Yahweh Withdraws His Favor

1The word of Yahweh also came to me saying, 2“You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.” 3For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and daughters born in this place and concerning their mothers who bear them and their fathers who beget them in this land: 4“They will die of deadly diseases; they will not be lamented or buried; they will be as dung on the surface of the ground and come to an end by sword and famine, and their carcasses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth.”

5For thus says Yahweh, “Do not enter the house of the funeral meal, or go to lament or to console them; for I have withdrawn My peace from this people,” declares Yahweh, “My lovingkindness and compassion. 6Both great men and small will die in this land; they will not be buried; they will not be lamented, nor will anyone gash himself or shave his head for them. 7Men will not break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of comforting to drink for anyone’s father or mother. 8Moreover you shall not go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.” 9For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I am going to cause to cease from this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.

10“Now when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, ‘For what reason has Yahweh declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against Yahweh our God?’ 11Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and have walked after other gods and served them and worshiped them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law. 12You too have done evil, even more than your fathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me. 13So I will hurl you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will grant you no favor.’

They Shall Know My Name Is Yahweh

14“Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.

16“Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares Yahweh, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the crevices of the rocks. 17For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes. 18I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin because they have profaned My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”

19O Yahweh, my strength and my strong defense,

And my refuge in the day of distress,

To You the nations will come

From the ends of the earth and say,

“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,

Futility and [†]things of no profit.”

20Can man make gods for himself?

Yet they are not gods!

21“Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—

This time I will make them know

My [†]power and My might;

And they shall know that My name is Yahweh.”