Disaster Predicted
1 The word of the Lord came also to me, saying, 2 “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”
3 For the Lord says, concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: 4 “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, nor will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”
5 For the Lord says, “Do not enter into the house of mourning. Do not go to lament. Do not bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says the Lord, “and my loving kindness and tender mercies.
6 Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men will not lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them. 7 Men will not break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men will not give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” 9 For the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel says: “I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the sound of the bridegroom and the sound of the bride.
10 It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’
11 Then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says the Lord, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. 12 You have done evil more than your fathers, for you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you do not listen to me. 13 Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
God Will Restore Israel
14 The Lord says, “Therefore the days are coming that it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the Israelites out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the Israelites from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them back into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16 I will send for many fishermen,” says the Lord, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity is not concealed from my eyes.
18 First I will repay their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
19 O Lord, my strength, and my stronghold,
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.
20 Should a man make gods for himself,
which are not gods?
21 Therefore, I will impart this knowledge to them:
I will cause them to know my hand and my might.
Then they will know that my name is the Lord.”