1 “At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. 2 And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. pThey shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. 3 qDeath shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places rwhere I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.
Sin and Treachery
4 “You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When men fall, do they not rise again?
If one turns away, does he not return?
5 Why then has this people turned away
in perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I have paid attention and listened,
but they have not spoken rightly;
no man relents of his evil,
saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turns to his own course,
like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7 sEven the stork in the heavens
knows her times,
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane1
keep the time of their coming,
but my people know not
the rules2 of the Lord.
8 “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
9 The wise men shall be put to shame;
they shall be dismayed and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
so what wisdom is in them?
10 Therefore I will give ttheir wives to others
and their fields to conquerors,
because ufrom the least to the greatest
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
11 vThey have healed the wound of my people lightly,
wsaying, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
12 xWere they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord.
13 yWhen I would gather them, declares the Lord,
there are no grapes on the vine,
nor figs on the fig tree;
even the leaves are withered,
and what I gave them has passed away from them.”3
14 Why do we sit still?
Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
and has zgiven us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.
15 aWe looked for peace, but no good came;
for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16 “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
at the sound of the neighing of their stallions
the whole land quakes.
They come and devour the land and all that fills it,
the city and those who dwell in it.
17 For behold, I am sending among you serpents,
adders that cannot be charmed,
and they shall bite you,”
declares the Lord.
Jeremiah Grieves for His People
18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me;4
my heart is sick within me.
19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
bIs her King not in her?”
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
and cwith their foreign idols?”
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 dFor the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22 Is there no ebalm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
Paul’s Ministry to the Thessalonians
1 For you yourselves know, brothers,1 that our wcoming to you was not xin vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated yat Philippi, as you know, we had zboldness in our God ato declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved bby God to be centrusted with the gospel, so we speak, dnot to please man, but to please God who etests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery,2 as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—fGod is witness. 6 Nor did we gseek glory from people, whether from you or from others, hthough we could have made demands as iapostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle3 among you, jlike a knursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God lbut also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
9 For you remember, brothers, our mlabor and toil: we worked night and day, nthat we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 oYou are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. 11 For you know how, like a father with his children, 12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and pcharged you to qwalk in a manner worthy of God, who rcalls you into his own kingdom and glory.
13 And we also thank God sconstantly4 for this, that when you received the word of God, which you theard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men5 but as what it really is, the word of God, which is uat work in you believers. 14 For you, brothers, vbecame imitators of wthe churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For xyou suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,6 15 ywho killed both the Lord Jesus and the zprophets, and adrove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to bfill up the measure of their sins. But cwrath has come upon them at last!7
