The Bible (Old and New Testaments)

Though our iniquities testify against us, O LORD, work Thou for Thy name's sake; for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against Thee.

O Thou hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?

Why shouldest thou be as a man overcome, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet Thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and Thy name is called upon us; leave us not.

Thus saith the LORD unto this people: Even so have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet; therefore the LORD doth not accept them, now will He remember their iniquity, and punish their sins.

And the LORD said unto me: 'Pray not for this people for their good.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offering and meal-offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.'

Then said I: 'Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them: Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.'

Then the LORD said unto me: 'The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I unto them; they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their own heart.

Therefore thus saith the LORD: As for the prophets that prophesy in My name, and I sent them not, yet they say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land, by sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed;

and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters; for I will pour their evil upon them.'

And thou shalt say this word unto them: Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.

If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! And if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest are gone about to a land, and knew it not.

Hast Thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath Thy soul loathed Zion? Why hast Thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold terror!

We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, even the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against Thee.

Do not contemn us, for Thy name's sake, do not dishonour the throne of Thy glory; remember, break not Thy covenant with us.

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? Art not Thou He, O LORD our God, and do we not wait for Thee? For Thou hast made all these things.

Then said the LORD unto me: 'Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth.

And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? then thou shall tell them: Thus saith the LORD: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.

And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to drag, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

And I will cause them to be a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? Or who shall bemoan thee? Or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare?

Thou hast cast Me off, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward; Therefore do I stretch out My hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.

And I fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereave them of children, I destroy My people, since they return not from their ways.

Their widows are increased to Me above the sand of the seas; I bring upon them, against the mother, a chosen one, even a spoiler at noonday; I cause anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly.

She that hath borne seven languisheth; her spirit droopeth; her sun is gone down while it was yet day, she is ashamed and confounded; and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.'

Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them doth curse me.

The LORD said: 'Verily I will release thee for good; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.

Can iron break iron from the north and brass?

Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not; for a fire is kindled in My nostril, which shall burn upon you.'

Thou, O LORD, knowest; Remember me, and think of me, and avenge me of my persecutors; take me not away because of Thy long-suffering; know that for Thy sake I have suffered taunts.

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart; because Thy name was called on me, O LORD God of hosts.

I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of Thy hand; for Thou hast filled me with indignation.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, so that it refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?

Therefore thus saith the LORD: If thou return, and I bring thee back, thou shalt stand before Me; and if thou bring forth the precious out of the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth; let them return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them.

And I will make thee unto this people a fortified brazen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying:

Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their fathers that begot them in this land:

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

For thus saith the LORD: Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away My peace from this people, saith the LORD, even mercy and compassion.

Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried; neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;

neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

And thou shalt not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.

For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee: 'Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?'

then shalt thou say unto them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken Me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law;

and ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that ye hearken not unto Me;

therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye have not known, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; forasmuch as I will show you no favour.'

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said: 'As the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,'

but: 'As the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither He had driven them'; and I will bring them back into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

For Mine eyes are upon all their ways, they are not hid from My face; Neither is their iniquity concealed from Mine eyes.

And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have profaned My land; they have filled Mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable things and their abominations.

O LORD, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge, in the day of affliction, unto Thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: 'Our fathers have inherited nought but lies, vanity and things wherein there is no profit.'

Shall a man make unto himself gods, and they are no gods?

Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is the LORD.

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.

Like the symbols of their sons are their altars, and their Asherim are by the leafy trees, upon the high hills.

O thou that sittest upon the mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures for a spoil, and thy high places, because of sin, throughout all thy borders.

And thou, even of thyself, shalt discontinue from thy heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not; for ye have kindled a fire in My nostril, which shall burn for ever.

Thus saith the LORD: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

For he shall be like a tamarisk in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose trust the LORD is.

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but its foliage shall be luxuriant; and shall not be anxious in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceeding weak — who can know it?

I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

As the partridge that broodeth over young which she hath not brought forth, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and at his end he shall be a fool.

Thou throne of glory, on high from the beginning, thou place of our sanctuary,

Thou hope of Israel, the LORD! All that forsake Thee shall be ashamed; they that depart from Thee shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for Thou art my praise.

Behold, they say unto me: 'Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.'

As for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd after Thee; neither have I desired the woeful day; Thou knowest it; that which came out of my lips was manifest before Thee.

Be not a ruin unto me; Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.

Let them be ashamed that persecute me, but let not me be ashamed; Let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed; Bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

Thus said the LORD unto me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;

and say unto them: Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates;

thus saith the LORD: Take heed for the sake of your souls, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;

neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work; but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers;

but they hearkened not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.

And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto Me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein;

then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall be inhabited for ever.

And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the Lowland, and from the mountains, and from the South, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meal-offerings, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, unto the house of the LORD.

But if ye will not hearken unto Me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:

'Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words.'

Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he was at his work on the wheels.

And whensoever the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:

'O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel.

At one instant I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it;

but if that nation turn from their evil, because of which I have spoken against it, I repent of the evil that I thought to do unto it.

And at one instant I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

but if it do evil in My sight, that it hearken not to My voice, then I repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit it.

Now therefore do thou speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you; return ye now every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

But they say: There is no hope; but we will walk after our own devices, and we will do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart.'

Therefore thus saith the LORD: Ask ye now among the nations, who hath heard such things; the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing.

Doth the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or are the strange cold flowing waters plucked up?

For My people hath forgotten Me, they offer unto vanity; and they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, in a way not cast up;