The Bible, Douay Rheims, Book 28: Jeremias

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17:19. Thus saith the Lord to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the
children of the people, by which the kings of Juda come in, and go out,
and in all the gates of Jerusalem:

17:20. And thou shalt say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, ye kings
of Juda, and al Juda, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter
in by these gates.

17:21. Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to your souls, and carry no
burdens on the sabbath day: and bring them not in by the gates of
Jerusalem.

17:22. And do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day,
neither do ye any work: sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your
fathers.

17:23. But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their
neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction.

17:24. And it shall come to pass: if you will hearken to me, saith the
Lord, to bring in no burdens by the gates of this city on the sabbath
day: and if you will sanctify the sabbath day, to do no work therein:

17:25. Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and
princes, sitting upon the throne of David, and riding in chariots and on
horses, they and their princes, the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem: and this city shall be inhabited for ever.

17:26. And they shall come from the cities of Juda, and from the places
round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the
plains, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing holocausts,
and victims, and sacrifices, and frankincense, and they shall bring in
an offering into the house of the Lord.

17:27. But if you will not hearken to me, to sanctify the sabbath day,
and not to carry burdens, and not to bring them in by the gates of
Jerusalem on the sabbath day: I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof,
and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be
quenched.

Jeremias Chapter 18

As the clay in the hand of the potter, so is Israel in God's hand. He
pardoneth penitents, and punisheth the obstinate. They conspire against
Jeremias, for which he denounceth to them the miseries that hang over
them.

18:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, saying:

18:2. Arise, and go down into the potter's house, and there thou shalt
hear my words.

18:3. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold he was doing a
work on the wheel.

18:4. And the vessel was broken which he was making of clay with his
hands: and turning he made another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes
to make it.

18:5. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

18:6. Cannot I do with you, as this potter, O house of Israel, saith the
Lord? behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my
hand, O house of Israel.

18:7. I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to
root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it.

18:8. If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their
evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them.

18:9. And I will suddenly speak of a nation and of a kingdom, to build
up and plant it.

18:10. If it shall do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice: I
will repent of the good that I have spoken to do unto it.

18:11. Now therefore tell the men of Juda, and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you,
and devise a device against you: let every man of you return from his
evil way, and make ye your ways and your doings good.

18:12. And they said; We have no hopes: for we will go after our own
thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his
evil heart.

18:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ask among the nations: Who hath
heard such horrible things, as the virgin of Israel hath done to excess?

18:14. Shall the snow of Libanus fail from the rock of the field? or can
the cold waters that gush out and run down, be taken away?

18:15. Because my people have forgotten me, sacrificing in vain, and
stumbling in their ways, in ancient paths, to walk by them in a way not
trodden:

18:16. That their land might be given up to desolation, and to a
perpetual hissing: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished,
and wag his head.

18:17. As a burning wind will I scatter them before the enemy: I will
shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their destruction.

18:18. And they said: Come, and let us invent devices against Jeremias:
for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise,
nor the word from the prophet: come, and let us strike him with the
tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words.

18:19. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries.

18:20. Shall evil be rendered for good, because they have digged a pit
for my soul? Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for
them, and to turn away thy indignation from them.

Remember, etc... This is spoken in the person of Christ, persecuted by
the Jews, and prophetically denouncing the evils that should fall upon
them in punishment of their crimes.

18:21. Therefore deliver up their children to famine, and bring them
into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of children and
widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be
stabbed with the sword in battle.

18:22. Let a cry be heard out of their houses: for thou shalt bring the
robber upon them suddenly: because they have digged a pit to take me,
and have hid snares for my feet.

18:23. But thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me unto
death: not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from thy
sight: let them be overthrown before thy eyes, in the time of thy wrath
do thou destroy them.

Jeremias Chapter 19

Under the type of breaking a potter's vessel, the prophet foresheweth
the desolation of the Jews for their sins.

19:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go, and take a potter's earthen bottle, and
take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests:

19:2. And go forth into the valley of the son of Ennom, which is by the
entry of the earthen gate: and there thou shalt proclaim the words that
I shall tell thee.

19:3. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, O ye kings of Juda,
and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that
whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle:

19:4. Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place: and
have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their
fathers knew, nor the kings of Juda: and they have filled this place
with the blood of innocents.

19:5. And they have built the high places of Baalim, to burn their
children with fire for a holocaust to Baalim: which I did not command,
nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind.

19:6. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place
shall no more be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Ennom, but
the valley of slaughter.

19:7. And I will defeat the counsel of Juda and of Jerusalem in this
place: and I will destroy them with the sword in the sight of their
enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and I will give
their carcasses to be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts
of the earth.

19:8. And I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing: every
one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss because
of all the plagues thereof.

19:9. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons, and with the
flesh of their daughters: and they shall eat every one the flesh of his
friend in the siege, and in the distress wherewith their enemies, and
they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

19:10. And thou shalt break the bottle in the sight of the men that
shall go with thee.

19:11. And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so
will I break this people, and this city, as the potter's vessel is
broken, which cannot be made whole again: and they shall be buried in
Topheth, because there is no other place to bury in.

19:12. Thus will I do to this place, saith the Lord, and to the
inhabitants thereof: and I will make this city as Topheth.

19:13. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Juda
shall be unclean as the place of Topheth: all the houses upon whose
roofs they have sacrificed to all the host of heaven, and have poured
out drink offerings to strange gods.

19:14. Then Jeremias came from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to
prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord, and said
to all the people:

19:15. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will
bring in upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof all the evils
that I have spoken against it: because they have hardened their necks,
that they might not hear my words.

Jeremias Chapter 20

The prophet is persecuted: he denounces captivity to his persecutors,
and bemoans himself.

20:1. Now Phassur the son of Emmer, the priest, who was appointed chief
in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremias prophesying these words.

20:2. And Phassur struck Jeremias the prophet, and put him in the
stocks, that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the
Lord.

20:3. And when it was light the next day, Phassur brought Jeremias out
of the stocks. And Jeremias said to him: The Lord hath not called thy
name Phassur, but fear on every side.

Phassur... This name signifies increase and principality: and therefore
is here changed to Magor-Missabib, or fear on every side: to denote the
evils that should come upon him in punishment of his opposing the word
of God.

20:4. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver thee up to fear,
thee and all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their
enemies, and thy eyes shall see it, and I will give all Juda into the
hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall carry them away to Babylon,
and shall strike them with the sword.

20:5. And I will give all the substance of this city, and all its
labour, and every precious thing thereof, and all the treasures of the
kings of Juda will I give into the hands of their enemies: and they
shall pillage them, and take them away, and carry them to Babylon.

20:6. But thou Phassur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall go into
captivity, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and
there thou shalt be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast
prophesied a lie.

20:7. Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived: thou hast been
stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I am become a laughingstock
all the day, all scoff at me.

Thou hast deceived, etc... The meaning of the prophet, is not to charge
God with any untruth; but what he calls deceiving, was only the
concealing from him, when he accepted of the prophetical commission, the
greatness of the evils which the execution of that commission was to
bring upon him.

20:8. For I am speaking now this long time, crying out against iniquity,
and I often proclaim devastation: and the word of the Lord is made a
reproach to me, and a derision all the day.

20:9. Then I said: I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in
his name: and there came in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my
bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it.

20:10. For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side:
Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my
familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived,
and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.

20:11. But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore they that
persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly
confounded, because they have not understood the everlasting reproach,
which never shall be effaced.

20:12. And thou, O Lord of hosts, prover of the just, who seest the
reins and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them:
for to thee I have laid open my cause.

Let me see, etc... This prayer proceeded not from hatred or ill will,
but zeal of justice.

20:13. Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered
the soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked.

20:14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day in which my
mother bore me, be blessed.

Cursed be the day, etc... In these, and the following words of the
prophet, there is a certain figure of speech to express with more energy
the greatness of the evils to which his birth had exposed him.

20:15. Cursed be the man that brought the tidings to my father, saying:
A man child is born to thee: and made him greatly rejoice.

20:16. Let that man be as the cities which the Lord hath overthrown, and
hath not repented: let him hear a cry in the morning, and howling at
noontide:

20:17. Who slew me not from the womb, that my mother might have been my
grave, and her womb an everlasting conception.

20:18. Why came I out of the womb, to see labour and sorrow, and that my
days should be spent in confusion?

Jeremias Chapter 21

The prophet's answer to the messengers of Sedecias, when Jerusalem was
besieged.

21:1. The word that came to Jeremias from the Lord, when king Sedecias
sent unto him Phassur, the son of Melchias, and Sophonias, the son of
Maasias the priest, saying:

21:2. Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon
maketh war against us: if so be the Lord will deal with us according to
all his wonderful works, that he may depart from us.

21:3. And Jeremias said to them: Thus shall you say to Sedecias:

21:4. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold I will turn back
the weapons of war that are in your hands, and with which you fight
against the king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans, that besiege you round
about the walls: and I will gather them together in the midst of this
city.

21:5. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, and
with a strong arm, and in fury, and in indignation, and in great wrath.

21:6. And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, men and beasts
shall die of a great pestilence.

21:7. And after this, saith the Lord, I will give Sedecias the king of
Juda, and his servants, and his people, and such as are left in this
city from the pestilence, and the sword, and the famine, into the hand
of Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their
enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and he shall
strike them with the edge of the sword, and he shall not be moved to
pity, nor spare them, nor shew mercy to them.

21:8. And to this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold I
set before you the way of life, and the way of death.

21:9. He that shall abide in this city, shall die by the sword, and by
the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that shall go out and flee
over to the Chaldeans, that besiege you, shall live, and his life shall
be to him as a spoil.

21:10. For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for
good, saith the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of
Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

21:11. And to the house of the king of Juda: Hear ye the word of the
Lord,

21:12. O house of David, thus saith the Lord: Judge ye judgment in the
morning, and deliver him that is oppressed by violence out of the hand
of the oppressor: lest my indignation go forth like a fire, and be
kindled, and there be none to quench it, because of the evil of your
ways.

21:13. Behold I come to thee that dwellest in a valley upon a rock above
a plain, saith the Lord: and you say: Who shall strike us and who shall
enter into our houses?

To thee that dwellest, etc... He speaks to Jerusalem, confiding in the
strength of her situation upon rocks, surrounded with a deep valley.

21:14. But I will visit upon you according to the fruit of your doings,
saith the Lord: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof: and it
shall devour all things round about it.

Jeremias Chapter 22

An exhortation both to king and people to return of God. The sentence of
God upon Joachaz, Joakim, and Jechonias.

22:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Juda, and
there thou shalt speak this word,

Go down, etc... The contents of this chapter are of a more ancient date
than those of the foregoing chapter: for the order of time is not always
observed in the writings of the prophets.

22:2. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Juda, that
sittest upon the throne of David: thou and thy servants, and thy people,
who enter in by these gates.

22:3. Thus saith the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and deliver him
that is oppressed out of the hand of the oppressor: and afflict not the
stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly: and
shed not innocent blood in this place.

22:4. For if you will do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by
the gates of this house, kings of the race of David sitting upon his
throne, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants,
and their people.

22:5. But if you will not hearken to these words: I swear by myself,
saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.

22:6. For thus saith the Lord to the house of the king of Juda: Thou art
to me Galaad the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make thee a
wilderness, and cities not habitable.

Galaad the head of Libanus... By Galaad, a rich and fruitful country, is
here signified the royal palace of the kings of the house of David: by
Libanus, a high mountain abounding in cedar trees, the populous city of
Jerusalem.

22:7. And I will prepare against thee the destroyer and his weapons: and
they shall cut down thy chosen cedars, and shall cast them headlong into
the fire.

Prepare... Literally, sanctify.

22:8. And many nations shall pass by this city: and they shall say every
man to his neighbour: Why hath the Lord done so to this great city?

22:9. And they shall answer: Because they have forsaken the covenant of
the Lord their God, and have adored strange gods, and served them.

22:10. Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears:
lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his
native country.

Weep not for him that is dead, etc... He means the good king Josias, who
by death was taken away, so as not to see the miseries of his country.
Ibid. Him that goeth away... Viz., sellum, alias Joachaz, who was
carried captive into Egypt.

22:11. For thus saith the Lord to Sellum the son of Josias the king of
Juda, who reigned instead of his father, who went forth out of this
place: He shall return hither no more:

22:12. But in the place, to which I have removed him, there shall he
die, and he shall not see this land any more.

22:13. Woe to him that buildeth up his house by injustice, and his
chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause,
and will not pay him his wages.

22:14. Who saith: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers: who
openeth to himself windows, and maketh roofs of cedar, and painteth them
with vermilion.

22:15. Shalt thou reign, because thou comparest thyself to the cedar?
did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and it
was then well with him?

22:16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy for his own good: was
it not therefore because he knew me, saith the Lord?

22:17. But thy eyes and thy heart are set upon covetousness, and upon
shedding innocent blood, and upon oppression, and running after evil
works.

22:18. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Joakim the son of Josias
king of Juda: They shall not mourn for him, Alas, my brother, and, Alas,
sister: they shall not lament for him, Alas, my lord, or, Alas, the
noble one.

22:19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast
forth without the gates of Jerusalem.

22:20. Go up to Libanus, and cry: and lift up thy voice in Basan, and
cry to them that pass by, for all thy lovers are destroyed.

22:21. I spoke to thee in thy prosperity: and thou saidst: I will not
hear: this hath been thy way from thy youth, because thou hast not heard
my voice.

22:22. The wind shall feed all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into
captivity and then shalt thou be confounded, and ashamed of all thy
wickedness.

22:23. Thou that sittest in Libanus, and makest thy nest in the cedars,
how hast thou mourned when sorrows came upon thee, as the pains of a
woman in labour?

22:24. As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of Joakim the
king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence.

22:25. And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life,
and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, and into the hand of
Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

22:26. And I will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a
strange country, in which you were not born, and there you shall die:

22:27. And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up
their mind to return thither.

22:28. Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? is he a
vessel wherein is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed,
and are cast into a land which they know not?

22:29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

22:30. Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren, a man that shall not
prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall
sit upon the throne of David, and have power any more in Juda.

Write this man barren... That is, childless: not that he had no
children, but that his children should never sit on the throne of Juda.

Jeremias Chapter 23

God reproves evil governors; and promises to send good pastors; and
Christ himself the prince of the pastors. He inveighs against false
prophets preaching without being sent.

23:1. Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture,
saith the Lord.

23:2. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors
that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away,
and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of
your doings, saith the Lord.

23:3. And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the
lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to
their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied.

23:4. And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them:
they shall fear no more, and they shall not be dismayed: and none shall
be wanting of their number, saith the Lord.

23:5. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David
a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall
execute judgment and justice in the earth.

23:6. In those days shall Juda be saved, and Israel shall dwell
confidently: and this is the name that they shall call him: The Lord our
just one.

23:7. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and they shall say
no more: The Lord liveth, who brought up the children of Israel out of
the land of Egypt:

23:8. But, The Lord liveth, who hath brought out, and brought hither the
seed of the house of Israel from the land of the north, and out of all
the lands, to which I had cast them forth: and they shall dwell in their
own land.

23:9. To the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones
tremble: I am become as a drunken man, and as a man full of wine, at the
presence of the Lord, and at the presence of his holy words.

23:10. Because the land is full of adulterers, because the land hath
mourned by reason of cursing, the fields of the desert are dried up: and
their course is become evil, and their strength unlike.

23:11. For the prophet and the priest are defiled: and in my house I
have found their wickedness, saith the Lord.

23:12. Therefore their way shall be as a slippery way in the dark: for
they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evils upon
them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

23:13. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied
in Baal and deceived my people Israel.

23:14. And I have seen the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying
in the prophets of Jerusalem: and they strengthened the hands of the
wicked, that no man should return from his evil doings, they are all
become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrha.

23:15. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts to the prophets: Behold I
will feed them with wormwood, and will give them gall to drink: for from
the prophets of Jerusalem corruption is gone forth into all the land.

23:16. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hearken not to the words of the
prophets that prophesy to you, and deceive you: they speak a vision of
their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

23:17. They say to them that blaspheme me: The Lord hath said: You shall
have peace: and to every one that walketh in the perverseness of his own
heart, they have said: No evil shall come upon you.

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