Jeremiah 51:51–52

¹⁰The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

¹³Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

¹⁴Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.

¹⁵My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,

¹⁶For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger.

³Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

⁴Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.

⁵A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.

⁶But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.

⁷They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.

⁴We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

³¹And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

¹¹Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

¹²And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.

¹³¶ Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?

¹⁴And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

²⁶And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

²⁷And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

²¹Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword.

³⁰And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.

¹⁸They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

²¹And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.

²²My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

⁷And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

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.

²²Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God.

²³Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

²⁵We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.

¹³And burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire:

¹⁵All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

¹⁶All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

¹⁷The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

²⁰¶ Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

¹REMEMBER, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

¹⁰Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the Lord thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

²⁹Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

³Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

¹BY the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

²We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

³For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

⁷Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.

⁸I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.

⁹For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

¹⁰When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.

¹¹I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.

¹²They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.

¹³But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.

¹³Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.

¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.

¹⁹O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.

²⁰Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.

²¹O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise thy name.

¹O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

¹²And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.

¹AND there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

²But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

⁴⁷Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

³⁸A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.

³⁰¶ In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

³¹And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

²⁴And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand: but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.

¹⁵Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.

¹⁶Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.