15:20. And I will make thee to this people as a strong wall of bra.s.s: and they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail: for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
15:21. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the mighty.
Jeremias Chapter 16
The prophet is forbid to marry. The Jews shall be utterly ruined for their idolatry: but shall at length be released from their captivity, and the Gentiles shall be converted.
16:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
16:2. Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons and daughters in this place.
16:3. For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and daughters, that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them: and concerning their fathers, of whom they were born in this land:
16:4. They shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed with the sword, and with famine: and their carca.s.ses shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth.
16:5. For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor to comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, my mercy and commiserations.
16:6. Both the great and the little shall die in this land: they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.
16:7. And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them for their father and mother.
16:8. And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink:
16:9. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the G.o.d of Israel: Behold I will take away out of this place in your sight, and in your days the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.
16:10. And when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath the Lord p.r.o.nounced against us all this great evil? what is our iniquity? and what is our sin, that we have sinned against the Lord our G.o.d?
16:11. Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord: and went after strange G.o.ds, and served them, and adored them: and they forsook me, and kept not my law.
16:12. And you also have done worse than your fathers: for behold every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.
16:13. So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor your fathers: and there you shall serve strange G.o.ds day and night, which shall not give you any rest.
16:14. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
16:15. But, The Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the north, and out of all the lands to which I cast them out: and I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers.
16:16. Behold I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.
16:17. For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes.
16:18. And I will repay first their double iniquities, and their sins: because they have defiled my land with the carca.s.ses of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
16:19. O Lord, my might, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them.
16:20. Shall a man make G.o.ds unto himself and they are no G.o.ds?
16:21. Therefore behold I will this once cause them to know, I will shew them my hand and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord.
Jeremias Chapter 17
For their obstinacy in sin the Jews shall be led captive. He is cursed that trusteth in flesh. G.o.d alone searcheth the heart, giving to every one as he deserves. The prophet prayeth to be delivered from his enemies, and preacheth up the observance of the sabbath.
17:1. The sin of Juda is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars.
17:2. When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon the high mountains,
17:3. Sacrificing in the field: I will give thy strength, and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders.
17:4. And thou shalt be left stripped of thy inheritance, which I gave thee: and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in my wrath, it shall burn for ever.
17:5. Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
17:6. For he shall be like tamaric in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert in a salt land, and not inhabited.
Tamaric... A barren shrub that grows in the driest parts of the wilderness.
17:7. Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.
17:8. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture: and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.
17:9. The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?
17:10. I am the Lord who search the heart, and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices.
17:11. As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay: so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool.
17:12. A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification.
17:13. O Lord, the hope of Israel: all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.
17:14. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
17:15. Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come.
17:16. And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight.
17:17. Be not thou a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of affliction.
17:18. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them.
Let them be confounded, etc... Such expressions as these in the writings of the prophets, are not to be understood as imprecations proceeding from malice or desire of revenge: but as prophetic predictions of evils that were about to fall upon impenitent sinners, and approbations of the ways of divine justice.
17:19. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem:
17:20. And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings of Juda, and al Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates.
17:21. Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls, and carry no burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of Jerusalem.