Jeremiah

25* The word that came to Jeremiah about all the people of Judah in the year four of Jehojakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (which was the first year of King Nebucadressar of Babylon), 2* which he uttered about the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 3 From the year thirteen of Josiah the son of Amon as king of Judah to this year, these twenty-three years Jehovah’s word has been coming to me and I have been speaking to you, early each time, and you have not been listening; 4* and Jehovah has been sending to you all his servants the prophets, each one early, but you did not listen, nor turn your ears to hear: 5 “Turn back from each man’s bad course and from the viciousness of your practices, and live on the soil Jehovah gave to you and your fathers from age to age; 6** and do not follow other gods, worshiping them and doing reverence to them, and you will not provoke me by the work of your hands and I will not do you harm,” 7* but you did not listen to me, quoth Jehovah, so as to provoke me by the work of your hands for your own harm.

8 So Jehovah of Armies says, Inasmuch as you did not listen to my words, 9** here I am going to send and take all the clans of the north, and bring them against this country and its inhabitants and against all the nations all around, and destroy them without quarter and make them a desolation and a thing to whistle at and perpetual wastes, 10 and destroy out of them the voice of rejoicing and of merrymaking, the voice of bridegroom and of bride, sound of quern and light of lamp; 11* and all the country shall become a desolation, and they shall be in slavery among the nations seventy years. 12* And when seventy years are full I will punish that nation and make it a perpetual desolation, 13* and will bring upon that country all my words that I have spoken about it, all that is written in this book, all that Jeremiah prophesied about all the nations. 14 ——

15* For Israel’s God Jehovah said to me “Take this cup of wine from my hand and give drinks from it to all the nations I am sending you to; 16 and they shall drink and reel and go wild at the warfare that I am sending between them.” 17 And I took the cup from Jehovah’s hand and gave drinks to all the nations Jehovah had sent me to: 18 Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and generals, to give them for a waste, a desolation, a thing to whistle at; 19 the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and his officials and generals and all his people 20* and all the foreign-born population; and all the kings of the Philistine country, Ashkelon and Ghaza and ʽEkron and the remnant of Ashdod; 21 Edom and Moab and the Bene-ʽAmmon; 22 and all the kings of Tyre and all the kings of Sidon and the kings of the coast beyond the sea; 23 and Dedan and Tema and Buz and all that are clipped at the side 24* and all the Arabs, that dwell in the wilderness; 25* and all the kings of ‘Elam and all the kings of Media; 26** and all the kings of the North, those that are near and those that are far from each other; and all the kingdoms in the world over the earth’s surface.

27 “And say to them ‘Says Israel’s God Jehovah of Armies, Drink and grow tipsy and vomit and fall down, and you shall not get up for the warfare I am sending between you.’ 28 And when they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, say to them ‘Says Jehovah of Armies, Drink you shall! 29 for here I am beginning with the city that wears my name when I begin to do harm, and are you to go free? you will not, for I am calling warfare upon all the inhabitants of the earth.’

30* “And prophesy to them yourself these words, and say to them ‘Jehovah will roar from on high, and make his voice heard out of his holy dwelling; over his home roar he will, with a huzzah like grape-treaders’ he will answer all the inhabitants of the earth. 31 A crashing reaches to the edge of the earth; for Jehovah has a case against the nations, he is putting all mortals on trial; the guilty are to be given to the sword, quoth Jehovah.

32 “‘Says Jehovah of Armies, Here is harm going out from nation to nation, and a great tempest bursts forth from the furthest recesses of earth; 33 and Jehovah’s killed will be from end to end of the earth on that day, unbewailed and un-taken-up and unburied; they will be just dung lying over the soil. 34* Howl, shepherds, and cry out, and daub yourselves, sheepmasters, for it is full time for your slaughtering, and I will knock you on the head and you will fall like choice rams. 35 And the shepherds shall lose the power of flight, and the sheepmasters the chance of survival. 36 Hark, the outcry of the shepherds and the howl of the sheepmasters! for Jehovah is ravaging their pasture, 37 and peaceful leas are sunk into silence before Jehovah’s anger. 38* The young lion has left his covert because their country has become a desolation before the ruthless sword and before his anger.’”