Jeremiah 16
A Prophet Forbidden to Marry or to Mourn
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You Shall Not Take a Wife
16:1And you shall not take a wife, says the Lord, Israel’s God,
16:2and no son or daughter shall be born to you in this place.
16:3For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and their mothers who bore them, and their fathers who begot them in this land:
16:4They will die a diseased death; they will not be mourned or buried. They will be an example upon the earth’s surface, and for the earth’s wild beasts and heaven’s birds; they will fall by the sword and be consumed by famine.
Do Not Enter the House of Mourning
16:5Thus says the Lord: Do not enter their gathering or go to beat yourself in mourning, and do not mourn them, because I have removed My peace from this people.
16:6They certainly will not mourn them or make cuts, and they will not shave themselves,
16:7and bread certainly will not be broken in their mourning for consolation over one dead; they will not give him a cup for consolation over his father and mother.
16:8You shall not enter a house of drinking to sit with them to eat and drink.
I Will Stop the Sound of Joy
16:9Because thus says the Lord, Israel’s God: Look, before your eyes and in your days I am stopping from this place the sound of joy and rejoicing, the voice of bridegroom and bride.
16:10And when you announce all these utterances to this people and they say to you, ‘Why did the Lord speak all these evils against us? What is our injustice, and what is our sin that we sinned before the Lord our God?’
16:11you shall say to them: Because your fathers abandoned Me, says the Lord, and went after foreign gods and served them and bowed down to them, and abandoned Me and did not keep My law,
16:12and you acted more wickedly than your fathers, and look, each of you follows what pleases your evil heart, so as not to obey Me,
16:13and I will cast you away from this land into the land neither you nor your fathers knew, and there you will serve other gods who will give you no mercy.
16:14Therefore look, days are coming, says the Lord, and they will no longer say, ‘The Lord lives, who brought Israel’s sons up from Egypt’s land,’
The Lord Who Brought Israel from the North
16:15but, ‘The Lord lives, who brought Israel’s house up from the northern land and all the regions where they were driven.’ And I will restore them to their land that I gave their fathers.
16:16Look, I am sending the many fishermen, says the Lord, and they will fish for them; and after these things I will send the many hunters, and they will hunt them on every mountain and hill and from the rocks’ openings.
16:17Because My eyes are upon all their ways, and their wrongdoings were not hidden before My eyes.
16:18And I will repay double their injustices and sins, for which they profaned My land with the corpses of their abominations and with their lawless acts, by which they offended against My inheritance.
Lord, My Strength and Help
16:19Lord, my strength and help and refuge in a day of evils, nations will come to You from the earth’s extremity and say: How our fathers acquired false idols, and there is no benefit in them!
16:20Will a human make gods for himself? And these are not gods.
16:21Therefore look, at this time I will show them My hand and make My power known to them, and they will know that My name is Lord.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.