The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 4 The Foreign Invasion Announced and Described

 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 4

The Foreign Invasion Announced and Described

5 Announce in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say: Sound the trumpet in the land! Cry aloud, saying: Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities!

6 Raise a banner for Zion, flee for your salvation, do not stop; for I am bringing evil from the north, and great destruction.

7 A lion has already come up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he has set out, he has gone out from his place to make your land a desolation; so that your cities will be destroyed, and no one will dwell in them.

8 Therefore gird yourselves with sackcloth, lament, and wail; for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us.

9 And it shall come to pass at that time, says the Lord, that the heart of the king and the heart of the princes shall fail; And the priests will be astonished, and the prophets will marvel.

10 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly you have brought great delusion upon this people and upon Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall have peace,’ for the sword pierces even to their soul.

11 At that time it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A dry wind from the heights of the desert has come upon the path of the daughter of my people, not to winnow her, nor to cleanse her.’

12 A wind shall come to me, a great and vehement wind: now also I will pronounce judgments against them.

13 Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind; his horses shall be swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are destroyed!

14 Wash your heart of wickedness, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved; how long shall your evil thoughts remain within you?

15 For your voice proclaims from Dan, and makes calamity heard from the mountains of Ephraim.

16 Proclaim this to the nations, make it heard against Jerusalem: that watchmen come from a distant land, and they will raise their voice against the cities of Judah.

17 Like watchmen of a field, they surround her; because she has rebelled against me, says the Lord.

18 Your way and your deeds have brought these things upon you; this is your iniquity, which is so bitter it reaches to your heart.

19 Oh my bowels, my bowels! I am wounded in my heart! My heart roars; I cannot keep silent; for you, O my soul, have heard the sound of the trumpet and the alarm of war.

20 Breakdown upon breakdown is proclaimed: for the whole land is now destroyed; suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains in a moment.

21 How long will I see the banner and hear the trumpet's voice?

22 Surely my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are senseless children, without understanding; they are skilled in doing evil, but in doing good they know nothing.

23 I looked at the earth, and it was desolate and empty; and at the heavens, and they had no light.

24 ​​I looked at the mountains, and they were trembling; all the hills were quaking.

25 I looked, and there was no one; every bird in the sky had fled.

26 I saw that the fertile land was a desert, and all its cities were overthrown before the Lord, before the fierceness of his anger.

27 For this is what the Lord says: “This whole land will be desolate, but I will not completely destroy it.”

28 Therefore the land will mourn, and the heavens above will grow dark; For I have said it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented nor will I turn back from it.

29 At the sound of the horsemen and archers all the cities fled; they entered through the clouds, and climbed the cliffs: all the cities were left forsaken, and no one dwells in them anymore.

30 Now, therefore, what will you do, O desolate one? Though you clothe yourself in crimson, though you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, though you paint around your eyes with antimony, in vain you would make yourself beautiful: lovers despise you, and seek to take your life.

31 For I hear a voice like that of a woman in labor, anguish like that of one in labor with her first child; the voice of the daughter of Zion, gasping, stretching out her hands, saying: Oh! Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.