Jeremiah 18:21

Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me.

Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!”

They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves.

I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.

“Remember now, Yahweh, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me.

Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.

Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When Yahweh stretches out his hand, both he who helps shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall, and they all shall be consumed together.

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

Yahweh, you know. Remember me, visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors. You are patient, so don’t take me away. Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.

Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed. Let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh of Armies.

With you I will break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein. With you I will break in pieces man and woman. With you I will break in pieces the old man and the youth. With you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin.

“ ‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence.

Kill utterly the old man, the young man, the virgin, little children and women; but don’t come near any man on whom is the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the old men who were before the house.

“When I make the land of Egypt desolate and waste, a land destitute of that of which it was full, when I strike all those who dwell therein, then they will know that I am Yahweh.

You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its bad smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things.

For even when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted on every side. Fightings were outside. Fear was inside.

of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

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,

“ ‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

May Yahweh judge between me and you, and may Yahweh avenge me of you; but my hand will not be on you.

For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.

The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

You have proved my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me, and found nothing. I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.

Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings. Give them according to the operation of their hands. Bring back on them what they deserve.

Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.

They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.

Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.

Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

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.

You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the whirlwind will scatter them. You will rejoice in Yahweh. You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away.

therefore Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Behold, I will punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine.

I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says Yahweh: “I will not pity, spare, or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.” ’ ”

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 didn’t return from their ways.

I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around.

They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

“Look, Yahweh; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death.

“You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.

My eye will not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations will be among you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.’

“ ‘They will know that I am Yahweh when I disperse them among the nations, and scatter them through the countries.

I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused all that opens the womb to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Yahweh.” ’

“ ‘You, deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day has come, in the time of the iniquity of the end,

while they see for you false visions, while they divine lies to you, to lay you on the necks of the wicked who are deadly wounded, whose day has come in the time of the iniquity of the end.

You will be profaned in yourself, in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ”

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever;

For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” says Yahweh; “but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.”

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”

You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double.

and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

“ ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young.

Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be jackal food.

God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.

“Therefore now Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child out of the middle of Judah, to leave yourselves no one remaining;

For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence;

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh.

We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows.

He said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” They went out, and struck in the city.

I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.

“You, son of man, shouldn’t it be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters,

Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, even my people Israel. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance, and you will never again bereave them of their children.”

“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he doesn’t open his mouth.

Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.

The Jews struck all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they wanted to those who hated them.

Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.

I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife will be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.”

But you, Yahweh, know me. You see me, and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

“ ‘ “I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.

“The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men within me. He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a wine press.

“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.

The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.

“ ‘ “Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end;

I will bring distress on men, that they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Yahweh, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.

Alexander, the coppersmith, did much evil to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds,