Jeremiah 8:4-10:22
God will punish people who choose to do wrong things.
‘When men fall down, they get up again.
When a man goes away, he comes back.
The people in Jerusalem always turn away.
They choose to believe things that are not true.
They refuse to return to me.
But they do not say what is right.
Nobody is sorry for the bad things that they have done.
They think, “Nobody knows what we have done.”
Each person does the things that he wants.
He is like a horse that is running to the fight.
Small birds know when it is time for them to fly away.
But my people do not know
what I want them to do.
We know it because we have the
Your writers have written what is not true!
Those people will be ashamed. Enemies will catch them like animals in a field.
They have refused to hear the Lord's message.
They are not very clever.
Other men will have their fields.
All people, rich and poor, want to have more and more things.
Both
tell people things that are not true.
But they say that it is not important.
They say, “
They are not sorry.
Their faces do not get red.
So they will fall when other men fall.
I will bring them down when I
‘No
The leaves of the trees will dry up and die.
I will take away everything that I have given to them.’
‘We should not be sitting here like this.
We must come together.
Let us run to the cities with strong walls.
We will die there!
The Lord our God has said that we must die.
He has given to us water to drink that has poison in it
because we have not obeyed him.
We wanted God to make us well, but he made us afraid.
They can hear them, even from Dan.
All the country
They have come to destroy the country and everything in it.
They will get power over the city and over all the people who live there.’
Nobody can stop them! They will bite you.’
But now I feel weak and afraid.
They ask if the Lord is still in Jerusalem.
They think that their king has gone away.’
The Lord replies, ‘They have made me angry with their false gods.
Their
The summer is finished. And you have not yet saved us.’
I feel sad as if they were dead. And I am afraid for them.
He will not make them better.
Jeremiah 9
and my eyes like a pool of
Then I would cry all day and night
for my people who have died.
Then I could leave my people.
I could go away from them.
They have all gone away from God like men who have left their wives for other women.
Not one person
They shoot words that are not true.
These people win their fights when they say false things.
They
They do not give
says the Lord.
Every brother says words that are not true.
So do not
And every friend speaks words that can hurt you.
Nobody speaks true words.
They have taught their
They have
People say so many things that are not true.
So they refuse to know me,’
says the Lord.
‘I will see how
I want to make them more clean.
A man uses a very hot fire to remove other metals from gold.
It will be like that.
I must do that because my people have
It does not say things that are true.
A man may speak kind words to his friend,
but he is really trying to hurt him.
says the Lord.
‘I must be angry
because the people in this country do not give
So I will cry and I will be sad.
No animals live on the hills where they ate the grass.
The hills and mountains are empty.
Nobody can hear the sound of cows and sheep.
No birds fly in the air,
and the animals are gone.
Wild animals will live there.
I will destroy the towns in Judah
so that nobody can live there.’
the great powerful Lord says.
‘Send for those who cry the loudest.
Then our eyes will make water.
And it will be like rivers that fall from them.
“People have taken all our good things! We are very ashamed!
We have to leave our country
because our enemies have destroyed all our houses.” ’
Listen to the words of his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to cry about their troubles.
Teach each other sad songs.
No children play in the streets.
The open places of the city are empty.
The young men have all gone.
Nobody will take them away,’ says the Lord.
‘They will lie like plants that people have cut for food.
But nobody will pick them up.’
And the strong man must not say that he is strong,’
says the Lord.
Then they would be able to say that they were clever.
They would know that I am the Lord.
They would know that I am kind.
And I do only good things.
I am fair when I
They would know that too.
Those are the things that give pleasure to me,’ says the Lord.
Jeremiah 10
‘You should not be afraid of things that happen in the sky.
You must not be like people in other countries.
They take a tree from the forest,
and they cut it with a knife to make an
They fix it to the floor so that it will not fall.
Our things save the fruit from the birds.
And they cannot speak.
Men carry
Do not be afraid of them.
They cannot hurt you
and they cannot help you.’
You are great and your name is powerful.
King of the countries.
That is their duty.
There is nobody like you in all the countries.
No men are as
There is no king like you.
Things that people have made from wood cannot teach them anything.
They make it pretty with gold from Uphaz.
Then they take expensive clothes that men have made with their hands.
They put them on this
He is the God who lives for ever. He is the King who will always rule.
When he is angry, the earth moves like a leaf in the wind.
When he is angry, the people in a country cannot stand.
Only he could do that.
It was he who put the sky over the earth.
He causes clouds to rise from the ends of the earth.
He causes the
And he brings the winds from the place where he hides them.
Men who work to make things from metal are ashamed.
God will destroy them when he
He made everything.
He made Israel to be the people that he chose.
He is the great and powerful Lord.
Your enemies are all round you.
‘I will now throw out those people who live in this country.
I will make their lives difficult,
then their enemies will take them as their
Nobody can make me well.
I said to myself, ‘This is my pain, and I must live with it!’
They have broken all its
My sons have gone away, and they are dead.
Now nobody will put up my
They do not ask the Lord to help them,
so their work does not make them rich.
And all their sheep have run away.
People are coming from the country in the north.
They will take the people out from the towns in Judah.
Only wild animals will live there.