Jeremiah 10:15

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation. I will make you angry with a nation void of understanding.”

For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins with which he made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.

Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?

The idols shall utterly pass away.

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

He will say, “Build up, build up, prepare the way! Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.”

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water.

Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

“Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.

Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.’

They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations.

They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. When I visit them, they will be cast down,” says Yahweh.

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to false gods. They have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up,

You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you dwell among scorpions. Don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

“Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.

Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they became for him altars for sinning.

They called to them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images.

But you have turned away from the path. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says Yahweh of Armies.

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.

He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!”

“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.

He who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.

When Jehu came out to the servants of his lord, and one said to him, “Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you?” He said to them, “You know the man and how he talks.”

Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

There will be no remnant to them, for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.’ ”

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

“Yahweh has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in Yahweh’s house, for every man who is crazy, and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles.

because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, to serve other gods that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers.

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation, they will perish.

Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.

The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

“All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

Israel is a luxuriant vine that produces his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones.

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!”

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says Yahweh.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.

for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.

Behold, all of their deeds are vanity and nothing. Their molten images are wind and confusion.

I will utter my judgments against them concerning all their wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

“He who flees from the terror will fall into the pit; and he who gets up out of the pit will be taken in the snare: for I will bring on him, even on Moab, the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh.

If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;