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Jeremiah 16
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Chapter 16
The prophet’s life is itself symbolic
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The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows:
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‘You must not take a wife or have son or daughter in this place.
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For Yahweh says this regarding the sons and daughters to be born in this place, about the mothers who give birth to them, and about the fathers who beget them in this land:
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They will die of deadly diseases, unlamented and unburied; they will be like dung spread on the ground; they will meet their end by sword and famine, and their corpses will be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of earth.
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‘Yes, Yahweh says this: Go into no house where there is mourning, do not go to lament or grieve with them; for I have withdrawn my peace from this people – it is Yahweh who speaks – have withdrawn love and pity.
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High or low, they will die in this land, without burial or lament; there will be no gashing, no shaving of the head for them.
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No bread will be broken for the mourner to comfort him for the dead; no cup of consolation will be offered him for father or for mother.
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‘And do not enter a house where there is feasting, to sit with them and eat and drink.
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For Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Now before your eyes, in your own days, I will silence the shouts of rejoicing and mirth, and the voices of bridegroom and bride.
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‘When you tell this people all these words and they ask you, “Why has Yahweh decreed this appalling disaster for us? What is our crime? What sin have we committed against Yahweh our God?”
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then you are to answer, “It is because your ancestors abandoned me – it is Yahweh who speaks – and followed alien gods, and served and worshipped them. They abandoned me and did not keep my Law.
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And you for your part have behaved even worse than your ancestors. Look, each of you follows the dictates of his hardened, wicked heart and will not listen to me.
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And so, I am going to eject you from this land into a country unknown to you and to your ancestors; there you will serve alien gods, day and night, for I shall show you no more favour.”
The return of the scattered Israelites
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‘See, then, that the days are coming – it is Yahweh who speaks – when people will no longer say, “As Yahweh lives who brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt!”
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but, “As Yahweh lives who brought the sons of Israel out of the land of the North and back from all the countries to which he had dispersed them”. I will bring them back to the very soil I gave their ancestors.
The invasion foretold
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‘I will now send many fishermen – it is Yahweh who speaks – and these will fish them up; next, I will send many huntsmen, and these will hunt them out of every mountain, every hill, out of the holes in the rocks.
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For my eyes watch all their ways, these are not hidden from me, and their guilt does not escape my gaze.
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I will requite their guilt and their sin twice over, since they have polluted my land with the corpses of their Horrors, and filled my heritage with their Abominations.’
The conversion of the nations
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Yahweh, my strength, my stronghold, my refuge in the day of distress! To you the nations will come from the confines of earth and say, ‘Our fathers inherited nothing but Delusion, Nothings void of all power.
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Can man make his own gods? If so, these are not gods!’
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‘Now listen, I am going to make them acknowledge, this time I am going to make them acknowledge my hand and my might; and then they will know that Yahweh is my name.
Chapters of Jeremiah
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
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