Yirmeyahu

Yir 1
The words of Yirmeyahu the house-continuer of Chilqiyahu, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Binyamiyn: to whom the word of Yahuwah came in the days of Yoshiyah the house-continuer of Amon, king of Yahudah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, to the end of the eleventh year of Tsidqiyahu, the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, to the carrying away of Yerusalem captive in the fifth month. Now the word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the loins, I knew you. Before you came forth out of the womb, I set apart you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Ah, Master Yahuwah! Behold, I don’t know how to speak; for I am a house-builder.
But Yahuwah said to me, Don’t say, I am a house-builder; for to whoever I shall send you, you shall go, and whatever I shall direct you, you shall speak. Don’t be afraid because of them; for I am with you to deliver you, says Yahuwah. Then Yahuwah put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and Yahuwah said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Moreover the word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, Yirmeyahu, what do you see?
I said, I see a branch of an almond tree.
Then Yahuwah said to me, You have seen well; for I watch over my word to perform it.
The word of Yahuwah came to me the second time, saying, What do you see?
I said, I see a boiling caldron; and it is tipping away from the north.
Then Yahuwah said to me, Out of the north dysfunction will break out on all the inhabitants of the land. For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says Yahuwah; and they shall come, and they shall each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Yerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Yahudah. I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other mighty-ones, and worshiped the works of their own hands.
You therefore put your belt on your waist, arise, and speak to them all that I direct you. Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I dismay you before them. For, behold, I have made you this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Yahudah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they will not prevail against you; for I am with you, says Yahuwah, to deliver you.
Yir 2
The word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, Go, and cry in the ears of Yerusalem, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Yisrael was separateness to Yahuwah, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him shall be held guilty. Dysfunction shall come on them, says Yahuwah.
Hear the word of Yahuwah, O house of Yaaqob, and all the families of the house of Yisrael! This is what Yahuwah says, What path-desertedness have your family-strengtheners found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain? Neither did they say, Where is Yahuwah who brought us up out of the land of Mitsrayim, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and where no man lived? I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat its fruit and its functionality; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. The priests didn’t say, Where is Yahuwah? and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.
Therefore I will yet contend with you, says Yahuwah, and I will contend with your house-builders’s house-builders. For pass over to the islands of Kittiy, and see; and send to Qedar, and consider diligently; and see if there has been such a thing. Has a nation changed its mighty-ones, which really are no mighty-ones? But my people have changed their esteem for that which does not profit.
Be astonished, you skies, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, says Yahuwah. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of filled-stomach waters, and cut them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Is Yisrael a servant? Is he a native-born slave? Why has he become a prey? The young lions have roared at him, and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant. The house-builders also of Moph and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.
Haven’t you procured this to yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, when he led you by the way? Now what have you to do in the way to Mitsrayim, to drink the waters of the Shiychor? Or what have you to do in the way to Ashshur, to drink the waters of the River?
Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backsliding shall reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is a dysfunctional thing and a bitter, that you have forsaken Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, and that my inward-flow is not in you, says the Master, Yahuwah of Armies. For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you said, I will not serve; for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute. Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me? For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me, says the Master Yahuwah.
How can you say, I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways; a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that snuffs up the wind in her breathing-throat's desire of his breathing-throat. When she is in heat, who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves. In her month, they will find her.
Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. But you said, It is in vain. No, for I have loved strangers, and I will go after them. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Yisrael ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets; who tell wood, You are my family-strengthener; and a stone, You have brought me out: for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and deliver us.
But where are your mighty-ones that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can deliver you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your mighty-ones, Yahudah.
Why will you contend with me? You all have transgressed against me, says Yahuwah.
I have struck your house-builders in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion. Generation, consider the word of Yahuwah. Have I been a wilderness to Yisrael? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, We have broken loose. We will come to you no more?
Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number. How well you prepare your way to seek love! Therefore you have taught even the wicked women your ways. Also the blood of the breathing-throats of the innocent poor is found in your skirts. You did not find them breaking in; but it is because of all these things.
Yet you said, I am innocent. Surely his nose-flaring has turned away from me.
Behold, I will judge you, because you say, I have not missed-the-target. Why do you go about so much to change your way? You will be ashamed of Mitsrayim also, as you were ashamed of Ashshur. From there also you shall go forth, with your hands on your head; for Yahuwah has rejected those in whom you trust, and you shall not prosper with them.
Yir 3
They say, If a man puts away his woman, and she goes from him, and become another man’s, will he return to her again? Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me, says Yahuwah.
Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat for them by the ways, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; yet you have a prostitute’s forehead, you refused to be ashamed. Will you not from this time cry to me, My Family-Strengthener, you are the guide of my youth?
Will he retain his nose-flaring to the horizon? Will he keep it to the end? Behold, you have spoken and have done dysfunctional things, and have had your way.
Moreover, Yahuwah said to me in the days of Yoshiyah the king, Have you seen that which backsliding Yisrael has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the prostitute. I said after she had done all these things, She will return to me; but she didn’t return; and her treacherous female-house-protector Yahudah saw it. I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Yisrael had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Yahudah, her female-house-protector, didn’t inwardly-flow; but she also went and played the prostitute. It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks. Yet for all this her treacherous female-house-protector, Yahudah, has not returned to me with her whole inner-guide, but only in pretense, says Yahuwah.
Yahuwah said to me, Backsliding Yisrael has shown hers breathing-throat more straight-pathed than treacherous Yahudah. Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, you backsliding Yisrael, says Yahuwah; I will not look in nose-flaring on you; for I am merciful, says Yahuwah. I will not keep nose-flaring to the horizon. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not listened to my voice, says Yahuwah. Return, backsliding house-builders, says Yahuwah; for I am a man to you. I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Tsiyon. I will give you shepherds according to my inner-guide, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. It shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says Yahuwah, they shall say no more, The ark of the passing-through-the-pieces of Yahuwah! neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more. At that time they shall call Yerusalem The throne of Yahuwah; and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of Yahuwah, to Yerusalem. Neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their dysfunctional inner-guide. In those days the house of Yahudah shall walk with the house of Yisrael, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your family-strengtheners.
But I said, How I would put you among the house-builders, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations! and I said, You shall call me My Family-Strengthener, and shall not turn away from following me.
Surely as a woman treacherously departs from her man, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Yisrael, says Yahuwah. A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the house-builders of Yisrael; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One. Return, you backsliding house-builders, I will heal your backsliding.
Behold, we have come to you; for you are Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One. Truly in vain is help from the hills, the tumult on the mountains. Truly the deliverance of Yisrael is in Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One. But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our family-strengtheners from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their house-continuers and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have missed-the-target against Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One, we and our family-strengtheners, from our youth even to this day. We have not listened to the voice of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One.
Yir 4
If you will return, Yisrael, says Yahuwah, if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you shall not be removed; and you shall swear, As Yahuwah lives, in truth, in justice, and in straight-pathedness. The nations shall bend-the-knee-to-give-to themselves in him, and in him shall they esteem.
For this is what Yahuwah says to the men of Yahudah and to Yerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to Yahuwah, and take away the foreskins of your inner-guide, you men of Yahudah and inhabitants of Yerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the dysfunction of your doings. Declare in Yahudah, and publish in Yerusalem; and say, Blow the trumpet in the land! Cry aloud and say, Assemble yourselves! Let us go into the fortified cities! Set up a standard toward Tsiyon. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring dysfunction from the north, and a great destruction.
A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant. For this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce nose-flaring of Yahuwah hasn’t turned back from us. It shall happen at that day, says Yahuwah, that the inner-guide of the king shall perish, and the inner-guide of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.
Then I said, Ah, Master Yahuwah! Surely you have greatly deceived this people and Yerusalem, saying, You shall have peace; whereas the sword reaches to the breathing-throat.
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Yerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse; a full wind from these shall come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.
Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined. Yerusalem, wash your inner-guide from wickedness, that you may be delivered. How long shall your dysfunctional thoughts lodge within you? For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes dysfunction from the hills of Ephrayim: Tell the nations; behold, publish against Yerusalem, Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Yahudah. As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me, says Yahuwah. Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your inner-guide.
My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very inner-guide; my inner-guide is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my breathing-throat, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction on destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
For my people are foolish, they don’t know me. They are foolish house-builders, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing dysfunction, but to do what is functional they have no knowledge. I saw the land, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the skies, and they had no light. I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the flyers of the sky had fled. I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahuwah, before his fierce nose-flaring. For this is what Yahuwah says, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. For this the land will mourn, and the skies above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.
Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein. You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain do you make yourself beautiful; your lovers despise you, they seek your breathing-throat. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first house-builder, the voice of the daughter of Tsiyon, moans, who spreads her hands, saying, Woe is me now! For my breathing-throat faints before the murderers.
Yir 5
Run back and forth through the streets of Yerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her. Though they say, As Yahuwah lives; surely they swear falsely.
O Yahuwah, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
Then I said, Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Yahuwah, nor the law of their Mightiest-Yoked-One. I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahuwah, and the law of their Mightiest-Yoked-One. But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased.
How can I pardon you? Your house-builders have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no mighty-ones. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses. They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after his neighbor’s woman. Shouldn’t I punish them for these things? says Yahuwah; and shouldn’t my breathing-throat be avenged on such a nation as this?
Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches; for they are not Yahuwah’s. For the house of Yisrael and the house of Yahudah have dealt very treacherously against me, says Yahuwah.
They have denied Yahuwah, and said, It is not he; neither shall dysfunction come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine. The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Armies, Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Yisrael, says Yahuwah. It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know, neither understand what they say. Their quiver is an open tomb, they are all mighty men. They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your house-continuers and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.
But even in those days, says Yahuwah, I will not make a full end with you. It will happen, when you say, Why has Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One done all these things to us? Then you shall say to them, Just like you have forsaken me, and served foreign mighty-ones in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
Declare this in the house of Yaaqob, and publish it in Yahudah, saying, Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear: Don’t you inwardly-flow-before me? says Yahuwah Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet they can’t pass over it.
But this people has a revolting and a rebellious inner-guide; they have revolted and gone. Neither do they say in their inner-guide, Let us now inwardly-flow-before Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your missed-targets have withheld what is functional from you. For among my people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. As a cage is full of flyers, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excell in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t judge the right of the needy.
Shall I not punish for these things? says Yahuwah. Shall not my breathing-throat be avenged on such a nation as this?
An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
Yir 6
Flee for safety, you house-builders of Binyamiyn, out of the midst of Yerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Teqoa, and raise up a signal on Beyth Hakkerem; for dysfunction looks forth from the north, and a great destruction. The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Tsiyon, will I cut off. Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed everyone in his place.
Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces. For Yahuwah of Armies said, Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Yerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her. As a well casts forth its waters, so she casts forth her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds. Be instructed, Yerusalem, lest my breathing-throat be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Yisrael like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.
To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, the word of Yahuwah has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahuwah. I am weary with holding in.
Pour it out on the house-builders in the street,
and on the assembly of young men together;
for even the man with the woman shall be taken,
the aged with him who is full of days.
Their houses shall be turned to others,
their fields and their women together;
for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahuwah.
For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness;
and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.
They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially,
saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down, says Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah says, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, Where is the functional way? and walk in it, and you will find rest for your breathing-throats. But they said, We will not walk in it. I set watchmen over you, saying, Listen to the sound of the trumpet! But they said, We will not listen! Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them. Hear, land! Behold, I will bring dysfunction on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your ascent offerings are not acceptable, nor your slaughters pleasing to me.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The family-strengtheners and the house-continuers together shall stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend shall perish. This is what Yahuwah says, Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the land. They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Tsiyon.
We have heard its report; our hands become feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor. Don’t go forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and terror, are on every side. Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only house-continuer, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among my people; that you may know and try their way. They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly. The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away. Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahuwah has rejected them.
Yir 7
The word that came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, Stand in the gate of Yahuwah’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of Yahuwah, all you of Yahudah, who enter in at these gates to pay homage to Yahuwah. This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Don’t trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahuwah, the temple of Yahuwah, the temple of Yahuwah, are these.
For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other mighty-ones to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your family-strengtheners, from horizon to horizon.
Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t profit. Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other mighty-ones that you have not known, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahuwah.
But go now to my place which was in Shiyloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Yisrael. Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahuwah, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer: therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your family-strengtheners, as I did to Shiyloh. I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your male-house-protectors, even the whole seed of Ephrayim.
Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Yahudah and in the streets of Yerusalem? The house-builders gather wood, and the family-strengtheners kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other mighty-ones, that they may provoke me to nose-flaring. Do they provoke me to nose-flaring? says Yahuwah. Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore this is what the Master Yahuwah says: Behold, my nose-flaring and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Add your ascent offerings to your slaughters, and eat meat. For I didn’t speak to your family-strengtheners, nor direct them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, concerning ascent offerings or slaughters: but this thing I directed them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your Mightiest-Yoked-One, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I direct you, that it may be well with you. But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their dysfunctional inner-guide, and went backward, and not forward. Since the day that your family-strengtheners came forth out of the land of Mitsrayim to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: yet they didn’t listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their family-strengtheners.
You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth. Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahuwah has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the house-builders of Yahudah have done that which is dysfunctional in my sight, says Yahuwah: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. They have built the high places of Tophteh, which is in the valley of the house-continuer of Hinnom, to burn their house-continuers and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t direct, nor did it come into my mind.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that it shall no more be called Tophteh, nor The valley of the house-continuer of Hinnom, but The valley of Massacre: for they shall bury in Tophteh, until there is no place to bury. The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the flyers of the sky, and for the animals of the land; and none shall frighten them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Yahudah, and from the streets of Yerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
Yir 8
At that time, says Yahuwah, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Yahudah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Yerusalem, out of their graves; and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the face of the land. Death shall be chosen rather than a filled-stomach by all the residue that remain of this dysfunctional family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Yahuwah of Armies. Moreover you shall tell them, this is what Yahuwah says: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return? Why then is this people of Yerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they didn’t speak aright: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahuwah’s law.

How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahuwah is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely. The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: Behold, they have rejected the word of Yahuwah; and what kind of wisdom is in them?
Therefore will I give their women to others, and their fields to those who shall possess them: for everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely. They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahuwah. I will utterly consume them, says Yahuwah: no grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have missed-the-target against Yahuwah. We looked for peace, but no functional thing came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein. For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says Yahuwah. Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My inner-guide is faint within me. Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: isn’t Yahuwah in Tsiyon? Isn’t her King in her? Why have they provoked me to nose-flaring with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not delivered. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilad? is there no physician there? why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
Yir 9
Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from dysfunction to dysfunction, and they don’t know me, says Yahuwah. Take heed everyone of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any male-house-protector; for every male-house-protector will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says Yahuwah.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his inner-guide he lays wait for him. Shall I not visit them for these things? says Yahuwah; shall not my breathing-throat be avenged on such a nation as this?
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock; both the flyers of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone. I will make Yerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Yahudah a desolation, without inhabitant.
Who is the wise man, that may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahuwah has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through? Yahuwah says, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not listened to my voice, neither walked therein, but have walked after the stubbornness of their own inner-guide, and after the Baals, which their family-strengtheners taught them; therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their family-strengtheners have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come: and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Tsiyon, How are we ruined! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings. Yet hear the word of Yahuwah, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation. For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the house-builders from outside, and the young men from the streets. Speak, This is what Yahuwah says, The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather them. This is what Yahuwah says, Don’t let the wise man esteem in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man esteem in his might, don’t let the rich man esteem in his riches; but let him who esteems esteem in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahuwah who exercises mercy, justice, and straight-pathedness, in the land: for in these things I delight, says Yahuwah. Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will punish all those who are circumcised in uncircumcision: Mitsrayim, and Yahudah, and Edom, and the house-builders of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Yisrael are uncircumcised in inner-guide.
Yir 10
Hear the word which Yahuwah speaks to you, house of Yisrael! This is what Yahuwah says, Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it not move. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak: they must be carried, because they can’t go. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do what is dysfunctional, neither is it in them to do what is functional.
There is none like you, Yahuwah; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who should not inwardly-flow-before you, King of the nations? For it appertains to you; because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like you. But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols! it is but a stock. There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshiysh, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of skillful men. But Yahuwah is the true Mightiest-Yoked-One; he is the filled-stomach Mightiest-Yoked-One, and a horizonal King: at his wrath the land trembles, and the nations are not able to withstand his indignation. You shall say this to them: The mighty-ones that have not made the skies and the land, these shall perish from the land, and from under the skies.
He has made the land by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the skies: when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the skies, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the land; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
Every man has become brutish and without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no wind in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. The portion of Yaaqob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Yisrael is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahuwah of Armies is his name.
Gather up your wares out of the land, you who have-a-filled-stomach under siege. For this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.
Woe is me because of my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it. My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my house-builders are gone forth from me, and they are no more: there is none to spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahuwah: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered. The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Yahudah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals. Yahuwah, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who walks to guide his steps. Yahuwah, correct me, but in measure: not in your nose-flaring, lest you bring me to nothing. Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name: for they have devoured Yaaqob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.
Yir 11
The word that came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, Hear the words of this passing-through-the-pieces, and speak to the men of Yahudah, and to the inhabitants of Yerusalem; and say to them, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Cursed is the man who doesn’t hear the words of this passing-through-the-pieces, which I directed your family-strengtheners in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Mitsrayim, out of the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do them, according to all which I direct you: so you shall be my people, and I will be your Mightiest-Yoked-One; that I may establish the oath which I swore to your family-strengtheners, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. Then answered I, and said, I-secure-it, Yahuwah.
Yahuwah said to me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Yahudah, and in the streets of Yerusalem, saying, Hear the words of this passing-through-the-pieces, and do them. For I earnestly protested to your family-strengtheners in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Mitsrayim, even to this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Listen to my voice. Yet they didn’t listen, nor turn their ear, but walked everyone in the stubbornness of their dysfunctional inner-guide: therefore I brought on them all the words of this passing-through-the-pieces, which I directed them to do, but they didn’t do them.
Yahuwah said to me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Yahudah, and among the inhabitants of Yerusalem. They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words; and they are gone after other mighty-ones to serve them: the house of Yisrael and the house of Yahudah have broken my passing-through-the-pieces which I made with their family-strengtheners. Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will bring dysfunction on them, which they shall not be able to escape; and they shall cry to me, but I will not listen to them. Then shall the cities of Yahudah and the inhabitants of Yerusalem go and cry to the mighty-ones to which they offer incense: but they will not deliver them at all in the time of their trouble. For according to the number of your cities are your mighty-ones, Yahudah; and according to the number of the streets of Yerusalem have you set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal. Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to me because of their trouble.
What has my beloved to do in my house, since she has worked lewdness with many, and the separated flesh is passed from you? When you do dysfunction, then you rejoice.
Yahuwah called your name, A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken. For Yahuwah of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced dysfunction against you, because of the dysfunction of the house of Yisrael and of the house of Yahudah, which they have worked for themselves in provoking me to nose-flaring by offering incense to Baal.
Yahuwah gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then you showed me their doings. But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the massacre; and I didn’t know that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cut him off from the land of the filled-stomachs, that his name may be no more remembered.
But, Yahuwah of Armies, who judges in a straight-pathed way, who tests the kidneys and the inner-guide, I shall see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause. Therefore this is what Yahuwah says concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your breathing-throat, saying, You shall not prophesy in the name of Yahuwah, that you not die by our hand; therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their house-continuers and their daughters shall die by famine; and there shall be no remnant to them: for I will bring dysfunction on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.
Yir 12
You are straight-pathed, Yahuwah, when I contend with you; yet I would reason the cause with you: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously? You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bring forth fruit: you are near in their mouth, and far from their inner-guide. But you, Yahuwah, know me; you see me, and try my inner-guide toward you: pull them out like sheep for the massacre, and prepare them for the day of massacre. How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? for the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals are consumed, and the flyers; because they said, He shall not see our latter end.
If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the Yarden? For even your male-house-protectors, and the house of your family-strengthener, even they have dealt treacherously with you; even they have cried aloud after you: don’t believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you. I have forsaken my house, I have cast off my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my breathing-throat into the hand of her enemies. My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest: she has uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her. Is my heritage to me as a speckled flyer of prey? are the flyers of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the animals of the field, bring them to devour. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it a desolation; it mourns to me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to inner-guide. Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahuwah devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace. They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and you shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce nose-flaring of Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah says against all my dysfunctional neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Yisrael to inherit: behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Yahudah from among them. It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. It shall happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, As Yahuwah lives; even as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of my people. But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, says Yahuwah.
Yir 13
This is what Yahuwah says to me, Go, and buy yourself a linen belt, and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water. So I bought a belt according to the word of Yahuwah, and put it on my waist.
The word of Yahuwah came to me the second time, saying, Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Perath, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock. So I went, and hid it by the Perath, as Yahuwah directed me.
It happened after many days, that Yahuwah said to me, Arise, go to the Perath, and take the belt from there, which I directed you to hide there. Then I went to the Perath, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
Then the word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, In this way I will mar the pride of Yahudah, and the great pride of Yerusalem. This dysfunctional people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their inner-guide, and are gone after other mighty-ones to serve them, and to pay homage to them, shall even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing. For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so have I caused to cling to me the whole house of Yisrael and the whole house of Yahudah, says Yahuwah; that they may be to me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for an esteem: but they would not hear.
Therefore you shall speak to them this word: This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall tell you, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? Then you shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on Daviyd’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Yerusalem, with drunkenness. I will dash them one against another, even the family-strengtheners and the house-continuers together, says Yahuwah: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.
Hear, and give ear; don’t be proud; for Yahuwah has spoken. Give esteem to Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness. But if you will not hear it, my breathing-throat shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahuwah’s flock is taken captive.
Say to the king and to the queen family-binder, Humble yourselves, sit down; for your headdresses have come down, even the crown of your esteem. The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: Yahudah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly carried away captive. Lift up your eyes, and see those who come from the north: where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock? What will you say, when he shall set over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? shall not sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail? If you say in your inner-guide, Why are these things come on me? for the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and your heels suffer violence. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do what is functional, who are accustomed to do what is dysfunctional.
Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passes away, by the wind of the wilderness. This is your lot, the portion measured to you from me, says Yahuwah; because you have forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood. Therefore will I also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame shall appear. I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Yerusalem! You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?
Yir 14
The word of Yahuwah that came to Yirmeyahu concerning the drought. Yahudah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Yerusalem is gone up. Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads. Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes her young, because there is no grass. The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they drew in wind like dragons; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.
Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahuwah; for our backslidings are many; we have missed-the-target against you. You hope of Yisrael, its deliverer in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night? Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t deliver? Yet you, Yahuwah, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; don’t leave us.
This is what Yahuwah says to this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahuwah does not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity, and visit their missed-target.
Yahuwah said to me, Don’t pray for this people for what is functional. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer ascent 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 I said, Ah, Master Yahuwah! behold, the prophets tell them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.
Then Yahuwah said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I didn’t send them, neither have I directed them, neither spoke I to them: they prophesy to you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own inner-guide. Therefore this is what Yahuwah says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, and I didn’t send them, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Yerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them—them, their women, nor their house-continuers, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them.
You shall say this word to them, Let my 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 wound. If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge. Have you utterly rejected Yahudah? has your breathing-throat loathed Tsiyon? why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but nothing functional came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! We acknowledge, Yahuwah, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our family-strengtheners; for we have missed-the-target against you. Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake; do not disfavor the throne of your esteem: remember, don’t break your passing-through-the-pieces with us. Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One? therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.
Yir 15
Then Yahuwah said to me, Though Mosheh and Shemuel stood before me, yet my breathing-throat would not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. It shall happen, when they tell you, Where shall we go forth? Then you shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah says: 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.
I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahuwah: the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the flyers of the sky, and the animals of the land, to devour and to destroy. I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the land, because of Menashsheh, the house-continuer of Chizqiyah, king of Yahudah, for that which he did in Yerusalem.
For who will have pity on you, Yerusalem? or who will bemoan you? or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare? You have rejected me, says Yahuwah, you have gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against you, and destroyed you; I am weary with repenting. I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of house-builders, I have destroyed my people; they didn’t return from their ways. Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the family-binder of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. She who has borne seven languishes; she has breathed out her breathing-throat; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she has been disappointed and confounded: and their residue will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says Yahuwah.
Woe is me, my family-binder, that you have borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole land! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet everyone of them curses me.
May it be, O Master Yahuwah, in their prosperity; certainly I stood before you in the time of their calamities, and in the time of their affliction, for what is functional to them against their enemies. Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? Your substance and your treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all your missed-targets, even in all your borders. I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my nose-flaring, which shall burn on you.
Yahuwah, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; don’t take me away in your longsuffering: know that for your sake I have suffered reproach. Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my inner-guide: for I am called by your name, Yahuwah, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Armies. I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of your hand; for you have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, If you return, then will I bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth: they shall return to you, but you shall not return to them. I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you to deliver you and to deliver you, says Yahuwah. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.
Yir 16
The word of Yahuwah came also to me, saying, You shall not take a woman, neither shall you have house-continuers or daughters, in this place. For this is what Yahuwah says concerning the house-continuers and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their family-binders who bore them, and concerning their family-strengtheners who became their family-strengthener in this land: They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the flyers of the sky, and for the animals of the land.
For this is what Yahuwah says, Don’t enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says Yahuwah, even mercy and tender mercies. Both great and 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 family-strengthener or for their family-binder.
You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: 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.
It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they shall tell you, Why has Yahuwah pronounced all this great dysfunction against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our missed-target that we have committed against Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One? Then you shall tell them, Because your family-strengtheners have forsaken me, says Yahuwah, and have walked after other mighty-ones, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and you have done dysfunction more than your family-strengtheners; for, behold, you walk every one after the stubbornness of his dysfunctional inner-guide, so that you don’t listen to me: therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your family-strengtheners; and there you shall serve other mighty-ones day and night; for I will show you no favor.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that it shall no more be said, As Yahuwah lives, who brought up the house-builders of Yisrael out of the land of Mitsrayim; but, As Yahuwah lives, who brought up the house-builders of Yisrael from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them. I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their family-strengtheners.
Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says Yahuwah, and they shall fish them up; 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 my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. First I will repay their iniquity and their missed-target double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
Yahuwah, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the land, and shall say, Our family-strengtheners have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.
Shall a man make to himself mighty-ones, which yet are no mighty-ones? 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 Yahuwah.
Yir 17
The missed-targets of Yahudah are written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is engraved on the tablet of their inner-guide, and on the horns of your altars; while their house-builders remember their altars and their Asherim by the green trees on the high hills. My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a spoil, and your high places, because of missed-targets, throughout all your borders. You, even of yourself, shall discontinue from your heritage that I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know: for you have kindled a fire in my nose-flaring which shall burn to the horizon.
This is what Yahuwah says: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose inner-guide departs from Yahuwah. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when what is functional comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Given-to-with-bended-knee is the man who trusts in Yahuwah, and whose trust Yahuwah is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not inwardly-flow when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
The inner-guide is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? I, Yahuwah, search the kidneys, I try the inner-guide, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool.
A esteemed throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. Yahuwah, the hope of Yisrael, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the land, because they have forsaken Yahuwah, the spring of filled-stomach waters.
Heal me, O Yahuwah, and I shall be healed; deliver me, and I shall be delivered: for you are my praise. Behold, they tell me, Where is the word of Yahuwah? let it come now. As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you; neither have I desired the woeful day; you know: that which came out of my lips was before your face. Don’t be a terror to me: you are my refuge in the day of dysfunction. Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed; bring on them the day of dysfunction, and destroy them with double destruction.
This is what Yahuwah said to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the house-builders of the people, through which the kings of Yahudah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Yerusalem; and tell them, Hear the word of Yahuwah, you kings of Yahudah, and all Yahudah, and all the inhabitants of Yerusalem, that enter in by these gates: This is what Yahuwah says, Take heed to your breathing-throats, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Yerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day separated, neither do any work: but make the Sabbath day, as I directed your family-strengtheners. But they didn’t listen, neither turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction.
It shall happen, if you diligently listen to me, says Yahuwah, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day separated, to do no work therein; then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of Daviyd, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Yahudah, and the inhabitants of Yerusalem; and this city shall remain to the horizon.
They shall come from the cities of Yahudah, and from the places around Yerusalem, and from the land of Binyamiyn, and from the lowland, and from the hill country, and from the South, bringing ascent offerings, and slaughters, and meal offerings, and frankincense, and bringing slaughters of thanksgiving, to the house of Yahuwah. But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day separated, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Yerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Yerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
Yir 18
The word which came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.
Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making a work on the wheels. When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed functional to the potter to make it.
Then the word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, House of Yisrael, can’t I do with you as this potter? says Yahuwah. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Yisrael.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their dysfunction, I will repent of the dysfunction that I thought to do to them.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if they do that which is dysfunctional in my sight, that they not listen to my voice, then I will repent of the functional thing, with which I said I would benefit them.
Now therefore, speak to the men of Yahudah, and to the inhabitants of Yerusalem, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I frame dysfunction against you, and devise a device against you: return you now everyone from his dysfunctional way, and amend your ways and your doings.
But they say, It is in vain; for we will walk after our own devices, and we will do everyone after the stubbornness of his dysfunctional inner-guide.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says: Ask now among the nations, who has heard such things; the virgin of Yisrael has done a very horrible thing. Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up? For my people have forgotten me, they have burned incense to false mighty-ones; and they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up; to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
Then they said, Come, and let us devise devices against Yirmeyahu; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
Give heed to me, Yahuwah, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me. Shall what is dysfunctional be repayed for what is functional? for they have dug a pit for my breathing-throat. Remember how I stood before you to speak what is functional for them, to turn away your wrath from them. Therefore deliver up their house-builders to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their women become bereaved, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men struck of the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when you shall bring a troop suddenly on them; for they have dug a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. Yet, Yahuwah, you know all their counsel against me to kill me; don’t forgive their iniquity, neither blot out their missed-targets from your sight; but let them be overthrown before you; deal you with them in the time of your nose-flaring.
Yir 19
This is what Yahuwah said, Go, and buy a potter’s earthen bottle, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests; and go forth to the valley of the house-continuer of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you; and say, Hear the word of Yahuwah, kings of Yahudah, and inhabitants of Yerusalem: this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, Behold, I will bring dysfunction on this place, which whoever hears, his ears shall tingle.
Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it to other mighty-ones, that they didn’t know, they and their family-strengtheners and the kings of Yahudah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their house-continuers in the fire for ascent offerings to Baal; which I didn’t direct, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that this place shall no more be called Tophteh, nor The valley of the house-continuer of Hinnom, but The valley of Massacre. I will make void the counsel of Yahudah and Yerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their breathing-throat. Also, their dead bodies will I give to be food for the flyers of the sky, and for the animals of the land. I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their house-continuers and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their breathing-throat, shall distress them.
Then you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you, and shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again; and they shall bury in Tophteh, until there is no place to bury. Thus will I do to this place, says Yahuwah, and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Tophteh: and the houses of Yerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Yahudah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Tophteh, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky, and have poured out drink offerings to other mighty-ones.
Then Yirmeyahu left Tophteh, where Yahuwah had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of Yahuwah’s house, and said to all the people: This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the dysfunction that I have pronounced against it; because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.
Yir 20
Now Pashchur, the house-continuer of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of Yahuwah, heard Yirmeyahu prophesying these things. Then Pashchur struck Yirmeyahu the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Binyamiyn, which was in the house of Yahuwah.
It happened on the next day, that Pashchur brought forth Yirmeyahu out of the stocks. Then Yirmeyahu said to him, Yahuwah has not called your name Pashchur, but Magor Missabiyb. For this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself, and to all your friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it; and I will give all Yahudah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall kill them with the sword. Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all the precious things of it, yes, all the treasures of the kings of Yahudah will I give into the hand of their enemies; and they shall make them a prey, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. You, Pashchur, and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity; and you shall come to Babylon, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you, and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.
Yahuwah, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded; you are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughing-stock all the day, every one mocks me. For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the word of Yahuwah is made a reproach to me, and a derision, all the day. If I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my inner-guide as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I can’t. For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall; perhaps he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. But Yahuwah is with me as an awesome Mighty-One: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with a horizonal dishonor which shall never be forgotten. But, Yahuwah of Armies, who tests the straight-pathed, who sees the inner-guide and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause. Sing to Yahuwah, praise Yahuwah; for he has delivered the breathing-throat of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Cursed is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my family-binder bore me be given-to-with-bended-knee. Cursed is the man who brought news to my family-strengthener, saying, A boy is born to you; making him very glad. Let that man be as the cities which Yahuwah overthrew, and didn’t repent: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime; because he didn’t kill me from the womb; and so my family-binder would have been my grave, and her womb always great. Why came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
Yir 21
The word which came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, when king Tsidqiyahu sent to him Pashchur the house-continuer of Malkiyahu, and Tsephanyahu the house-continuer of Maaseyahu, the priest, saying, Please inquire of Yahuwah for us; for Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon makes war against us: perhaps Yahuwah will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us.
Then Yirmeyahu said to them, You shall tell Tsidqiyahu: This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them into the midst of this city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in nose-flaring, and in wrath, and in great indignation. I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal: they shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward, says Yahuwah, I will deliver Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their breathing-throat: and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. To this people you shall say,
This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I set before you the way of filled-stomach and the way of death. He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out, and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall have-a-filled-stomach, and his breathing-throat shall be to him for a prey. For I have set my face on this city for what is dysfunctional, and not for what is functional, says Yahuwah: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
Touching the house of the king of Yahudah, hear the word of Yahuwah: House of Daviyd, this is what Yahuwah says, Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the dysfunction of your doings.
Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain, says Yahuwah; you that say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations?
I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahuwah; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is around her.
Yir 22
This is what Yahuwah said: Go down to the house of the king of Yahudah, and speak there this word, Say, Hear the word of Yahuwah, king of Yahudah, who sits on the throne of Daviyd, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
This is what Yahuwah says: Execute justice and straight-pathedness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place. For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of Daviyd, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahuwah, that this house shall become a desolation.
For this is what Yahuwah says concerning the house of the king of Yahudah: You are Gilad to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited. I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Why has Yahuwah done thus to this great city? Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the passing-through-the-pieces of Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One, and worshiped other mighty-ones, and served them. Don’t weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
For this is what Yahuwah says touching Shallum the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, who reigned instead of Yoshiyah his family-strengthener, and who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more. But in the place where they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more.
Woe to him who builds his house by path-desertedness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire; who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious rooms, and cuts him out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t your family-strengthener eat and drink, and do justice and straight-pathedness? then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn’t this to know me? says Yahuwah. But your eyes and your inner-guide are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says concerning Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah: they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my male-house-protector! or, Ah female-house-protector! They shall not lament for him, saying Ah master! or, Ah his esteem! He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Yerusalem.
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abariym; for all your lovers are destroyed. I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t listen to my voice. The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
As I have-a-filled-stomach, says Yahuwah, though Konyahu the house-continuer of Yehoyaqiym king of Yahudah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck you there; and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your breathing-throat, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will cast you out, and your family-binder who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. But to the land where their breathing-throat longs to return, there shall they not return. Is this man Konyahu a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which none delights? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don’t know? O land, land, land, hear the word of Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah says, Write you this man to be without house-builders, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of Daviyd, and ruling in Yahudah.
Yir 23
Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says Yahuwah. Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, against the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit on you the dysfunction of your doings, says Yahuwah.
I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall inwardly-flow no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, says Yahuwah.
Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will raise to Daviyd a straight-pathed Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and straight-pathedness in the land. In his days Yahudah shall be delivered, and Yisrael shall dwell safely; and this is his name by which he shall be called: Yahuwah our straight-pathedness.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that they shall no more say, As Yahuwah lives, who brought up the house-builders of Yisrael out of the land of Mitsrayim; but, As Yahuwah lives, who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Yisrael out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them. They shall dwell in their own land.
Concerning the prophets. My inner-guide within me is broken, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahuwah, and because of his separated words. For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is dysfunctional, and their might is not right; for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness, says Yahuwah. Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring dysfunction on them, even the year of their visitation, says Yahuwah.
I have seen folly in the prophets of Shomeron; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Yisrael to err.
In the prophets of Yerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sedom, and its inhabitants as Amorah.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Yerusalem is contamination gone forth into all the land.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own inner-guide, and not out of the mouth of Yahuwah. They say continually to those who despise me, Yahuwah has said, You shall have peace; and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own inner-guide they say, No dysfunction shall come on you. For who has stood in the council of Yahuwah, that he should perceive and hear his word? who has marked my word, and heard it? Behold, the storm of Yahuwah, his wrath, has gone forth. Yes, a whirling storm. It shall burst on the head of the wicked. The nose-flaring of Yahuwah shall not return, until he has executed, and until he have performed the intents of his inner-guide: in the latter days you shall understand it perfectly. I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their dysfunctional way, and from the dysfunction of their doings.
Am I a Mightiest-Yoked-One at hand, says Yahuwah, and not a Mightiest-Yoked-One afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says Yahuwah. Don’t I fill the sky and the land? says Yahuwah.
I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the inner-guide of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own inner-guide? who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their family-strengtheners forgot my name for Baal. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says Yahuwah. Isn’t my word like fire? says Yahuwah; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahuwah, who steal my words everyone from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahuwah, who use their tongues, and say, He says. Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says Yahuwah, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I didn’t send them, nor directed them; neither do they profit this people at all, says Yahuwah.
When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the burden of Yahuwah? Then you shall tell them, What burden! I will cast you off, says Yahuwah. As for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall say, The burden of Yahuwah, I will even punish that man and his house. You shall say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his male-house-protector, What has Yahuwah answered? and, What has Yahuwah spoken? You shall mention the burden of Yahuwah no more: for every man’s own word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the words of the filled-stomach Mightiest-Yoked-One, of Yahuwah of Armies our Mightiest-Yoked-One.
You shall say to the prophet, What has Yahuwah answered you? and, What has Yahuwah spoken? But if you say, The burden of Yahuwah; therefore this is what Yahuwah says: Because you say this word, The burden of Yahuwah, and I have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of Yahuwah; therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave to you and to your family-strengtheners, away from my presence: and I will bring a horizonal reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.
Yir 24
Yahuwah showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of Yahuwah, after that Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon had carried away captive Yekonyah the house-continuer of Yehoyaqiym, king of Yahudah, and the princes of Yahudah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Yerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very functional figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
Then Yahuwah said to me, What do you see, Yirmeyahu?
I said, Figs; the functional figs, very functional; and the bad, very bad, that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.
The word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Like these functional figs, so will I regard the captives of Yahudah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for what is functional. For I will set my eyes on them for what is functional, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a inner-guide to know me, that I am Yahuwah: and they shall be my people, and I will be their Mightiest-Yoked-One; for they shall return to me with their whole inner-guide.
As for the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, because they are so bad, surely this is what Yahuwah says, So will I give up Tsidqiyahu the king of Yahudah, and his princes, and the residue of Yerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Mitsrayim, I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the land for dysfunction; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them. I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, until they be consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their family-strengtheners.
Yir 25
The word that came to Yirmeyahu concerning all the people of Yahudah, in the fourth year of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah (the same was the first year of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon), which Yirmeyahu the prophet spoke to all the people of Yahudah, and to all the inhabitants of Yerusalem, saying: From the thirteenth year of Yoshiyah the house-continuer of Amon, king of Yahudah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the word of Yahuwah has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.
Yahuwah has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear) saying, Return now everyone from his dysfunctional way, and from the dysfunction of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahuwah has given to you and to your family-strengtheners, from horizon to horizon; and don’t go after other mighty-ones to serve them or pay homage to them, and don’t provoke me to nose-flaring with the work of your hands; and I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to me, says Yahuwah; that you may provoke me to nose-flaring with the work of your hands to your own hurt.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says Yahuwah, and I will send to Nebukadnetstar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
It shall happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahuwah, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make for a horizonal extinction. I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Yirmeyahu has prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make bondservants of them, even of them; and I will repay them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.
For this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, to me: take this cup of the wine of wrath at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. They shall drink, and reel back and forth, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
Then I took the cup in Yahuwah’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom Yahuwah had sent me: Yerusalem, and the cities of Yahudah, and its kings, and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; Paroh king of Mitsrayim, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of the Uts, and all the kings of the Pelishtiy, and Ashqelon, and Azzah, and Eqron, and the remnant of Ashdod; Edom, and Moab, and the house-builders of Ammon; and all the kings of Tsor, and all the kings of Tsiydon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; Dedan, and Teyma, and Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; and all the kings of Ereb, and all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness; and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Eylam, and all the kings of the Medes; and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms, which are on the face of the land: and the king of Sheshak shall drink after them.
You shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: You shall surely drink. For, behold, I begin to work dysfunction at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the land, says Yahuwah of Armies.
Therefore prophesy you against them all these words, and tell them, Yahuwah will roar from on high, and utter his voice from his separated habitation; he will mightily roar against his fold; he will give a shout, as those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the land. A noise shall come even to the end of the land; for Yahuwah has a controversy with the nations; he will enter into judgment with all flesh: as for the wicked, he will give them to the sword, says Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Behold, dysfunction shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great storm shall be raised up from the uttermost parts of the land.
The slain of Yahuwah shall be at that day from one end of the land even to the other end of the land: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung on the face of the ground.
Wail, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow in dust, you principal of the flock; for the days of your massacre and of your dispersions are fully come, and you shall fall like a goodly vessel. The shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape. A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the principal of the flock! for Yahuwah lays waste their pasture. The peaceable folds are brought to silence because of the fierce nose-flaring of Yahuwah. He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce nose-flaring.
Yir 26
When Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah began to reign, this word came from Yahuwah, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: Stand in the court of Yahuwah’s house, and speak to all the cities of Yahudah, which come to pay homage in Yahuwah’s house, all the words that I direct you to speak to them; don’t diminish a word. It may be they will listen, and turn every man from his dysfunctional way; that I may repent me of the dysfunction which I purpose to do to them because of the dysfunction of their doings.
You shall tell them, This is what Yahuwah says: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send to you, even rising up early and sending them, but you have not listened; then will I make this house like Shiyloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the land.
The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Yirmeyahu speaking these words in the house of Yahuwah. It happened, when Yirmeyahu had made an end of speaking all that Yahuwah had directed him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold on him, saying, You shall surely die. Why have you prophesied in the name of Yahuwah, saying, This house shall be like Shiyloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant? All the people were gathered to Yirmeyahu in the house of Yahuwah.
When the princes of Yahudah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of Yahuwah; and they sat in the entry of the new gate of Yahuwah’s house. Then spoke the priests and the prophets to the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy of death; for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.
Then spoke Yirmeyahu to all the princes and to all the people, saying, Yahuwah sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard. Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and listen to the voice of Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One; and Yahuwah will repent him of the dysfunction that he has pronounced against you.
But as for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as is functional and right in your eyes. Only know for certain that, if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city, and on its inhabitants; for of a truth Yahuwah has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.
Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets: This man is not worthy of death; for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One.
Then some of the elders of the land rose up, and spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying, Miykayehu the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Chizqiyah king of Yahudah; and he spoke to all the people of Yahudah, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Tsiyon shall be plowed as a field, and Yerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
Did Chizqiyah king of Yahudah and all Yahudah put him to death? Didn’t he inwardly-flow-before Yahuwah, and entreat the favor of Yahuwah, and Yahuwah relented of the disaster which he had pronounced against them? Thus should we commit great dysfunction against our own breathing-throats.
There was also a man who prophesied in the name of Yahuwah, Uriyahu the house-continuer of Shemayahu of Qiryath Yeariym; and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Yirmeyahu: and when Yehoyaqiym the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Uriyahu heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Mitsrayim: and Yehoyaqiym the king sent men into Mitsrayim, Elnathan the house-continuer of Akbor, and certain men with him, into Mitsrayim; and they fetched forth Uriyahu out of Mitsrayim, and brought him to Yehoyaqiym the king, who killed him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. But the hand of Achiyqam the house-continuer of Shaphan was with Yirmeyahu, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.
Yir 27
When Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah began to reign, this word came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, This is what Yahuwah says to me: Make bonds and bars, and put them on your neck; and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the house-builders of Ammon, and to the king of Tsor, and to the king of Tsiydon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Yerusalem to Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah; and give them a directive to their masters, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, You shall tell your masters: I have made the land, the men and the animals that are on the face of the land, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I give it to whom it seems right to me. Now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebukadnetstar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the animals of the field also have I given him to serve him. All the nations shall serve him, and his house-continuer, and his house-continuer’s house-continuer, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall make him their bondservant.
It shall happen, that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, says Yahuwah, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. But as for you, don’t you listen to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out, and you should perish. But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, that nation will I let remain in their own land, says Yahuwah; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.
I spoke to Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and have-a-filled-stomach. Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as Yahuwah has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon; for they prophesy a lie to you. For I have not sent them, says Yahuwah, but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.
Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: Don’t listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold, the vessels of Yahuwah’s house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon; for they prophesy a lie to you. Don’t listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and have-a-filled-stomach: why should this city become a desolation? But if they be prophets, and if the word of Yahuwah be with them, let them now make intercession to Yahuwah of Armies, that the vessels which are left in the house of Yahuwah, and in the house of the king of Yahudah, and at Yerusalem, don’t go to Babylon. For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that are left in this city, which Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon didn’t take, when he carried away captive Yekonyah the house-continuer of Yehoyaqiym, king of Yahudah, from Yerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Yahudah and Yerusalem.
Yes, this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of Yahuwah, and in the house of the king of Yahudah, and at Yerusalem: They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until the day that I visit them, says Yahuwah; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.
Yir 28
It happened the same year, when Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah began to reign, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Chananyahu the house-continuer of Azzur, the prophet, who was of Gibon, spoke to me in the house of Yahuwah, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaks Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of Yahuwah’s house, that Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried to Babylon: and I will bring again to this place Yekonyah the house-continuer of Yehoyaqiym, king of Yahudah, with all the captives of Yahudah, who went to Babylon, says Yahuwah; for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
Then the prophet Yirmeyahu said to the prophet Chananyahu in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people who stood in the house of Yahuwah, even the prophet Yirmeyahu said, I-secure-it: Yahuwah do so; Yahuwah perform your words which you have prophesied, to bring again the vessels of Yahuwah’s house, and all them of the captivity, from Babylon to this place. Nevertheless hear you now this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all the people: The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of dysfunction, and of pestilence. The prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall happen, then shall the prophet be known, that Yahuwah has truly sent him.
Then Chananyahu the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Yirmeyahu’s neck, and broke it. Chananyahu spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon within two full years from off the neck of all the nations. The prophet Yirmeyahu went his way.
Then the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu, after Chananyahu the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Yirmeyahu, saying, Go, and tell Chananyahu, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: You have broken the bars of wood; but you have made in their place bars of iron. For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the animals of the field also.
Then the prophet Yirmeyahu said to Chananyahu the prophet, Hear now, Chananyahu: Yahuwah has not sent you; but you make this people to trust in a lie. Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will send you away from off the face of the land: this year you shall die, because you have spoken rebellion against Yahuwah. So Chananyahu the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.
Yir 29
Now these are the words of the letter that Yirmeyahu the prophet sent from Yerusalem to the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebukadnetstar had carried away captive from Yerusalem to Babylon, (after that Yekonyah the king, the queen family-binder, the eunuchs, the princes of Yahudah and Yerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths, had departed from Yerusalem), by the hand of Elasah the house-continuer of Shaphan, and Gemaryahu the house-continuer of Chilqiyahu, (whom Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah sent to Babylon to Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon), saying,
This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, to all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Yerusalem to Babylon: Build houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat their fruit. Take women, and family-strengthener house-continuers and daughters; and take women for your house-continuers, and give your daughters to men, that they may bear house-continuers and daughters; and multiply there, and don’t be diminished. Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to Yahuwah for it; for in its peace you shall have peace.
For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Don’t let your prophets who are in the midst of you, and your diviners, deceive you; neither listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name: I have not sent them, says Yahuwah.
For this is what Yahuwah says, When seventy years are about to be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my functional word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Yahuwah, thoughts of peace, and not of dysfunction, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your inner-guide. I will be found by you, says Yahuwah, and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahuwah; and I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.
Because you have said, Yahuwah has raised us up prophets in Babylon; this is what Yahuwah says concerning the king who sits on the throne of Daviyd, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your male-house-protectors who haven’t gone forth with you into captivity; this is what Yahuwah of Armies says; Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that can’t be eaten, they are so bad. I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the land, to be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations where I have driven them; because they have not listened to my words, says Yahuwah, with which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear, says Yahuwah. Hear therefore the word of Yahuwah, all you of the captivity, whom I have sent away from Yerusalem to Babylon.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, concerning Achab the house-continuer of Qolayah, and concerning Tsidqiyahu the house-continuer of Maaseyahu, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon; and he shall kill them before your eyes; and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captives of Yahudah who are in Babylon, saying, Yahuwah make you like Tsidqiyahu and like Achab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire; because they have worked folly in Yisrael, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ women, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t direct them; and I am he who knows, and am witness, says Yahuwah.
Concerning Shemayahu the Nechelamiy you shall speak, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, is saying, Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are at Yerusalem, and to Tsephanyahu the house-continuer of Maaseyahu, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, Yahuwah has made you priest in the place of Yehoyada the priest, that there may be officers in the house of Yahuwah, for every man who is mad, and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles. Now therefore, why have you not rebuked Yirmeyahu of Anathoth, who makes himself a prophet to you, because he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long: build houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat their fruit?
Tsephanyahu the priest read this letter in the ears of Yirmeyahu the prophet.
Then came the word of Yahuwah to Yirmeyahu, saying, Send to all them of the captivity, saying, This is what Yahuwah says concerning Shemayahu the Nechelamiy: Because Shemayahu has prophesied to you, and I didn’t send him, and he has caused you to trust in a lie; therefore this is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will punish Shemayahu the Nechelamiy, and his seed; he shall not have a man to dwell among this people, neither shall he see the functional thing that I will do to my people, says Yahuwah, because he has spoken rebellion against Yahuwah.
Yir 30
The word that came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, Thus speaks Yahuwah, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, saying, Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book. For, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Yisrael and Yahudah, says Yahuwah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their family-strengtheners, and they shall possess it.
These are the words that Yahuwah spoke concerning Yisrael and concerning Yahudah. For this is what Yahuwah says: We have heard a voice of trembling, of inward-flowing, and not of peace. Ask now, and see whether a man does travail with house-builder: why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Yaaqob’s trouble; but he shall be delivered out of it.
It shall come to pass in that day, says Yahuwah of Armies, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and will burst your bonds; and strangers shall no more make him their bondservant; but they shall serve Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One, and Daviyd their king, whom I will raise up to them. Therefore don’t you be afraid, O Yaaqob my servant, says Yahuwah; neither be dismayed, Yisrael: for, behold, I will deliver you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity; and Yaaqob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with you, says Yahuwah, to deliver you: for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.
For this is what Yahuwah says, Your hurt is incurable, and your wound grievous. There is none to plead your cause, that you may be bound up: you have no healing medicines. All your lovers have forgotten you; they don’t seek you: for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your missed-targets were increased. Why do you cry for your hurt? Your pain is incurable: for the greatness of your iniquity, because your missed-targets were increased, I have done these things to you. Therefore all those who devour you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, everyone of them, shall go into captivity; and those who despoil you shall be a spoil, and all who prey on you will I give for a prey. For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says Yahuwah; because they have called you an outcast, saying, It is Tsiyon, whom no man seeks after.
This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I will turn again the captivity of Yaaqob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places; and the city shall be built on its own hill, and the palace shall be inhabited in its own way. Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those who make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also esteem them, and they shall not be small. Their house-builders also shall be as before, and their congregation shall be established before me; and I will punish all who oppress them. Their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from their midst; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach to me: for who is he who has had boldness to approach to me? says Yahuwah. You shall be my people, and I will be your Mightiest-Yoked-One. Behold, the storm of Yahuwah, his wrath, has gone forth, a sweeping storm: it shall burst on the head of the wicked. The fierce nose-flaring of Yahuwah will not return, until he has executed, and until he has performed the intentions of his inner-guide. In the latter days you will understand it.
Yir 31
At that time, says Yahuwah, will I be the Mightiest-Yoked-One of all the families of Yisrael, and they shall be my people.
This is what Yahuwah says, The people who were left of the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Yisrael, when I went to cause him to rest. Yahuwah appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with a horizonal love: therefore with mercy have I drawn you. Again will I build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Yisrael: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Shomeron; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy its fruit. For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of Ephrayim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Tsiyon to Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One.
For this is what Yahuwah says, Sing with gladness for Yaaqob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish, praise, and say, Yahuwah, deliver your people, the remnant of Yisrael.
Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the land, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with house-builder and her who travails with house-builder together: a great company shall they return here. They shall come with weeping; and with petitions will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; for I am a family-strengthener to Yisrael, and Ephrayim is my firstborn.
Hear the word of Yahuwah, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Yisrael will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock. For Yahuwah has ransomed Yaaqob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They shall come and sing in the height of Tsiyon, and shall flow to the functionality of Yahuwah, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their breathing-throat shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. I will satiate the breathing-throat of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my functionality, says Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah says: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her house-builders; she refuses to be comforted for her house-builders, because they are no more.
This is what Yahuwah says: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says Yahuwah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your latter end, says Yahuwah; and your house-builders shall come again to their own border.
I have surely heard Ephrayim bemoaning himself thus, You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahuwah my Mightiest-Yoked-One. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth. Is Ephrayim my dear house-continuer? is he a darling house-builder? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels move for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says Yahuwah. Set up road signs, make guideposts; set your inner-guide toward the highway, even the way by which you went: turn again, virgin of Yisrael, turn again to these your cities. How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? for Yahuwah has fattened a new thing in the land: a woman shall encompass a man.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says, Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Yahudah and in its cities, when I shall bring again their captivity: Yahuwah bend-the-knee-to-give-to you, habitation of straight-pathedness, mountain of separateness. Yahudah and all its cities shall dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks. For I have satiated the weary breathing-throat, and every sorrowful breathing-throat have I replenished.
On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.
Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will sow the house of Yisrael and the house of Yahudah with the seed of man, and with the seed of animal. It shall happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, says Yahuwah. In those days they shall say no more, The family-strengtheners have eaten sour grapes, and the house-builders’s teeth are set on edge. But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will make a new passing-through-the-pieces with the house of Yisrael, and with the house of Yahudah: not according to the passing-through-the-pieces that I made with their family-strengtheners in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim; which my passing-through-the-pieces they broke, although I was a man to them, says Yahuwah. But this is the passing-through-the-pieces that I will make with the house of Yisrael after those days, says Yahuwah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their inner-guide will I write it; and I will be their Mightiest-Yoked-One, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his male-house-protector, saying, Know Yahuwah; for they shall all know me, from their least to their greatest, says Yahuwah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their missed-targets will I remember no more.
This is what Yahuwah says, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahuwah of Armies is his name: If these ordinances depart from before me, says Yahuwah, then the seed of Yisrael also shall cease from being a nation before me as long as they have-a-filled-stomach.
This is what Yahuwah says: If the sky above can be measured, and the foundations of the land searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Yisrael for all that they have done, says Yahuwah.
Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that the city shall be built to Yahuwah from the tower of Chananel to the gate of the corner. The measuring line shall go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and shall turn about to Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Qidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be separated to Yahuwah; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more to the horizon.
Yir 32
The word that came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah in the tenth year of Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebukadnetstar. Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Yerusalem.
Yirmeyahu the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Yahudah’s house. For Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah had shut him up, saying, Why do you prophesy, and say, This is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; and Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes; and he shall bring Tsidqiyahu to Babylon, and he shall be there until I visit him, says Yahuwah: though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper?
Yirmeyahu said, The word of Yahuwah came to me, saying, Behold, Hanamel the house-continuer of Shallum your uncle shall come to you, saying, Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.
So Hanamel my uncle’s house-continuer came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahuwah, and said to me, Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Binyamiyn; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of Yahuwah.
I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s house-continuer, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. I subscribed the deed, and sealed it, and called witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open; and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu, the house-continuer of Machseyah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s house-continuer, and in the presence of the witnesses who subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Yehudiy who sat in the court of the guard. I directed Baruk before them, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel; that they may continue many days. For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land.
Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu, I prayed to Yahuwah, saying, Ah Master Yahuwah! Behold, you have made the skies and the land by your great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you, who show mercy to thousands, and repayment the iniquity of the family-strengtheners into the bosom of their house-builders after them; the great, the strong Mighty-One, Yahuwah of Armies is his name; great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open on all the ways of the house-continuers of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings: who performed signs and wonders in the land of Mitsrayim, even to this day, both in Yisrael and among other men; and made yourself a name, as in this day; and brought forth your people Yisrael out of the land of Mitsrayim with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terror; and gave them this land, which you swore to their family-strengtheners to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey; and they came in, and possessed it, but they didn’t listen to your voice, neither walked in your law; they have done nothing of all that you directed them to do: therefore you have caused all this dysfunction to come on them.
Behold, the mounds, they have come to the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what you have spoken has happened; and behold, you see it. You have said to me, Master Yahuwah, Buy the field for money, and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
Then came the word of Yahuwah to Yirmeyahu, saying, Behold, I am Yahuwah, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Therefore this is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and he shall take it: and the Chaldeans, who fight against this city, shall come and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses, on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to other mighty-ones, to provoke me to nose-flaring. For the house-builders of Yisrael and the house-builders of Yahudah have done only that which was dysfunctional in my sight from their youth; for the house-builders of Yisrael have only provoked me to nose-flaring with the work of their hands, says Yahuwah.
For this city has been to me a provocation of my nose-flaring and of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this day; that I should remove it from before my face, because of all the dysfunction of the house-builders of Yisrael and of the house-builders of Yahudah, which they have done to provoke me to nose-flaring, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Yahudah, and the inhabitants of Yerusalem. They have turned to me the back, and not the face: and though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the house-continuer of Hinnom, to cause their house-continuers and their daughters to pass through fire to Molek; which I didn’t direct them, neither did it come into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Yahudah to miss-the-target.
Now therefore this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, concerning this city, about which you say, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, where I have driven them in my nose-flaring, and in my wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them again to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: and they shall be my people, and I will be their Mightiest-Yoked-One: and I will give them one inner-guide and one way, that they may inwardly-flow-before me as long as they have-a-filled-stomach, for them to function, and of their house-builders after them: and I will make a horizonal passing-through-the-pieces with them, that I will not turn away from following them, but instead, to do what is functional to them; and I will put my inward-flow in their inner-guides, that they may not depart from me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do what is functional to them, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole inner-guide and with my whole breathing-throat.
For this is what Yahuwah says: Like as I have brought all this great dysfunction on this people, so will I bring on them all the functional things that I have promised them. Fields shall be bought in this land, about which you say, It is desolate, without man or animal; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Binyamiyn, and in the places about Yerusalem, and in the cities of Yahudah, and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South: for I will cause their captivity to return, says Yahuwah.
Yir 33
Moreover the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying, This is what Yahuwah says who does it, Yahuwah who forms it to establish it; Yahuwah is his name: Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great things, and difficult, which you don’t know.
For this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Yahudah, which are broken down to make a defense against the mounds and against the sword; while men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my nose-flaring and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city: Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth. I will cause the captivity of Yahudah and the captivity of Yisrael to return, and will build them, as at the first. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, by which they have missed-the-target against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, by which they have missed-the-target against me, and by which they have transgressed against me. This city shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for an esteem, before all the nations of the land, which shall hear all the functional things that I do to them, and shall inwardly-flow-before and tremble for all the functional things and for all the peace that I procure to it.
This is what Yahuwah says: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, about which you say, It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Yahudah, and in the streets of Yerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, Give thanks to Yahuwah of Armies, for Yahuwah is functional, for his mercy endures to the horizon; who bring thanksgiving into the house of Yahuwah. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, says Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Binyamiyn, and in the places about Yerusalem, and in the cities of Yahudah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him who numbers them, says Yahuwah.
Behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will perform that functional word which I have spoken concerning the house of Yisrael and concerning the house of Yahudah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of straight-pathedness to grow up to Daviyd; and he shall execute justice and straight-pathedness in the land. In those days shall Yahudah be delivered, and Yerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name by which she shall be called: Yahuwah our straight-pathedness.
For this is what Yahuwah says: Daviyd shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Yisrael; neither shall the priests the Leviy want a man before me to offer ascent offerings, and to burn meal offerings, and to do slaughter continually.
The word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu, saying, This is what Yahuwah says: If you can break my passing-through-the-pieces of the day, and my passing-through-the-pieces of the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their season; then may also my passing-through-the-pieces be broken with Daviyd my servant, that he shall not have a house-continuer to reign on his throne; and with the Leviy the priests, my ministers. As the army of the sky can’t be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of Daviyd my servant, and the Leviy who minister to me.
The word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu, saying, Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, The two families which Yahuwah chose, he has cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. This is what Yahuwah says: If my passing-through-the-pieces of day and night fails, if I have not appointed the ordinances of the sky and the land; then will I also cast away the seed of Yaaqob, and of Daviyd my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Yitschaq, and Yaaqob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have mercy on them.
Yir 34
The word which came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, when Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the land that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, were fighting against Yerusalem, and against all the cities of it, saying: This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, Go, and speak to Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah, and tell him, This is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire: and you shall not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with you mouth to mouth, and you shall go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of Yahuwah, O Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah: this is what Yahuwah says concerning you, You shall not die by the sword; you shall die in peace; and with the burnings of your family-strengtheners, the former kings who were before you, so shall they make a burning for you; and they shall lament you, saying, Ah Master! for I have spoken the word, says Yahuwah. Then Yirmeyahu the prophet spoke all these words to Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah in Yerusalem, when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against Yerusalem, and against all the cities of Yahudah that were left, against Lakiysh and against Azeqah; for these alone remained of the cities of Yahudah as fortified cities.
The word that came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, after that the king Tsidqiyahu had made a passing-through-the-pieces with all the people who were at Yerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them; that every man should let his male servant, and every man his female servant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free; that none should make bondservants of them, of a Yehudiy his male-house-protector. All the princes and all the people listened, who had entered into the passing-through-the-pieces, that everyone should let his male servant, and everyone his female servant, go free, that none should make bondservants of them any more; they listened, and let them go: but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.
Therefore the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: I made a passing-through-the-pieces with your family-strengtheners in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Mitsrayim, out of the house of bondage, saying, At the end of seven years you shall let go every man his male-house-protector who is a Hebrew, who has been sold to you, and has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you: but your family-strengtheners didn’t listen to me, neither inclined their ear. You had now turned, and had done that which is right in my eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor; and you had made a passing-through-the-pieces before me in the house which is called by my name: but you turned and profaned my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their breathing-throat's pleasure, to return; and you brought them into subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says: You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his male-house-protector, and every man to his neighbor: behold, I proclaim to you a liberty, says Yahuwah, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the land. I will give the men who have transgressed my passing-through-the-pieces, who have not performed the words of the passing-through-the-pieces which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts; the princes of Yahudah, and the princes of Yerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their breathing-throat; and their dead bodies shall be for food to the flyers of the sky, and to the animals of the land. Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their breathing-throat, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, who have gone away from you. Behold, I will direct, says Yahuwah, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Yahudah a desolation, without inhabitant.
Yir 35
The word which came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah in the days of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, saying, Go to the house of the Rekah, and speak to them, and bring them into the house of Yahuwah, into one of the rooms, and give them wine to drink.
Then I took Yaazanyahu the house-continuer of Yirmeyahu, the house-continuer of Chabatstsanyah, and his male-house-protectors, and all his house-continuers, and the whole house of the Rekah; and I brought them into the house of Yahuwah, into the room of the house-continuers of Hanan the house-continuer of Yigdalyahu, the man of the Mightiest-Yoked-One, which was by the room of the princes, which was above the room of Maaseyahu the house-continuer of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold. I set before the house-continuers of the house of the Rekah bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, Drink wine!
But they said, We will drink no wine; for Yonadab the house-continuer of Rekab, our family-strengthener, directed us, saying, You shall drink no wine, neither you, nor your house-continuers, to the horizon: neither shall you build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any; but all your days you shall dwell in tents; that you may have-a-filled-stomach many days in the land in which you have-a-filled-stomach. We have listened to the voice of Yonadab the house-continuer of Rekab, our family-strengthener, in all that he directed us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our women, our house-continuers, or our daughters; nor to build houses for us to dwell in; neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: but we have lived in tents, and have listened, and done according to all that Yonadab our family-strengthener directed us. But it happened, when Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, Come, and let us go to Yerusalem for inward-flowing-before the army of the Chaldeans, and for inward-flowing-before the army of the Syrians; so we dwell at Yerusalem.
Then came the word of Yahuwah to Yirmeyahu, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Go, and tell the men of Yahudah and the inhabitants of Yerusalem, Will you not receive instruction to listen to my words? says Yahuwah. The words of Yonadab the house-continuer of Rekab, that he directed his house-continuers, not to drink wine, are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they listen to their family-strengthener’s directive: but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; and you have not listened to me. I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return now every man from his dysfunctional way, and amend your doings, and don’t go after other mighty-ones to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your family-strengtheners: but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me. Because the house-continuers of Yonadab the house-continuer of Rekab have performed the directive of their family-strengthener which he directed them, but this people has not listened to me.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Behold, I will bring on Yahudah and on all the inhabitants of Yerusalem all the dysfunction that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them, but they have not heard; and I have called to them, but they have not answered.
Yirmeyahu said to the house of the Rekah, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Because you have listened to the directive of Yonadab your family-strengthener, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he directed you; therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: In no way shall there fail to be a man of Yonadab the house-continuer of Rekab to stand before me all the days.
Yir 36
It happened in the fourth year of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, that this word came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, saying, Take a scroll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken to you against Yisrael, and against Yahudah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Yoshiyah, even to this day. It may be that the house of Yahudah will hear all the dysfunction which I purpose to do to them; that they may return every man from his dysfunctional way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their missed-targets.
Then Yirmeyahu called Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu; and Baruk wrote from the mouth of Yirmeyahu all the words of Yahuwah, which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book. Yirmeyahu directed Baruk, saying, I am shut up; I can’t go into the house of Yahuwah: therefore you go, and read in the scroll, which you have written from my mouth, the words of Yahuwah in the ears of the people in Yahuwah’s house on the fast day; and also you shall read them in the ears of all Yahudah who come out of their cities. It may be they will present their supplication before Yahuwah, and will return everyone from his dysfunctional way; for great is the nose-flaring and the wrath that Yahuwah has pronounced against this people.
Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu did according to all that Yirmeyahu the prophet directed him, reading in the book the words of Yahuwah in Yahuwah’s house. Now it happened in the fifth year of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, in the ninth month, that all the people in Yerusalem, and all the people who came from the cities of Yahudah to Yerusalem, proclaimed a fast before Yahuwah. Then read Baruk in the book the words of Yirmeyahu in the house of Yahuwah, in the room of Gemaryahu the house-continuer of Shaphan, the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of Yahuwah’s house, in the ears of all the people.
When Miykayehu the house-continuer of Gemaryahu, the house-continuer of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of Yahuwah, he went down into the king’s house, into the scribe’s room: and behold, all the princes were sitting there, Eliyshama the scribe, and Delayahu the house-continuer of Shemayahu, and Elnathan the house-continuer of Akbor, and Gemaryahu the house-continuer of Shaphan, and Tsidqiyahu the house-continuer of Chananyahu, and all the princes. Then Miykayehu declared to them all the words that he had heard, when Baruk read the book in the ears of the people. Therefore all the princes sent Yehudiy the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, the house-continuer of Shelemyahu, the house-continuer of Cushi, to Baruk, saying, Take in your hand the scroll in which you have read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu took the scroll in his hand, and came to them. They said to him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruk read it in their ears. Now it happened, when they had heard all the words, they turned in inward-flowing-before one toward another, and said to Baruk, We will surely tell the king of all these words. They asked Baruk, saying, Tell us now, How did you write all these words at his mouth?
Then Baruk answered them, He pronounced all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.
Then the princes said to Baruk, Go, hide, you and Yirmeyahu; and let no man know where you are.
They went in to the king into the court; but they had laid up the scroll in the room of Eliyshama the scribe; and they told all the words in the ears of the king. So the king sent Yehudiy to get the scroll; and he took it out of the room of Eliyshama the scribe. Yehudiy read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month: and there was a fire in the brazier burning before him. It happened, when Yehudiy had read three or four leaves, that the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. They were not afraid, nor tore their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants who heard all these words. Moreover Elnathan and Delayahu and Gemaryahu had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the scroll; but he would not hear them. The king directed Yerachmeel the king’s house-continuer, and Serayahu the house-continuer of Azriyel, and Shelemyahu the house-continuer of Abdeel, to take Baruk the scribe and Yirmeyahu the prophet; but Yahuwah hid them.
Then the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu, after the king had burned the scroll, and the words which Baruk wrote at the mouth of Yirmeyahu, saying, Take again another scroll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Yehoyaqiym the king of Yahudah has burned. Concerning Yehoyaqiym king of Yahudah you shall say, This is what Yahuwah says: You have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from there man and animal? Therefore this is what Yahuwah says concerning Yehoyaqiym king of Yahudah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of Daviyd; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of Yerusalem, and on the men of Yahudah, all the dysfunction that I have pronounced against them, but they didn’t listen.
Then Yirmeyahu took another scroll, and gave it to Baruk the scribe, the house-continuer of Neriyahu, who wrote therein from the mouth of Yirmeyahu all the words of the book which Yehoyaqiym king of Yahudah had burned in the fire; and there were added besides to them many like words.
Yir 37
Tsidqiyahu the house-continuer of Yoshiyah reigned as king, instead of Konyahu the house-continuer of Yehoyaqiym, whom Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon made king in the land of Yahudah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, listened to the words of Yahuwah, which he spoke by the prophet Yirmeyahu.
Tsidqiyahu the king sent Yahukal the house-continuer of Shelemyahu, and Tsephanyahu the house-continuer of Maaseyahu, the priest, to the prophet Yirmeyahu, saying, Pray now to Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One for us.
Now Yirmeyahu came in and went out among the people; for they had not put him into prison. Paroh’s army had come forth out of Mitsrayim; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Yerusalem heard news of them, they broke up from Yerusalem.
Then came the word of Yahuwah to the prophet Yirmeyahu, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, You shall tell the king of Yahudah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: Behold, Paroh’s army, which has come forth to help you, shall return to Mitsrayim into their own land. The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and burn it with fire.
This is what Yahuwah says: Don’t lift up your breathing-throats, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not depart. For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yes would they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.
It happened that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Yerusalem for inward-flowing-before Paroh’s army, then Yirmeyahu went forth out of Yerusalem to go into the land of Binyamiyn, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people. When he was in the gate of Binyamiyn, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Yiriyah, the house-continuer of Shelemyahu, the house-continuer of Chananyahu; and he laid hold on Yirmeyahu the prophet, saying, You are falling away to the Chaldeans.
Then Yirmeyahu said, That is untrue. I am not falling away to the Chaldeans. But he didn’t listen to him; so Yiriyah laid hold on Yirmeyahu, and brought him to the princes. The princes were nose-flared with Yirmeyahu, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Yehonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison. When Yirmeyahu had come into the dungeon house, and into the cells, and Yirmeyahu had remained there many days.
Then Tsidqiyahu the king sent, and fetched him: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from Yahuwah? Yirmeyahu said, There is. He said also, You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Moreover Yirmeyahu said to king Tsidqiyahu, Wherein have I missed-the-target against you, or against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land? Now please hear, my master the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Yehonathan the scribe, lest I die there.
Then Tsidqiyahu the king directed, and they committed Yirmeyahu into the court of the guard; and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Yirmeyahu remained in the court of the guard.
Yir 38
Shephatyahu the house-continuer of Mattan, and Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Pashchur, and Yukal the house-continuer of Shelemyahu, and Pashchur the house-continuer of Malkiyahu, heard the words that Yirmeyahu spoke to all the people, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes forth to the Chaldeans shall have-a-filled-stomach, and his breathing-throat shall be to him for a prey, and he shall have-a-filled-stomach.
This is what Yahuwah says, This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.
Then the princes said to the king, Please let this man be put to death; because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them: for this man doesn’t seek the welfare of this people, but the hurt.
Tsidqiyahu the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not he who can do anything against you.
Then took they Yirmeyahu, and cast him into the dungeon of Malkiyahu the king’s house-continuer, that was in the court of the guard: and they let down Yirmeyahu with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Yirmeyahu sank in the mire.
Now when Ebed Melek the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Yirmeyahu in the dungeon (the king then sitting in the gate of Binyamiyn), Ebed Melek went forth out of the king’s house, and spoke to the king, saying, My master the king, these men have done dysfunction in all that they have done to Yirmeyahu the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.
Then the king directed Ebed Melek the Ethiopian, saying, Take from here thirty men with you, and take up Yirmeyahu the prophet out of the dungeon, before he dies.
So Ebed Melek took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took there rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Yirmeyahu. Ebed Melek the Ethiopian said to Yirmeyahu, Put now these rags and worn-out garments under your armpits under the cords. Yirmeyahu did so. So they drew up Yirmeyahu with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Yirmeyahu remained in the court of the guard.
Then Tsidqiyahu the king sent, and took Yirmeyahu the prophet to him into the third entry that is in the house of Yahuwah: and the king said to Yirmeyahu, I will ask you something. Hide nothing from me.
Then Yirmeyahu said to Tsidqiyahu, If I declare it to you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen to me.
So Tsidqiyahu the king swore secretly to Yirmeyahu, saying, As Yahuwah lives, who made us this breathing-throat, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your breathing-throat.
Then Yirmeyahu said to Tsidqiyahu, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: If you will go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your breathing-throat shall have-a-filled-stomach, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and you shall have-a-filled-stomach, and your house. But if you will not go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape out of their hand.
Tsidqiyahu the king said to Yirmeyahu, I am afraid of the Yehudiy who are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me.
But Yirmeyahu said, They shall not deliver you. Listen, I beg you, to the voice of Yahuwah, in that which I speak to you: so it shall be well with you, and your breathing-throat shall have-a-filled-stomach. But if you refuse to go forth, this is the word that Yahuwah has shown me: behold, all the women who are left in the king of Yahudah’s house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women shall say, Your familiar friends have set you on, and have prevailed over you. Your feet are sunk in the mire, they have turned away back.
They shall bring out all your women and your house-builders to the Chaldeans; and you shall not escape out of their hand, but shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and you shall cause this city to be burned with fire.
Then Tsidqiyahu said to Yirmeyahu, Let no man know of these words, and you shall not die. But if the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you, and tell you, Declare to us now what you have said to the king; don’t hide it from us, and we will not put you to death; also what the king said to you: then you shall tell them, I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Yehonathan’s house, to die there.
Then all the princes came to Yirmeyahu, and asked him; and he told them according to all these words that the king had directed. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived. So Yirmeyahu stayed in the court of the guard until the day that Yerusalem was taken.
Yir 39
It happened when Yerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah, in the tenth month, came Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon and all his army against Yerusalem, and besieged it; in the eleventh year of Tsidqiyahu, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city), that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, Nergal Sharetser, Samgarnebo, Sarsekiym, Rab-Sariys, Nergal Sharetser, Rab-Mag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.
It happened that, when Tsidqiyahu the king of Yahudah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Tsidqiyahu in the plains of Yeriycho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Chamath; and he gave judgment on him. Then the king of Babylon killed the house-continuers of Tsidqiyahu in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon killed all the nobles of Yahudah. Moreover he put out Tsidqiyahu’s eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.
The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Yerusalem. Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the residue of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the residue of the people who remained. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, who had nothing, in the land of Yahudah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.
Now Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon directed Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard concerning Yirmeyahu, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do to him even as he shall tell you. So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushazban, Rab-Sariys, and Nergal Sharetser, Rab-Mag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon; they sent, and took Yirmeyahu out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, the house-continuer of Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he lived among the people.
Now the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu, while he was shut up in the court of the guard, saying, Go, and speak to Ebed Melek the Ethiopian, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Behold, I will bring my words on this city for what is dysfunctional, and not for what is functional; and they shall be accomplished before you in that day. But I will deliver you in that day, says Yahuwah; and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your breathing-throat shall be as loot to you; because you have put your trust in me, says Yahuwah.
Yir 40
The word which came to Yirmeyahu from Yahuwah, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Yerusalem and Yahudah, who were carried away captive to Babylon. The captain of the guard took Yirmeyahu, and said to him, Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One pronounced this dysfunction on this place; and Yahuwah has brought it, and done according as he spoke: because you have missed-the-target against Yahuwah, and have not listened toed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. Now, behold, I release you this day from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems functional to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t: behold, all the land is before you; where it seems functional and right to you to go, there go.
But if not, go back. Go back then, he said, to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, the house-continuer of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Yahudah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go. So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. Then went Yirmeyahu to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam to Mitspah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land.
Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, and women, and house-builders, and of the poorest of the land, of those who were not carried away captive to Babylon; then they came to Gedalyahu to Mitspah, Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, and Yahuchanan and Yehonathan the house-continuers of Qareach, and Serayahu the house-continuer of Tanchumeth, and the house-continuers of Ephai the Netophathite, and Yezanyah the house-continuer of the Maacathite, they and their men. Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam the house-continuer of Shaphan swore to them and to their men, saying, Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mitspah, to stand before the Chaldeans who shall come to us: but you, gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken.
Likewise when all the Yehudiy who were in Moab, and among the house-builders of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Yahudah, and that he had set over them Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, the house-continuer of Shaphan; then all the Yehudiy returned out of all places where they were driven, and came to the land of Yahudah, to Gedalyahu, to Mitspah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much.
Moreover Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, came to Gedalyahu to Mitspah, and said to him, Do you know that Baaliys the king of the house-builders of Ammon has sent Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu to strike your breathing-throat? But Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam didn’t believe them.
Then Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach spoke to Gedalyahu in Mitspah secretly, saying, Please let me go, and I will kill Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, and no man shall know it. Why should he strike your breathing-throat, that all the Yehudiy who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Yahudah perish?
But Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam said to Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, You shall not do this thing; for you speak falsely of Yishmael.
Yir 41
Now it happened in the seventh month, that Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, the house-continuer of Eliyshama, of the seed royal and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam to Mitspah; and there they ate bread together in Mitspah. Then arose Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam the house-continuer of Shaphan with the sword, and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. Yishmael also killed all the Yehudiy who were with him, with Gedalyahu, at Mitspah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war.
It happened the second day after he had killed Gedalyahu, before any man knew it, that there came men from Shekem, from Shiyloh, and from Shomeron, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of Yahuwah. Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu went forth from Mitspah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it happened, as he met them, he said to them, Come to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam.
It was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu killed them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men who were with him. But ten men were found among those who said to Yishmael, Don’t kill us; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their male-house-protectors.
Now the pit in which Yishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had killed, by the side of Gedalyahu (the same was who which Asa the king had made for inward-flowing-before Basha king of Yisrael), Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu filled it with those who were killed.
Then Yishmael carried away captive all the rest of the people who were in Mitspah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who remained in Mitspah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam; Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the house-builders of Ammon.
But when Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, heard of all the dysfunction that Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu had done, then they took all the men, and went to fight with Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibon. Now it happened that, when all the people who were with Yishmael saw Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, then they were glad. So all the people who Yishmael had carried away captive from Mitspah turned about and came back, and went to Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach. But Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu escaped from Yahuchanan with eight men, and went to the house-builders of Ammon.
Then Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu, from Mitspah, after he had killed Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, the men of war, and the women, and the house-builders, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibon: and they departed, and lived in Geruth Kimham, which is by Beyth Lechem, to go to enter into Mitsrayim, because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because Yishmael the house-continuer of Nethanyahu had killed Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land.
Yir 42
Then all the captains of the forces, and Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and Yezanyah the house-continuer of Hoshayah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, and said to Yirmeyahu the prophet, Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do see us: that Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One may show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do.
Then Yirmeyahu the prophet said to them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray to Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One according to your words; and it shall happen that whatever thing Yahuwah shall answer you, I will declare it to you; I will keep nothing back from you.
Then they said to Yirmeyahu, Yahuwah be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One shall send you to us. Whether it be functional, or whether it be dysfunctional, we will listen to the voice of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we listen to the voice of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One.
It happened after ten days, that the word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu. Then called he Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, and said to them, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him: If you will still have-a-filled-stomach in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; don’t be afraid of him, says Yahuwah: for I am with you to deliver you, and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.
But if you say, We will not dwell in this land; so that you don’t listen to the voice of Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, saying, No; but we will go into the land of Mitsrayim, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell.
Now therefore hear the word of Yahuwah, O remnant of Yahudah: This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: If you indeed set your faces to enter into Mitsrayim, and go to have-a-filled-stomach there; then it shall happen, that the sword, which you inwardly-flow-before, shall overtake you there in the land of Mitsrayim; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Mitsrayim; and there you shall die. So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Mitsrayim to have-a-filled-stomach there: they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the dysfunction that I will bring on them.
For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: As my nose-flaring and my wrath has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Yerusalem, so shall my wrath be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Mitsrayim; and you shall be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.
Yahuwah has spoken concerning you, remnant of Yahudah, Don’t you go into Mitsrayim: know certainly that I have testified to you this day. For you have dealt deceitfully against your own breathing-throats; for you sent me to Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One, saying, Pray for us to Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One; and according to all that Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One shall say, so declare to us, and we will do it: and I have this day declared it to you; but you have not listened to the voice of Yahuwah your Mightiest-Yoked-One in anything for which he has sent me to you. Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place where you desire to go to have-a-filled-stomach there.
Yir 43
It happened that, when Yirmeyahu had made an end of speaking to all the people all the words of Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One, with which Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One had sent him to them, even all these words, then spoke Azaryahu the house-continuer of Hoshayah, and Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the proud men, saying to Yirmeyahu, You speak falsely: Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One has not sent you to say, You shall not go into Mitsrayim to have-a-filled-stomach there; but Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu sets you on against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death, and carry us away captive to Babylon.
So Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, didn’t listen to the voice of Yahuwah, to dwell in the land of Yahudah. But Yahuchanan the house-continuer of Qareach, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Yahudah, who were returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to have-a-filled-stomach in the land of Yahudah; the men, and the women, and the house-builders, and the king’s daughters, and every breathing-throat who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedalyahu the house-continuer of Achiyqam, the house-continuer of Shaphan; and Yirmeyahu the prophet, and Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu; and they came into the land of Mitsrayim; for they didn’t listen to the voice of Yahuwah: and they came to Tahpanhes.
Then came the word of Yahuwah to Yirmeyahu in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in your hand, and hide them in mortar in the brick work, which is at the entry of Paroh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Yahudah; and tell them, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Behold, I will send and take Nebukadnetstar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. He shall come, and shall strike the land of Mitsrayim; such as are for death shall be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. I will kindle a fire in the houses of the mighty-ones of Mitsrayim; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captive: and he shall array himself with the land of Mitsrayim, as a shepherd puts on his garment; and he shall go forth from there in peace. He shall also break the pillars of Beyth Shemesh, that is in the land of Mitsrayim; and the houses of the mighty-ones of Mitsrayim shall he burn with fire.
Yir 44
The word that came to Yirmeyahu concerning all the Yehudiy who lived in the land of Mitsrayim, who lived at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Moph, and in the country of Pathros, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: You have seen all the dysfunction that I have brought on Yerusalem, and on all the cities of Yahudah; and behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwells therein, because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to nose-flaring, in that they went to burn incense, to serve other mighty-ones, that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you, nor your family-strengtheners. However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, don’t do this abominable thing that I hate. But they didn’t listen, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense to other mighty-ones. Therefore my wrath and my nose-flaring was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Yahudah and in the streets of Yerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day.
Therefore now this is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Why do you commit great dysfunction against your own breathing-throats, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing house-builder out of the midst of Yahudah, to leave yourselves none remaining; in that you provoke me to nose-flaring with the works of your hands, burning incense to other mighty-ones in the land of Mitsrayim, where you have gone to have-a-filled-stomach; that you may be cut off, and that you may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the land? Have you forgotten the wickedness of your family-strengtheners, and the wickedness of the kings of Yahudah, and the wickedness of their women, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your women which they committed in the land of Yahudah, and in the streets of Yerusalem? They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they inwardly-flowed, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your family-strengtheners.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Behold, I will set my face against you for dysfunction, even to cut off all Yahudah. I will take the remnant of Yahudah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Mitsrayim to have-a-filled-stomach there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Mitsrayim shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an object of horror, an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Mitsrayim, as I have punished Yerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; so that none of the remnant of Yahudah, who have gone into the land of Mitsrayim to have-a-filled-stomach there, shall escape or be left, to return into the land of Yahudah, to which they lift up their breathing-throat to return to dwell there: for none shall return deliver such as shall escape.
Then all the men who knew that their women burned incense to other mighty-ones, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who lived in the land of Mitsrayim, in Pathros, answered Yirmeyahu, saying, As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahuwah, we will not listen to you. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our family-strengtheners, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Yahudah, and in the streets of Yerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no dysfunction. But since we left off burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. When we burned incense to the queen of the sky, and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to pay homage to her, and pour out drink offerings to her, without our men?
Then Yirmeyahu said to all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people who had given him an answer, saying, The incense that you burned in the cities of Yahudah, and in the streets of Yerusalem, you and your family-strengtheners, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, didn’t Yahuwah remember them, and didn’t it come into his mind? so that Yahuwah could no longer bear, because of the dysfunction of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed; therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day. Because you have burned incense, and because you have missed-the-target against Yahuwah, and have not listened to the voice of Yahuwah, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this dysfunction has happened to you, as it is this day.
Moreover Yirmeyahu said to all the people, including all the women, Hear the word of Yahuwah, all Yahudah who are in the land of Mitsrayim: This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: You and your women have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her.
Establish then your vows, and perform your vows. Therefore hear the word of Yahuwah, all Yahudah who dwell in the land of Mitsrayim: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says Yahuwah, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Yahudah in all the land of Mitsrayim, saying, As the Master Yahuwah lives. Behold, I watch over them for what is dysfunctional, and not for what is functional; and all the men of Yahudah who are in the land of Mitsrayim shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until they are all gone. Those who escape the sword shall return out of the land of Mitsrayim into the land of Yahudah, few in number; and all the remnant of Yahudah, who have gone into the land of Mitsrayim to have-a-filled-stomach there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, or theirs. This shall be the sign to you, says Yahuwah, that I will punish you in this place, that you may know that my words shall surely stand against you for dysfunction: This is what Yahuwah says, Behold, I will give Paroh Chophra king of Mitsrayim into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of those who seek his breathing-throat; as I gave Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, who was his enemy, and sought his breathing-throat.
Yir 45
The message that Yirmeyahu the prophet spoke to Baruk the house-continuer of Neriyahu, when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of Yirmeyahu, in the fourth year of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah, saying, This is what Yahuwah says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, to you, Baruk: You said, Woe is me now! for Yahuwah has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.
You shall tell him, This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in the whole land. Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them; for, behold, I will bring dysfunction on all flesh, says Yahuwah; but your breathing-throat will I give to you for loot in all places where you go.
Yir 46
The word of Yahuwah which came to Yirmeyahu the prophet concerning the nations.
Of Mitsrayim: concerning the army of Paroh Necoh king of Mitsrayim, which was by the river Perath in Karkemiysh, which Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Yehoyaqiym the house-continuer of Yoshiyah, king of Yahudah. Prepare the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle! Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets; furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.
Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty-ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and don’t look back. Terror is on every side, says Yahuwah. Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Perath have they stumbled and fallen. Who is this who rises up like the Nile, whose waters toss themselves like the rivers? Mitsrayim rises up like the Nile, and his waters toss themselves like the rivers: and he says, I will rise up, I will cover the land; I will destroy cities and its inhabitants. Go up, you horses; and rage, you chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Kush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludiy, who handle and bend the bow.
For that day is of the Master, Yahuwah of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood; for the Master, Yahuwah of Armies, has a slaughter in the north country by the river Perath. Go up into Gilad, and take balm, virgin daughter of Mitsrayim: in vain do you use many medicines; there is no healing for you. The nations have heard of your shame, and the land is full of your cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they are fallen both of them together.
The word that Yahuwah spoke to Yirmeyahu the prophet, how that Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Mitsrayim. Declare in Mitsrayim, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Moph and in Tahpanhes: say, Stand forth, and prepare; for the sword has devoured around you. Why are your strong ones swept away? they didn’t stand, because Yahuwah pushed them. He made many to stumble, yes, they fell one on another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword. They cried there, Paroh king of Mitsrayim is but a noise; he has let the appointed time pass by.
As I have-a-filled-stomach, says the King, whose name is Yahuwah of Armies, surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Karmel by the sea, so shall he come. You daughter who dwells in Mitsrayim, furnish yourself to go into captivity; for Moph shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up, without inhabitant.
Mitsrayim is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the north has come, it has come. Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they didn’t stand: for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation. The sound of it shall go like the serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters. They shall cut down her forest, says Yahuwah, though it can’t be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. The daughter of Mitsrayim shall be disappointed; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.
Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael, says: Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Paroh, and Mitsrayim, with her mighty-ones, and her kings; even Paroh, and those who trust in him: and I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their breathing-throat, and into the hand of Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants; and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, says Yahuwah.
But don’t you be afraid, Yaaqob my servant, neither be dismayed, Yisrael: for, behold, I will deliver you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity; and Yaaqob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Don’t you be afraid, O Yaaqob my servant, says Yahuwah; for I am with you: for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.
Yir 47
The word of Yahuwah that came to Yirmeyahu the prophet concerning the Pelishtiy, before that Paroh struck Azzah. This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and those who dwell therein; and the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall wail. At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the family-strengtheners don’t look back to their house-builders for feebleness of hands; because of the day that comes to destroy all the Pelishtiy, to cut off from Tsor and Tsiydon every helper who remains: for Yahuwah will destroy the Pelishtiy, the remnant of the isle of Kaphtor. Baldness has come on Azzah; Ashqelon is brought to nothing, the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself? You sword of Yahuwah, how long will it be before you be quiet? Put up yourself into your scabbard; rest, and be still. How can you be quiet, since Yahuwah has given you a directive? Against Ashqelon, and against the seashore, there has he appointed it.
Yir 48
Of Moab. This is what Yahuwah of Armies, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael says: Woe to Nebo! for it is laid waste; Qiryathayim is disappointed, it is taken; Misgab is put to shame and broken down. The praise of Moab is no more; in Cheshbon they have devised dysfunction against her: Come, and let us cut her off from being a nation. You also, Madmen, shall be brought to silence: the sword shall pursue you. The sound of a cry from Choronayim, desolation and great destruction!
Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard. For by the ascent of Luchiyth with continual weeping shall they go up; for at the descent of Choronayim they have heard the distress of the cry of destruction. Flee, deliver your breathing-throat, and be like the heath in the wilderness. For, because you have trusted in your works and in your treasures, you also shall be taken: and Kemosh shall go forth into captivity, his priests and his princes together. The destroyer shall come on every city, and no city shall escape; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed; as Yahuwah has spoken. Give wings to Moab, that she may fly and get her away: and her cities shall become a desolation, without any to dwell therein. Cursed is he who does the work of Yahuwah negligently; and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from blood.
Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed. Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will send to him those who pour off, and they shall pour him off; and they shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles in pieces. Moab shall be ashamed of Kemosh, as the house of Yisrael was ashamed of Beythel their confidence.
How do you say, We are mighty men, and valiant men for the war? Moab is laid waste, and they are gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the massacre, says the King, whose name is Yahuwah of Armies. The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction hurries fast. All you who are around him, bemoan him, and all you who know his name; say, How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful rod!
You daughter who dwells in Diybon, come down from your esteem, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you, he has destroyed your strongholds. Inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and watch: ask him who flees, and her who escapes; say, What has been done? Moab is disappointed; for it is broken down: wail and cry; tell it by the Arnon, that Moab is laid waste.
Judgment has come on the plain country, on Cholon, and on Yahats, and on Mephaath, and on Diybon, and on Nebo, and on Beyth Diblathayim, and on Qiryathayim, and on Beyth Gamul, and on Beyth Meon, and on Qeriyoth, and on Botsrah, and on all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.
The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says Yahuwah. Make him drunken; for he magnified himself against Yahuwah: and Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision. For wasn’t Yisrael a derision to you? was he found among thieves? for as often as you speak of him, you shake your head. You inhabitants of Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock; and be like the dove that makes her nest over the mouth of the abyss. We have heard of the pride of Moab.
He is very proud; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogance, and the haughtiness of his inner-guide. I know his wrath, says Yahuwah, that it is nothing; his boastings have worked nothing. Therefore will I wail for Moab; yes, I will cry out for all Moab: for the men of Qiyr Cheres shall they mourn. With more than the weeping of Yazer will I weep for you, vine of Sibmah: your branches passed over the sea, they reached even to the sea of Yazer: on your summer fruits and on your vintage the destroyer is fallen. Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab; and I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses: none shall tread with shouting; the shouting shall be no shouting.
From the cry of Cheshbon even to Elaleh, even to Yahats have they uttered their voice, from Tsoar even to Choronayim, to Eglath Shelishiyah: for the waters of Nimrim also shall become desolate. Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab, says Yahuwah, him who offers in the high place, and him who burns incense to his mighty-ones. Therefore my inner-guide sounds for Moab like pipes, and my inner-guide sounds like pipes for the men of Qiyr Cheres: therefore the abundance that he has gotten is perished.
For every head is shaved, and every beard clipped: on all the hands are cuttings, and on the waist sackcloth. On all the housetops of Moab and in its streets there is lamentation every where; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which none delights, says Yahuwah. How it is broken down! How they wail! How Moab has turned the back with shame! So shall Moab become a derision and a terror to all who are around him.
For this is what Yahuwah says: Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread out his wings against Moab. Qeriyoth is taken, and the strongholds are seized, and the inner-guide of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be as the inner-guide of a woman in her pangs. Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he has magnified himself against Yahuwah. Inward-flowing, and the pit, and the snare, are on you, inhabitant of Moab, says Yahuwah. He who flees from the inward-flow shall fall into the pit; and he who gets up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring on him, even on Moab, the year of their visitation, says Yahuwah. Those who fled stand without strength under the shadow of Cheshbon; for a fire is gone forth out of Cheshbon, and a flame from the midst of Siychon, and has devoured the corner of Moab, and the crown of the head of the tumultuous ones. Woe to you, O Moab! the people of Kemosh is undone; for your house-continuers are taken away captive, and your daughters into captivity. Yet will I bring back the captivity of Moab in the latter days, says Yahuwah.
This is the end of the judgment of Moab.

Yir 49
Of the house-builders of Ammon. This is what Yahuwah says: Has Yisrael no house-continuers? has he no heir? why then does Malkam possess Gad, and his people well in its cities? Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the house-builders of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Yisrael possess those who possessed him, says Yahuwah. Wail, Cheshbon, for Ai is laid waste; cry, you daughters of Rabbah, clothe yourself in sackcloth: lament, and run back and forth among the fences; for Malkam shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together. Why do you esteem in the valleys, your flowing valley, backsliding daughter? who trusted in her treasures, saying, Who shall come to me? Behold, I will bring an inward-flow on you, says the Master, Yahuwah of Armies, from all who are around you; and you shall be driven out every man right forth, and there shall be none to gather together the fugitives. But afterward I will bring back the captivity of the house-builders of Ammon, says Yahuwah.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says about Edom: Is wisdom no more in Teyman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished? Flee, turn back, dwell in the depths, inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esav on him, the time that I shall visit him. If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, wouldn’t they destroy until they had enough? But I have made Esav bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is destroyed, and his male-house-protectors, and his neighbors; and he is no more. Leave your fatherless house-builders, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me.
For this is what Yahuwah says: Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup shall certainly drink; and are you he who shall altogether go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink. For I have sworn by myself, says Yahuwah, that Botsrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all its cities shall be perpetual wastes.
I have heard news from Yahuwah, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle.
For, behold, I have made you small among the nations, and despised among men. As for your terror, the pride of your inner-guide has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill: though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there, says Yahuwah. Edom shall become an astonishment: everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all its plagues. As in the overthrow of Sedom and Amorah and the neighbor cities of it, says Yahuwah, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any house-continuer of man have-a-filled-stomach therein. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Yarden against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd who will stand before me?
Therefore hear the counsel of Yahuwah, that he has taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the inhabitants of Teyman: Surely they shall drag them away, the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them. The land trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea. Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Botsrah: and the inner-guide of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the inner-guide of a woman in her pangs.
About Dammeseq: Chamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard dysfunctional news, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it can’t be quiet. Dammeseq has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized on her. Anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy? Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says Yahuwah of Armies. I will kindle a fire in the wall of Dammeseq, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.
This is what Yahuwah says about Qedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon struck: Arise, go up to Qedar, and destroy the house-builders of the east. Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry to them, Terror on every side! Flee, wander far off, dwell in the depths, you inhabitants of Hazor, says Yahuwah; for Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon has taken counsel against you, and has conceived a purpose against you. Arise, go up to a nation that is at ease, that dwells without care, says Yahuwah; that have neither gates nor bars, that dwell alone. Their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their livestock a spoil: and I will scatter to all winds those who have the corners of their beards cut off; and I will bring their calamity from every side of them, says Yahuwah. Hazor shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation to the horizon: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any house-continuer of man have-a-filled-stomach therein.
The word of Yahuwah came to Yirmeyahu the prophet concerning Eylam, when Tsidqiyahu king of Yahudah began to reign, saying, This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: Behold, I will break the bow of Eylam, the chief of their might. On Eylam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of the sky, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation where the outcasts of Eylam shall not come. I will cause Eylam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before those who seek their breathing-throat; and I will bring dysfunction on them, even my fierce nose-flaring, says Yahuwah; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them; and I will set my throne in Eylam, and will destroy from there king and princes, says Yahuwah. But it shall happen in the latter days, that I will bring back the captivity of Eylam, says Yahuwah.
Yir 50
The word that Yahuwah spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Yirmeyahu the prophet. Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodak is dismayed; her images are disappointed, her idols are dismayed. For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and animal.
In those days, and in that time, says Yahuwah, the house-builders of Yisrael shall come, they and the house-builders of Yahudah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek Yahuwah their Mightiest-Yoked-One. They shall inquire concerning Tsiyon with their faces turned toward it, saying, Come, and join yourselves to Yahuwah in a horizonal passing-through-the-pieces that shall not be forgotten. My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place. All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have missed-the-target against Yahuwah, the habitation of straight-pathedness, even Yahuwah, the hope of their family-strengtheners.
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the male goats before the flocks. For, behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain. Kasdiymah shall be a prey: all who prey on her shall be satisfied, says Yahuwah.
Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses; your family-binder shall be utterly disappointed; she who bore you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of Yahuwah she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.
Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has missed-the-target against Yahuwah. Shout against her all around: she has submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Yahuwah: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest: for inward-flowing-before the oppressing sword they shall turn everyone to his people, and they shall flee everyone to his own land.
Yisrael is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Ashshur devoured him; and now at last Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon has broken his bones.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Ashshur. I will bring Yisrael again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Karmel and Bashan, and his breathing-throat shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephrayim and in Gilad. In those days, and in that time, says Yahuwah, the iniquity of Yisrael shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the missed-targets of Yahudah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Peqod: kill and utterly destroy after them, says Yahuwah, and do according to all that I have directed you. A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole land cut apart and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon, and you weren’t aware: you are found, and also caught, because you have striven against Yahuwah. Yahuwah has opened his armory, and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation; for the Master, Yahuwah of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans. Come against her from the utmost border; open her storehouses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; let nothing of her be left. Kill all her bulls; let them go down to the massacre: woe to them! for their day has come, the time of their visitation. The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Tsiyon the vengeance of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One, the vengeance of his temple.
Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her all around; let none of it escape: repay her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahuwah, against the Separated One of Yisrael. Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all her men of war will be brought to silence in that day, says Yahuwah.
Behold, I am against you, you proud one, says the Master, Yahuwah of Armies; for your day has come, the time that I will visit you. The proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all who are around him.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: The house-builders of Yisrael and the house-builders of Yahudah are oppressed together; and all who took them captive hold them fast; they refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; Yahuwah of Armies is his name: he will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
A sword is on the Chaldeans, says Yahuwah, and on the inhabitants of Babylon, and on her princes, and on her wise men. A sword is on the boasters, and they shall become fools; a sword is on her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. A sword is on their horses, and on their chariots, and on all the mixed people who are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is on her treasures, and they shall be robbed. A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols. Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited to the horizon; neither shall it be lived in from generation to generation. As when the Mightiest-Yoked-One overthrew Sedom and Amorah and the neighbor cities of it, says Yahuwah, so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any house-continuer of man have-a-filled-stomach therein.
Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the land. They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon. The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of him, pains as of a woman in labor. Behold, the enemy shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Yarden against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd who can stand before me? Therefore hear the counsel of Yahuwah, that he has taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the land trembles, and the cry is heard among the nations.
Yir 51
This is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her around. Against him who bends let the archer bend his bow, and against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and don’t spare her young men; utterly destroy all her army. They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.
For Yisrael is not forsaken, nor Yahudah, of his Mightiest-Yoked-One, of Yahuwah of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Separated One of Yisrael. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his breathing-throat; don’t be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yahuwah’s vengeance; he will render to her a repayment. Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahuwah’s hand, who made all the land drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country; for her judgment reaches to the sky, and is lifted up even to the firmament.
Yahuwah has brought forth our straight-pathedness: come, and let us declare in Tsiyon the work of Yahuwah our Mightiest-Yoked-One. Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahuwah has stirred up the wind of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yahuwah, the vengeance of his temple. Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Yahuwah has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. Yahuwah of Armies has sworn by his breathing-throat, saying, Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they shall lift up a shout against you.
He has made the land by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the skies: when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the skies, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the land; he makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.
Every man has become brutish without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no wind in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. The portion of Yaaqob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahuwah of Armies is his name.
You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms; and with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin; and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies.
I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Kasdiymah all their dysfunction that they have done in Tsiyon in your sight, says Yahuwah.
Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahuwah, which destroys all the land; and I will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain. They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be a horizonal desolation, says Yahuwah.
Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minniy, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm. Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion. The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahuwah against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant. The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they have become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken. One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter: and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened.
For this is what Yahuwah of Armies says, the Mightiest-Yoked-One of Yisrael: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.
Nebukadnetstar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Tsiyon say; and, My blood be on the inhabitants of Kasdiymah, shall Yerusalem say.
Therefore this is what Yahuwah says: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ cubs. When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yahuwah. I will bring them down like lambs to the massacre, like rams with male goats.
How is Sheshak taken! and the praise of the whole land seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! The sea has come up on Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves. Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells, neither does any house-continuer of man pass thereby. I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more to him: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
My people, go away from the midst of her, and deliver, every man, your breathing-throat from the fierce nose-flaring of Yahuwah. Don’t let your inner-guide faint, neither inwardly-flow for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year shall come news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. Then the skies and the land, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to her from the north, says Yahuwah.
As Babylon has caused the slain of Yisrael to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land. You who have escaped the sword, go, don’t stand still; remember Yahuwah from afar, and let Yerusalem come into your mind. We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahuwah’s house.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahuwah, that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall destroyers come to her, says Yahuwah.
The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! For Yahuwah lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered: for the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces.
For Yahuwah is a Mighty-One of repayments, he will surely repay. I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose name is Yahuwah of Armies.
This is what Yahuwah of Armies says: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.
The word which Yirmeyahu the prophet directed Serayahu the house-continuer of Neriyahu, the house-continuer of Machseyah, when he went with Tsidqiyahu the king of Yahudah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Serayahu was chief quartermaster. Yirmeyahu wrote in a book all the dysfunction that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. Yirmeyahu said to Serayahu, When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words, and say, Yahuwah, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor animal, but that it shall be desolate to the horizon. It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Perath: and you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the dysfunction that I will bring on her; and they shall be weary. This is the end of the words of Yirmeyahu.
Yir 52
Tsidqiyahu was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Yerusalem: and his family-binder’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Yirmeyahu of Libnah. He did that which was dysfunctional in the sight of Yahuwah, according to all that Yehoyaqiym had done. For through the nose-flaring of Yahuwah it happened in Yerusalem and Yahudah, until he had cast them out from his presence.
Tsidqiyahu rebelled against the king of Babylon. It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebukadnetstar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Yerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of king Tsidqiyahu. In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around;) and they went toward the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Tsidqiyahu in the plains of Yeriycho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Chamath; and he gave judgment on him. The king of Babylon killed the house-continuers of Tsidqiyahu before his eyes: he killed also all the princes of Yahudah in Riblah. He put out the eyes of Tsidqiyahu; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.
Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebukadnetstar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, into Yerusalem: and he burned the house of Yahuwah, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Yerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire. All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Yerusalem all around.
Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers.
The Chaldeans broke the pillars of brass that were in the house of Yahuwah, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahuwah in pieces, and carried all the of their brass to Babylon. They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered. The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver. They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which king Sh'lomoh had made for the house of Yahuwah. The brass of all these vessels was without weight. As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits encircled it; and its thickness was four fingers. It was hollow. A capital of brass was on it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of brass: and the second pillar also had like these, and pomegranates. There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were one hundred on the network all around.
The captain of the guard took Serayahu the chief priest, and Tsephanyahu the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold: and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the city. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Chamath.
It happened in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Yehoyakiyn king of Yahudah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Eviyl Merodak king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Yehoyakiyn king of Yahudah, and brought him forth out of prison; and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon, and changed his prison garments. Yehoyakiyn ate bread before him continually all the days of his filled-stomach: and for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his filled-stomach.