Jeremiah 18:7-23 ▼

7 The moment I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to uproot and to tear down and to destroy,

8 and if that nation turns back from its evil, about which I have spoken against, then I will relent concerning the evil that I thought to bring upon it.

9 And the moment I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it,

10 and if it does evil in My eyes so that it does not listen to My voice, then I will relent concerning the good that I had said I would benefit them.

11 And now speak, please, to the men of Judah and to those dwelling in Jerusalem, saying, thus says YHWH: ‘Behold, I am fashioning against you? a disaster and devising against you? a plan! Return now, each man from his evil way, and make good your? ways and your? deeds.’

12 And they said, ‘It is hopeless! For according to our own plans we will walk, and each man will do the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

13 Therefore, thus says YHWH: “Ask, please, among the nations, who has heard these things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.

14 Does it leave its rocky slopes—the snow of Lebanon? Or from a distance be forsaken the cold flowing waters?

15 Yet My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to a vain thing; and they made them stumble in their ways, the paths of old, to walk in sideroads of the way, and not raised up,

16 to make their land desolate, an everlasting hissing; all passing by it will be astonished and will nod at it with his head.

17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; and I will show them the back and not the face, in the day of their calamity!”

18 And they said, “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, and counsel from the wise, and the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with the tongue, and we will not pay attention to any of his words!

19 Pay attention, O YHWH, to me, and listen to the voice of my opponents!

20 Shall evil be repaid for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your wrath from them.

21 Therefore give over their children to the famine, and pour out by the hand of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows, and let their men be put to death, and their young men struck down by the sword in the battle!

22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when You bring upon them raiders suddenly! For they have dug a pit to capture me, and snares they have hidden for my feet.

23 And You, O YHWH, know all their counsel against me to kill me. And do not cover over their iniquity, and do not blot out their sin from before Your face; and let them be overthrown before Your face. In the time of Your anger, deal against them.