

¹⁸¶ Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.

²²For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

³²The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.

³³The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.

⁵Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah.

⁵But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;