The Living Bible (239 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
O Israel, if you will truly return to me and absolutely discard your idols,
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and if you will swear by me alone, the living God, and begin to live good, honest, clean lives, then you will be a testimony to the nations of the world, and they will come to me and glorify my name.
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The Lord is saying to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Plow up the hardness of your hearts; otherwise the good seed will be wasted among the thorns.
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Cleanse your minds and hearts,
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not just your bodies, or else my anger will burn you to a crisp because of all your sins. And no one will be able to put the fire out.
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Shout to Jerusalem and to all Judea, telling them to sound the alarm throughout the land. “Run for your lives! Flee to the fortified cities!”
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Send a signal from Jerusalem: “Flee now, don’t delay!” For I the Lord am bringing vast destruction on you from the north.
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A lion—a destroyer of nations—stalks from his lair; and he is headed for your land. Your cities will lie in ruin without inhabitant.
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Put on clothes of mourning and weep with broken hearts, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not stopped yet.
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In that day, says the Lord, the king and the princes will tremble in fear; and the priests and the prophets will be stricken with horror.
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(Then I said, “But Lord, the people have been deceived by what you said, for you promised great blessings on Jerusalem. Yet the sword is even now poised to strike them dead!”)
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At that time he will send a burning wind from the desert upon them—not in little gusts but in a roaring blast—and he will pronounce their doom.
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The enemy shall roll down upon us like a storm wind; his chariots are like a whirlwind; his steeds are swifter than eagles. Woe, woe upon us, for we are doomed.
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O Jerusalem, cleanse your hearts while there is time. You can yet be saved by casting out your evil thoughts.
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From Dan and from Mount Ephraim your doom has been announced.
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Warn the other nations that the enemy is coming from a distant land, and they shout against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah.
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They surround Jerusalem like shepherds moving in on some wild animal! For my people have rebelled against me, says the Lord.
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Your ways have brought this down upon you; it is a bitter dose of your own medicine, striking deep within your hearts.
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My heart, my heart—I writhe in pain; my heart pounds within me. I cannot be still because I have heard, O my soul, the blast of the enemies’ trumpets and the enemies’ battle cries.
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Wave upon wave of destruction rolls over the land, until it lies in utter ruin; suddenly, in a moment, every house is crushed.
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How long must this go on? How long must I see war and death surrounding me?
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“Until my people leave their foolishness, for they refuse to listen to me; they are dull, retarded children who have no understanding. They are smart enough at doing wrong, but for doing right they have no talent, none at all.”
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I looked down upon their land, and as far as I could see in all directions everything was ruins. And all the heavens were dark.
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I looked at the mountains and saw that they trembled and shook.
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I looked, and mankind was gone, and the birds of the heavens had fled.
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The fertile valleys were wilderness, and all the cities were broken down before the presence of the Lord, crushed by his fierce anger.
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The Lord’s decree of desolation covers all the land.
“Yet,” he says, “there will be a little remnant of my people left.
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The earth shall mourn, the heavens shall be draped with black, because of my decree against my people; I have made up my mind and will not change it.”
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All the cities flee in terror at the noise of marching armies coming near. The people hide in the bushes and flee to the mountains. All the cities are abandoned—all have fled in terror.
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Why do you put on your most beautiful clothing and jewelry and brighten your eyes with mascara? It will do you no good! Your allies despise you and will kill you.
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I have heard great crying like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; it is the cry of my people gasping for breath, pleading for help, prostrate before their murderers.
Run up and down through every street in all Jerusalem; search high and low and see if you can find even one person who is fair and honest! Search every square, and if you find just one, I’ll not destroy the city!
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Even under oath, they all lie.
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O Lord, you are looking for faithfulness. You have tried to get them to be honest, for you have punished them, but they won’t change! You have destroyed them, but they refuse to turn from their sins. They are determined, with faces hard as rock, not to repent.
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Then I said, “But what can we expect from the poor and ignorant? They don’t know the ways of God. How can they obey him?”
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I will go now to their leaders, the men of importance, and speak to them, for they know the ways of the Lord and the judgment that follows sin. But they too had utterly rejected their God.
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So I will send upon them the wild fury of the “lion from the forest”; the “desert wolves” shall pounce upon them, and a “leopard” shall lurk around their cities so that all who go out shall be torn apart. For their sins are very many; their rebellion against me is great.
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How can I pardon you? For even your children have turned away and worship gods that are not gods at all. I fed my people until they were fully satisfied, and their thanks was to commit adultery wholesale and to gang up at the city’s brothels.
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They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s mate.
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Shall I not punish them for this? Shall I not send my vengeance on such a nation as this?
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Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy them! But leave a scattered few to live. Strip the branches from each vine, for they are not the Lord’s.
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For the people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against me, says the Lord.
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They have lied and said, “He won’t bother us! No evil will come upon us! There will be neither famine nor war!
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God’s prophets,” they say, “are windbags full of words with no divine authority. Their claims of doom will fall upon themselves, not us!”
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Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says to his prophets: Because of talk like this, I’ll take your words and prophecies and turn them into raging fire and burn up these people like kindling wood.
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See, I will bring a distant nation against you, O Israel, says the Lord. It is a mighty nation, an ancient nation
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whose language you don’t understand.
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Their weapons are deadly; the men are all mighty.
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And they shall eat your harvest and your children’s bread, your flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, yes, and your grapes and figs; and they shall sack your walled cities that you think are safe.
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But I will not completely blot you out. So says the Lord.
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And when your people ask, “Why is it that the Lord is doing this to us?” then you shall say, “You rejected him and gave yourselves to other gods while in your land; now you must be slaves to foreigners in their lands.”
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Make this announcement to Judah and to Israel:
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Listen, O foolish, senseless people—you with the eyes that do not see and the ears that do not listen—
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have you no respect at all for me? the Lord God asks. How can it be that you don’t even tremble in my presence? I set the shorelines of the world by perpetual decrees, so that the oceans, though they toss and roar, can never pass those bounds. Isn’t such a God to be feared and worshiped?
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But my people have rebellious hearts; they have turned against me and gone off into idolatry. Though I am the one who gives them rain each year in spring and fall and sends the harvesttimes, yet they have no respect or fear for me.
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And so I have taken away these wondrous blessings from them. This sin has robbed them of all of these good things.
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Among my people are wicked men who lurk for victims like a hunter hiding in a blind. They set their traps for men.
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Like a coop full of chickens their homes are full of evil plots. And the result? Now they are great and rich,
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they are well fed and well groomed, and there is no limit to their wicked deeds. They refuse justice to orphans and the rights of the poor.
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Should I sit back and act as though nothing is going on? the Lord God asks. Shouldn’t I punish a nation such as this?
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A horrible thing has happened in this land—
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the priests are ruled by false prophets, and my people like it so! But your doom is certain.
Run, people of Benjamin, run for your lives! Flee from Jerusalem! Sound the alarm in Tekoa; send up a smoke signal at Beth-haccherem; warn everyone that a powerful army is on the way from the north, coming to destroy this nation!
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Helpless as a girl, you are beautiful and delicate—and doomed.
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Evil shepherds shall surround you. They shall set up camp around the city and divide your pastures for their flocks.
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See them prepare for battle. At noon it has begun. All afternoon it rages until the evening shadows fall.
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“Come,” they say. “Let us attack by night and destroy her palaces!”
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For the Lord Almighty has said to them, Cut down her trees for battering rams; smash down the walls of Jerusalem. This is the city to be punished, for she is vile through and through.
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She spouts evil like a fountain! Her streets echo with the sounds of violence; her sickness and wounds are ever before me.
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This is your last warning, O Jerusalem. If you don’t listen, I will empty the land.
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Disaster on disaster shall befall you. Even the few who remain in Israel shall be gleaned again, the Lord Almighty has said; for as a grape-gatherer checks each vine to pick what he has missed, so the remnant of my people shall be destroyed again.
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But who will listen when I warn them? Their ears are closed, and they refuse to hear. The word of God has angered them; they don’t want it at all.
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For all this I am full of the wrath of God against them. I am weary of holding it in. I will pour it out over Jerusalem, even upon the children playing in the streets, upon the gatherings of young men, and on husbands and wives and grandparents.
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Their enemies shall live in their homes and take their fields and wives. For I will punish the people of this land, the Lord has said.
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They are swindlers and liars, from the least of them right to the top! Yes, even my prophets and priests!
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You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there! Yet the priests and prophets give assurances of peace when all is war.
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Were my people ashamed when they worshiped idols? No, not at all—they didn’t even blush. Therefore they shall lie among the slain. They shall die beneath my anger.
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Yet the Lord pleads with you still: Ask where the good road is, the godly paths you used to walk in, in the days of long ago. Travel there, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, “No, that is not the road we want!”
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I set watchmen over you who warned you: “Listen for the sound of the trumpet! It will let you know when trouble comes.” But you said, “No! We won’t pay any attention!”
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This, then, is my decree against my people: (Listen to it, distant lands; listen to it, O my people in Jerusalem; listen to it, all the earth!) I will bring evil upon this people; it will be the fruit of their own sin because they will not listen to me. They reject my law.
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There is no use now in burning sweet incense from Sheba before me! Keep your expensive perfumes! I cannot accept your offerings; they have no sweet fragrance for me.
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I will make an obstacle course of the pathway of my people; fathers and sons shall be frustrated; neighbors and friends shall collapse together.
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The Lord God says: See the armies marching from the north—a great nation is rising against you.
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They are a cruel, merciless people, fully armed, mounted for war. The noise of their army is like a roaring sea.
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We have heard the fame of their armies, and we are weak with fright. Fright and pain have gripped us like that of women in travail.
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Don’t go out to the fields! Don’t travel the roads! For the enemy is everywhere, ready to kill; we are terrorized at every turn.
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O Jerusalem, pride of my people, put on mourning clothes and sit in ashes; weep bitterly as for an only son. For suddenly the destroying armies will be upon you.
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Jeremiah, I have made you an assayer of metals that you may test this my people and determine their value. Listen to what they are saying and watch what they are doing.
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Are they not the worst of rebels, full of evil talk against the Lord? They are insolent as brass, hard and cruel as iron.
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The bellows blow fiercely; the refining fire grows hotter, but it can never cleanse them, for there is no pureness in them to bring out. Why continue the process longer? All is dross. No matter how hot the fire, they continue in their wicked ways.
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I must label them “Impure, Rejected Silver,” and I have discarded them.