Jeremiah 16

1The word of Yahweh came to me:

2“You must not take a wife or have sons or daughters in this place.

3For this is what Yahweh says about the sons and daughters born in this place, and about the mothers who bear them and the fathers who father them in this land:

4They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried; they will be like dung lying on the ground. They will come to an end by sword and by famine, and their corpses will be food for the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth.

5For this is what Yahweh says: Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal; do not go to mourn or to show them sympathy, for I have withdrawn my peace from this people, declares Yahweh—my steadfast love and my compassion.

6Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and no one will mourn for them; no one will gash himself or shave his head for them.

7No one will break bread for the mourner to comfort him for the dead, and no one will give them a cup of consolation to drink for a father or a mother.

8You must not enter a house where there is feasting, to sit with them to eat and drink.

9For this is what Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I am about to put an end in this place to the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

10When you tell this people all these words, they will ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What sin have we committed against Yahweh our God?’

11Then you are to say to them: It is because your ancestors forsook me, declares Yahweh, and went after other gods and served them and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.

12And you have done even more evil than your ancestors. Look, each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart, refusing to listen to me.

13So I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

14Therefore look, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when it will no longer be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,’

15but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land, which I gave to their ancestors.

16Look, I am about to send for many fishermen, declares Yahweh, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and every hill and in the crevices of the rocks.

17For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, and their iniquity is not concealed from my eyes.

18First I will repay them double for their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols and have filled my inheritance with their detestable things.”

19Yahweh, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our ancestors inherited nothing but lies, worthless things that did no good.

20Can human beings make gods for themselves? Such things are not gods!”

21Therefore I am about to teach them—this time I will make them know my power and my might, and they will know that my name is Yahweh.