Yirmiyahu - Chapter 16

1. And the word of the Lord came to me saying:

2. You shall take no wife, and you shall have no sons or daughters in this place.

3. For so said the Lord regarding the sons and the daughters born in this place and regarding their mothers who bear them and their fathers who beget them in this land.

4. Deaths of sicknesses shall they die; they shall neither be lamented nor buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the ground, and with the sword and with famine shall they perish, and their carcasses shall be for food for the fowl of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

5. For so said the Lord: Do not go into a house of mourning, neither go to lament, nor bemoan them, for I have gathered in My peace from this people, says the Lord, the lovingkindness and the mercies.

6. And large and small shall die in this land, they shall not be buried, and men shall not lament for them and they shall not cut their flesh, nor shall they tear their hair for them.

7. And they shall not break [bread] for them in mourning, to console him for the dead, neither will they give them to drink a cup of consolation for his father or for his mother.

8. And to a house of feasting you shall not go to sit with them, to eat and to drink.

9. For so said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cut off from this place in your presence and in your days a voice of mirth and a voice of gladness, a voice of a bridegroom, and a voice of a bride.

10. And it shall be, that you shall tell this people all these things, and they shall say to you, "For what did the Lord speak about us all this great evil, and what is our iniquity and what is our sin that we have sinned to the Lord our God?"

11. And you shall say to them, "Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says the Lord, and they followed other gods and worshipped them and prostrated themselves before them, but they forsook Me, and did not keep My Torah.

12. And you have done worse than your fathers, and behold, you are going, each one after the view of his evil heart, not to hearken to Me.

13. And I will cast you off this land to a land that you and your fathers did not know, and you shall serve there other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

14. Therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, and it shall no longer be said, "As the Lord lives, Who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,"

15. But, "As the Lord lives, Who brought up the children of Israel from the northland and from all the lands where He had driven them, " and I will restore them to their land that I gave to their forefathers.

16. Behold I will send for many fishers, says the Lord, and they will fish them, and afterwards I will send to many hunters and they will hunt them from upon every mountain and upon every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks.

17. For My eyes are on all their ways, they were not hidden from before Me, neither was their iniquity hidden from before My eyes.

18. And I will pay first the doubling of their iniquity and their sin, for their profaning My land; with the carcass of their detestable things and their abominations they filled My heritage.

19. O Lord, Who are my power and my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble, to You nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Only lies have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail!

20. Can a man make gods for himself, and they are no gods?"

21. Therefore, behold I let them know; at this time I will let them know My power and My might, and they shall know that My Name is the Lord.