Jeremiah 10:8

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh.

Having eyes, don’t you see? Having ears, don’t you hear? Don’t you remember?

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.”

that ‘seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.’ ”

For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.

Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.

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

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.

For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.

“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.

Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.

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.’

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest in parables; that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’

They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

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

Therefore don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

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

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

So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.

that they may know that you alone, whose name is Yahweh, are the Most High over all the earth.

A senseless man doesn’t know, neither does a fool understand this:

For Yahweh is a great God, a great King above all gods.

Yahweh is great in Zion. He is high above all the peoples.

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion. They, they are your lot. You have even poured a drink offering to them. You have offered an offering. Shall I be appeased for these things?

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

“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.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

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

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

He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east.

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and tell them, even the shepherds, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shouldn’t the shepherds feed the sheep?

They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered.

For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.

“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

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.

Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods because of the way that they treated people arrogantly.”

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.

For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others.

Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!

For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.

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.

Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the Yahweh’s way, nor the law of their God.

The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”

“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says Yahweh.

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.

They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.

I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

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

“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;

As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”

Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus,

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

They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.

Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

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.

For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

“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?

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, then his mother said, “I most certainly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”

When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again.

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.

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.

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.

Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise?

For you, Yahweh, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods.

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

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

The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”

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

No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?”

“Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.

“Remember this, and show yourselves men. Bring it to mind again, you transgressors.

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

“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.”

‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:

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

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

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

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.

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,