Jeremiah
10 Listen to Jehovah’s word which he has spoken about you, house of Israel. 2* Says Jehovah, Do not learn the way of the nations nor be apprehensive of the signs of the sky because the nations are apprehensive of them; 3* for the usages of the nations are superstition. A piece of wood that he has cut from a badlands growth, the handicraft of a mechanic with a hatchet; 4 he beautifies it with silver and gold. They make them fast with hammer and nails, not to totter. 5* They are like scarecrows, do not speak, have to be carried because they cannot walk; do not be afraid of them, for they do no harm, neither is it in them to do good. 6 —— 7 —— 8 —— 9 Silver-leaf brought from Spain and gold from Uphaz, work of a mechanic and a smelter’s hands, violet and purple, is their dress; they are all artists’ work. 10 But our God is truth; he is living God and eternal King; at his wrath the earth quakes, and nations do not hold out under his hostility.
11* Thus you are to say to them: The gods that did not make the sky and the earth, these shall perish from the earth and from under the sky.
12 He who made the earth by his power, set the world firm by his wisdom, and stretched the sky by his insight, 13* when he collects a drift of water in the sky and brings up vapors from earth’s end, makes lightnings for the rain and brings wind out of his storehouses. 14 All mankind is too stupid to know; every smelter is too ashamed for a statue, for his castings are counterfeit, they have no spirit in them. 15* They are nothings, a joke; at their time of punishment they perish. 16* Not like these is Jacob’s portion; for the Shaper of all is his inheritance, his name is Jehovah.
17* Get in your wares from outside, dame of Bahurim; 18* for Jehovah says “Here this time I am slinging away the inhabitants of the country and bringing them into distress in order that they may find.”
19* Woe is me for my broken bones! my wound is gangrened; and I thought “This must be an illness that I am to bear.” 20* My home is wrecked and all my tent-ropes broken; my children have gone out on me and are nowhere, there is no longer anyone to spread my roof and set up my tent-walls. 21 For the shepherds were stupid and did not inquire of Jehovah, therefore they did not manage right and their animals scattered. 22 Hark, here comes news, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a retreat of jackals.
23 I know, Jehovah, that man’s course does not belong to him; walking and placing his step does not belong to any man. 24 Discipline me only as is due, Jehovah; not in anger, for fear you should cut me down to littleness. 25* Pour out your ire on the nations that do not know you and on kingdoms that have not called on your name; for they have eaten Jacob up and cleaned him out, and desolated his ground.