Jeremiah 24:2

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.

Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it?

“You shall not delay to offer from your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. “You shall give the firstborn of your sons to me.

They joined themselves also to Baal Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

Put away from yourself a perverse mouth. Put corrupt lips far from you.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?

Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, and Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel.

They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

A worthless man devises mischief. His speech is like a scorching fire.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

For it will be so within the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.

The fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer; which someone picks and eats as soon as he sees it.

But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.’

The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery; because the men consort with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with the shrine prostitutes; so the people without understanding will come to ruin.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,

for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods.

I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be moved no more. The children of wickedness will not afflict them any more, as at the first,

Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.

The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth.

An evildoer heeds wicked lips. A liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.

Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel.

“ ‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely Yahweh says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

“ ‘ “But they rebelled against me, and would not listen to me. They didn’t all throw away the abominations of their eyes. They also didn’t forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the middle of the land of Egypt.

You shall bring them near to Yahweh, and the priests shall cast salt on them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering to Yahweh.

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.

Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard: There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.

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

For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit; nor again a rotten tree that produces good fruit.

Men will arise from among your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Besides, they also learn to be idle, going about from house to house. Not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.

And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.

They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us.

Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe.

These are those who cause divisions and are sensual, not having the Spirit.

Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.

Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,

In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

“ ‘If you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.

The first-ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to Yahweh, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it.

Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you.

One went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew; for they didn’t recognize them.

so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him. He heard the cry of the afflicted.

the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself.

For Yahweh takes pleasure in his people. He crowns the humble with salvation.

Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.

If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.

How beautiful and how pleasant you are, love, for delights!

How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.” ’

“Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good.

“ ‘ “ ‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says Yahweh, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon). It said:

Yahweh says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who haven’t gone with you into captivity;

Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.

For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with fire.’ ”

then Zedekiah the king sent, and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?” Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

He will come, and will strike the land of Egypt; such as are for death will be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword.

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

and has not wronged any, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has taken nothing by robbery, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;

Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord Yahweh.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.

They make promises, swearing falsely in making covenants. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them: for this pleases you, you children of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh.

You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!

I said, “Just fear me. Receive correction, so that her dwelling won’t be cut off, according to all that I have appointed concerning her.” But they rose early and corrupted all their doings.

Yahweh, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.

When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers, to receive his fruit.

But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

and the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots.

Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them?

There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.

Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it,

A worthless person, a man of iniquity, is he who walks with a perverse mouth,