Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 237
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J eremiah
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The towns of Judah will be ghost towns,
with no one living in them.”
Who is wise enough to understand all this? Who has been instructed by
the Lord and can explain it to others? Why has the land been so ruined
that no one dares to travel through it?
The Lord replies, “This has happened because my people have aban
doned my instructions; they have refused to obey what I said. Instead,
they have stubbornly followed their own desires and worshiped the images
of Baal, as their ancestors taught them. So now, this is what the Lord
of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: Look! I will feed them with
bitterness and give them poison to drink. I will scatter them around the
world, in places they and their ancestors never heard of, and even there I
will chase them with the sword until I have destroyed them completely.”
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:
“Consider all this, and call for the mourners.
Send for the women who mourn at funerals.
Quick! Begin your weeping!
Let the tears flow from your eyes.
Hear the people of Jerusalem crying in despair,
‘We are ruined! We are completely humiliated!
We must leave our land,
because our homes have been torn down.’”
Listen, you women, to the words of the Lord;
open your ears to what he has to say.
Teach your daughters to wail;
teach one another how to lament.
For death has crept in through our windows
and has entered our mansions.
It has killed off the flower of our youth:
Children no longer play in the streets,
and young men no longer gather in the squares.
This is what the Lord says:
“Bodies will be scattered across the fields like clumps of manure,
like bundles of grain after the harvest.
No one will be left to bury them.”
This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
