Jeremiah 16

1And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

2You shall not take a wife for yourself, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.

3For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and the daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bear them, and their fathers who father them in this land:

4They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried. They will become dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their carcasses will become food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.

5For thus says Yahweh: Do not enter a house of mourning, and do not go to mourn or show sympathy for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, declares Yahweh—steadfast love and compassion.

6Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and no one will mourn for them, or cut himself, or make himself bald for them.

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

8And you shall not enter a house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.

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

10And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has Yahweh spoken against us all this great disaster? And what is our iniquity, and what is our sin that we have sinned against Yahweh our God?’

11Then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers abandoned me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and went after other gods, and served them, and bowed down to them. But me they abandoned, and my law they did not keep.’

12But you have done worse than your fathers, and look, each of you is walking after the stubbornness of his evil heart, refusing to listen to me.

13So I will cast you out from this land onto a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

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

15but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

16Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares Yahweh, and they will catch them; and after that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.

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

18And first I will repay double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

19O Yahweh, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Surely our fathers inherited only lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.”

20Can a man make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods.

21Therefore, behold, I am making them know—this time I will make them know my hand and my might, and they will know that my name is Yahweh.