If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith Jehovah, if thou wilt return unto me, and {Or, if thou wilt put…and will not wander, and wilt swear…then shall the nations &c. or, then shalt thou swear…and the nations &c.}if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight; then shalt thou not be removed;
and thou shalt swear, As Jehovah liveth, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.
For thus saith Jehovah to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to Jehovah, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry aloud and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.
Set up a standard toward Zion: flee for safety, stay not; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.
A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to make thy land desolate, that thy cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.
For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Jehovah is not turned back from us.
And it shall come to pass at that day, saith Jehovah, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.
Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the life.
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;
{Or, a wind too strong for this}a full wind from these shall come for me: now will I also utter judgments against them.
Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are ruined.
O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?
For {Or, there is a voice of one that declareth &c.}a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth evil from the hills of Ephraim.
Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.
As keepers of a field are they against her round about, because she hath been rebellious against me, saith Jehovah.
Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness; {Or, surely}for it is bitter, {Or, surely}for it reacheth unto thy heart.
My anguish, my anguish! {Another reading is, I will wait patiently}I am pained at {Hebrew: the walls of my heart.}my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because {Or, as otherwised read, my soul heareth}thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment.
How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
For my people are foolish, they know me not; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills {Or, moved lightly}moved to and fro.
I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
I beheld, and, lo, {Or, Carmel}the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of Jehovah, and before his fierce anger.
For thus saith Jehovah, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end.
For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.
Every city fleeth for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they go into the thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwelleth therein.
And thou, when thou art made desolate, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou {Hebrew: rendest.}enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair; thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life.
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers.
Querverweise zu Jeremia 4,26 Jer 4,26
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our latter end.
Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish, they sit in black upon the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.
And their nobles send their {Or, inferiors}little ones {Or, for water}to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are put to shame and confounded, and cover their heads.
Because of the ground which is {Or, dismayed}cracked, for that no rain hath been in the land, the plowmen are put to shame, they cover their heads.
Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young, because there is no grass.
And the wild asses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like {Or, the crocodile}jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.
and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
even all the nations shall say, Wherefore hath Jehovah done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
Then men shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,
and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that he had not {Hebrew: allotted.}given unto them:
therefore the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book;
and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day.
Thou, even thou, art to be feared;And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?
A fruitful land into a salt desert,For the wickedness of them that dwell therein.
In mine ears saith Jehovah of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.
In that day will the Lord shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep;
and it shall come to pass, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, shall be for briers and thorns.
With arrows and with bow shall one come thither, because all the land shall be briers and thorns.
And all the hills that were digged with the mattock, {Or, where never came the fear of biers and thorns, shall be &c. Or, there shall not come thither the fear…but it shall be &c.}thou shalt not come thither for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of sheep.
Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.