Flee for safety, ye children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth-haccherem; for evil looketh forth from the north, and a great destruction.
The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I cut off.
Shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place.
{Hebrew: Sanctify.}Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day declineth, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces.
For thus hath Jehovah of hosts said, Hew ye down {Or, as otherwise read, her trees}trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her.
As a well {Or, keepeth fresh}casteth forth its waters, so she {Or, keepeth fresh}casteth forth her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds.
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee; lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.
Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn again thy hand as a grape-gatherer {Or, upon the shoots}into the baskets.
To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of Jehovah is become unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.
Therefore I am full of the wrath of Jehovah; I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.
And their houses shall be turned unto others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah.
For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.
They have healed also the {Or, breach}hurt of {Another reading is, the daughter of my people, as in chapter 8:11, 21}my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
{Or, They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination; yea, they are not &c.}Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall {Or, stumble}be cast down, saith Jehovah.
Thus saith Jehovah, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein.
And I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they said, We will not hearken.
Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.
Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.
To what purpose cometh there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet {Or, calamus}cane from a far country? your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing unto me.
Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people; and the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them; the neighbor and his friend shall perish.
Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, a people cometh from the north country; and a great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.
They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses, every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Zion.
We have heard the report thereof; our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pangs as of a woman in travail.
Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy, and terror, are on every side.
O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us.
I have made thee a {Or, tower}trier and a fortress among my people; that thou mayest know and try their way.
They are all grievous revolters, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly.
The bellows {Or, are burned}blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away.
Refuse silver shall men call them, because Jehovah hath rejected them.
Querverweise zu Jeremia 6,21 Jer 6,21
Give glory to Jehovah your God, before {Or, it grow dark}he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the {Hebrew: mountains of twilight.}dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into {Or, deep darkness}the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Speak, Thus saith Jehovah, The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman; and none shall gather them.
Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thy hand.
And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith Jehovah: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.
And I will appoint over them four {Hebrew: families.}kinds, saith Jehovah: the sword to slay, and the dogs to {Hebrew: drag.}tear, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
And I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
For who will have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who will bemoan thee? or who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare?
Thou hast rejected me, saith Jehovah, thou art gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against thee, and destroyed thee; I am weary with repenting.
And I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed my people; they returned not from their ways.
Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought upon them {Or, against the mother and the young men}against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly.
She that hath borne seven languisheth; she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she hath been put to shame and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith Jehovah.
even as it is written, {Isaiah 28:16}Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence:And he that believeth on {Or, it}him shall not be put to shame.
For thus saith Jehovah concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land:
They shall die {Hebrew: deaths of sicknesses.}grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth.
For thus saith Jehovah, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith Jehovah, even lovingkindness and tender mercies.
Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;
neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
And thou shalt not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.
For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
And David saith, {Psalm 69:22 f.}Let their table be made a snare, and a trap,And a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them:
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men smitten of the sword in battle.
and, {Isaiah 8:14.}A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; {Greek: who.}for they {Or, stumble, being disobedient to the word}stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
And I will {Hebrew: empty out.}make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth.
And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their life, shall distress them.
And afterward, saith Jehovah, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.
Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or virgin, old man or hoary-headed: he gave them all into his hand.
Therefore Jehovah {Or, hath cut}will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm-branch and rush, in one day.
The elder and the honorable man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
For they that lead this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are {Hebrew: swallowed up.}destroyed.
Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for every one is profane and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest to him.
The earth shall be utterly emptied, and utterly laid waste; for Jehovah hath spoken this word.
See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands?Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.
Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side;And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger:Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on thee; and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter unto all the winds.
And to the others he said in my hearing, Go ye through the city after him, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity;
slay {Hebrew: to destruction.}utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the {Or, elders}old men that were before the house.
And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and smote in the city.