Jeremiah 4:20–26

⁷Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

⁹Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

²⁵Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

²⁶Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.

¹⁵Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

²⁸And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

⁵For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.

²¹For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?

⁶¶ Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.

¹⁹¶ Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.

²⁰My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

¹⁸Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

⁴⁷Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.

¹⁸And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

²¹¶ And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

²⁴Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

⁷I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

⁹But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

²Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;

⁶Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

⁶And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

⁷The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.

⁸The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

⁹Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.

²⁸Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

²¹Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.

⁴⁵Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces.

¹⁹And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.

²⁵¶ And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.

¹⁰And when the year was expired, king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of the Lord, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁷Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.

³And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, and condemned the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

⁶Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

⁵Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.

⁶Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

¹O YE children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction.

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.

²⁰Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.

¹⁹For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.

²¹Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:

⁶¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

⁴They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

³And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

¹WOE to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

²⁸For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

⁹¶ And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

²⁸And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

¹¹When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

²³Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

³The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

⁸But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

²⁰Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

²¹For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

¹⁹Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant?

²⁰Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.

⁴Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.

¹THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

²The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

²¹And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Go in unto thy father’s concubines, which he hath left to keep the house; and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father: then shall the hands of all that are with thee be strong.

²²So they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

²³And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.

⁶Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

¹HEAR the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

¹⁰For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

¹¹And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

¹²And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

⁷Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.

⁸How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.

⁹The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?

⁸And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

¹⁶Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

¹⁷Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

¹⁸And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.

¹⁹Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

²⁰Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.

²¹And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.

²²And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

²³Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

²⁴Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

²⁵Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

²⁶Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

³But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah David’s brother: and Jonadab was a very subtil man.

²⁹¶ Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

²⁴¶ But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

²⁵And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

¹⁵The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

¹⁶The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

²And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

²⁵¶ And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

²⁶Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

⁷And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

⁸All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.

⁹And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

¹⁰The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

¹⁹And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:

²⁰The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:

³⁰And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

³¹The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.

³⁰And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

³⁵Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

¹⁹The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.

²⁰The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.

²¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.

²²And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.

²³Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

¹¹And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

¹⁰For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.

²⁰So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

²⁵Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹⁰But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.

⁵The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.

⁶Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

¹¹And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

⁴Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.

⁵The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.

⁴And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

⁴The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.

⁵What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?

⁶Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?

⁷Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;

⁷Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.

⁴His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.

¹⁰The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.

⁶He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.

¹⁶The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein.

¹⁸The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.

²I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord.

³I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.

⁴How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.

³Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

¹⁰For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.

³⁴A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

²³And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

²⁴Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

²⁵Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:

²⁶For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

²⁷And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

²⁸And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

⁹In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.

¹⁰Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.

²⁰In the same day shall the Lord shave with a rasor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

²¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;

²²And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

²³And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

²⁴With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

²⁵And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

⁴How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.

²Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

³And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

⁴Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

⁵Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.

⁶And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.

¹²Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

⁷Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?