Jeremiah 16 - Revised Standard Version Old Tradition 1952(RSV-C)

1The word of the Lord came to me:

2“You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.

3For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who begot them in this land:

4They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

5“For thus says the Lord: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament, or bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, my steadfast love and mercy.

6Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or cut himself or make himself bald for them.

7No one shall break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead; nor shall any one give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother.

8You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink.

9 I will doubly recompense their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

19O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,

my refuge in the day of trouble,

to thee shall the nations come

from the ends of the earth and say:

“Our fathers have inherited naught but lies,

worthless things in which there is no profit.

20Can man make for himself gods?

Such are no gods!”

21“Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.”