Jeremiah - The Old Testament

¹ Listen, House of Israel, to the word that Yahweh addresses to you. Yahweh says this:

² 'Do not learn the ways of the nations or take alarm at the heavenly signs, alarmed though the nations may be at them.

³ Yes, the customs of the peoples are quite futile: wood, nothing more, cut out of a forest, worked with a blade by a carver's hand,

⁴ then embellished with silver and gold, then fastened with hammer and nails to keep it from moving.

⁵ Like scarecrows in a melon patch, they cannot talk, they have to be carried, since they cannot walk. Have no fear of them: they can do no harm -- nor any good either!'

⁶ Yahweh, there is no one like you, so great you are, so great your mighty name.

⁷ Who would not revere you, King of nations? Yes, this is your due. Since of all the wise among the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is not a single one like you.

⁸ All of them are brutish and stupid: the Futile Ones' teaching is but wood,

⁹ silver leaf imported from Tarshish and gold from Ophir, the work of carver or goldsmith; then dressed up in violet and purple, all the work of skilled men.

¹⁰ But Yahweh is the true God. He is the living God, the everlasting King. The earth quakes when he is wrathful, the nations cannot endure his fury.

¹¹ 'Tell them this, "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will vanish from the earth and from under these heavens." '

¹² By his power he made the earth, by his wisdom set the world firm, but his discernment spread out the heavens.

¹³ When he thunders there is a roaring of waters in heaven; he raises clouds from the remotest parts of the earth, makes the lightning flash for the downpour, and brings the wind from his storehouse.

¹⁴ At this all people stand stupefied, uncomprehending, every goldsmith blushes for his idols; his castings are but delusion, with no breath in them.

¹⁵ They are futile, a laughable production; when the time comes for them to be punished, they will vanish.

¹⁶ The Heritage of Jacob is not like these, for he is the maker of everything, and Israel is the tribe that is his heritage. His name is Yahweh Sabaoth.

¹⁷ Pick up your pack from the ground, you the besieged!

¹⁸ For Yahweh says this, 'Now I shall throw out the inhabitants of the country, this time, and bring distress on them, so that they may find me!'

¹⁹ Disaster is on me! What a wound! My injury is incurable! And I used to think, 'If this is the worst, I can bear it!'

²⁰ But now my tent is destroyed, all my ropes are snapped, my sons have left me and are no more; no one is left to put my tent up again or to hang the side-cloths.

²¹ The shepherds are the ones who have been stupid: they have not searched for Yahweh. This is why they have not prospered and why their whole flock has been dispersed.

²² Listen! A terrible noise! A mighty uproar from the land of the north to reduce the towns of Judah to desert, to a lair for jackals!

²³ I know, Yahweh, no one's course is in his control, nor is it in anyone's power, as he goes his way, to guide his own steps.

²⁴ Correct me, Yahweh, but with moderation, not in your anger, or you will reduce me to nothing.

²⁵ Pour out your anger on the nations who do not acknowledge you, and on the families that do not call on your name, for they have devoured Jacob, have devoured and made an end of him and reduced his home to desolation.