Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 243
12:9–13:5
J eremiah
231
My chosen people act like speckled vultures,
but they themselves are surrounded by vultures.
Bring on the wild animals to pick their corpses clean!
“Many rulers have ravaged my vineyard,
trampling down the vines
and turning all its beauty into a barren
wilderness.
They have made it an empty wasteland;
I hear its mournful cry.
The whole land is desolate,
and no one even cares.
On all the bare hilltops,
destroying armies can be seen.
The sword of the Lord devours people
from one end of the nation to the other.
No one will escape!
My people have planted wheat
but are harvesting thorns.
They have worn themselves out,
but it has done them no good.
They will harvest a crop of shame
because of the fierce anger of the Lord.”
Now this is what the Lord says: “I will uproot from their land all the
evil nations reaching out for the possession I gave my people Israel. And I
will uproot Judah from among them. But afterward I will return and have
compassion on all of them. I will bring them home to their own lands
again, each nation to its own possession. And if these nations truly learn
the ways of my people, and if they learn to swear by my name, saying,
‘As surely as the Lord lives’ (just as they taught my people to swear by
the name of Baal), then they will be given a place among my people. But
any nation who refuses to obey me will be uprooted and destroyed. I, the
Lord, have spoken!”
This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put
it on, but do not wash it.” So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed
me, and I put it on.
Then the Lord gave me another message: “Take the linen loincloth
you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole
in the rocks.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had in
structed me.
