Jeremiah 6

¹ “Save yourselves, men of Benjamin, from the heart of Jerusalem! Sound the trumpet in Tekoa![*a] Set up a standard on Beth-hac-cherem! For disaster threatens from the North, an immense calamity.

² Shall we compare the daughter of Zion to a tender pasture?

³ Shepherds advance on her with their flocks. They have pitched their tents all round her, each grazes the part he chooses.

⁴ Prepare for battle against her! To arms! We will launch the attack in broad daylight. Despair! The daylight is fading already, the evening shadows lengthen.

⁵ To arms! We will launch the attack under cover of dark and destroy her palaces.

⁶ For thus says Yahweh Sabaoth: Cut down the trees, throw up an earthwork outside Jerusalem: she is the City of Falsehood, with nothing but oppression in her.

⁷ As a well keeps its water fresh so she keeps her wickedness fresh. Violence and ruin are what you hear in her, diseases and wounds are always before me.

⁸ Be warned, Jerusalem, lest I should turn away from you, and reduce you to a desert, a land without people.

⁹ “Yahweh Sabaoth says this: Glean, glean, as a vine is gleaned, what is left of Israel; like a grape-picker pass your hand again over the branches!”‘

¹⁰ To whom am I to speak, whom can I urge to hear? Plainly their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen. Plainly the word of Yahweh is for them something contemptible, they have no taste for it.

¹¹ But I am full of the wrath of Yahweh, I am weary of holding it in. ‘Then pour it on the children in the streets, and where young men gather, too. All shall be taken: husband and wife, the greybeard and the man weighed down with years.

¹² Their houses shall pass to other men, so also their fields and their wives. Yes, I will stretch my hand over those living in this land – it is Yahweh who speaks.

¹³ For all, least no less than greatest, all are out for dishonest gain; prophet no less than priest, all practise fraud.

¹⁴ They dress my people’s wound without concern: “Peace! Peace!” they say, but there is no peace.

¹⁵ They should be ashamed of their abominable deeds But not they! They feel no shame, they have forgotten how to blush. And so as others fall, they too shall fall; they shall be thrown down when I come to deal with them – says Yahweh.

¹⁶ ‘Yahweh says this: Put yourselves on the ways of long ago enquire about the ancient paths: which was the good way? Take it then, and you shall find rest. Instead they have said, “We will not take it”.

¹⁷ I posted look-outs on their behalf: Listen to the sound of the trumpet! But they answered, “We will not listen”.

¹⁸ Then hear, you nations, and know, assembly, what I will do to them.

¹⁹ Hear, earth! I am bringing a disaster on this people: it is the fruit of their apostasy, since they have not listened to my words and, as for my Law, they have rejected that.

²⁰ What do I care about incense imported from Sheba, or fragrant cane from a distant country? Your holocausts are not acceptable, your sacrifices do not please me.

²¹ Therefore – thus says Yahweh: In front of this people I will now lay blocks for them to stumble over; father as well as son, neighbour and friend, all shall perish.

²² ‘Yahweh says this: Now a people is coming from the land of the North, from the far ends of the earth a mighty nation stirs:

²³ they are armed with bow and spear, they are cruel and pitiless; their noise is like the roaring of the sea; they are riding horses, each man equipped for war on you, daughter of Zion!

²⁴ We have heard the news, our hands fall limp, anguish has gripped us, pain like a woman’s labour.

²⁵ Do not go out into the countryside, do not venture on the roads, for the enemy’s sword is there, there is terror on every side.

²⁶ Wrap yourself in sackcloth, daughter of my people, roll in ashes; mourn as for an only son, a very bitter dirge. For on us suddenly the destroyer is coming.

²⁷ ‘I have appointed you as assayer of my people, to learn and to assay how they behave.

²⁸ They are apostates, all of them, promiscuous slanderers, all of them corrupt.

²⁹ The bellows blast away to make the fire burn away the lead. In vain: the smelter does his work, but the dross is not purged out.

³⁰ Silver-reject, men call them, and indeed Yahweh has rejected them!’