The Pillars of Three Faiths: Tanakh, Bible & Qu'ran. Various Authors

skirts upon thy face,And thy shame shall appear.²⁷Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy harlotry,On the hills in the field have I seen thy detestable acts.Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! thou wilt not be made clean!When shall it ever be?

       14The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.

      ²Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish,They bow down in black unto the ground;And the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.³And their nobles send their lads for water:They come to the pits, and find no water;Their vessels return empty;They are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads.⁴Because of the ground which is cracked,For there hath been no rain in the land,The plowmen are ashamed, they cover their heads.⁵Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young,Because there is no grass,⁶And the wild asses stand on the high hills,They gasp for air like jackals;Their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.⁷Though our iniquities testify against us,O Lord, work Thou for Thy name's sake;For our backslidings are many,We have sinned against Thee.⁸O Thou hope of Israel,The Saviour thereof in time of trouble,Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land,And as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?⁹Why shouldest thou be as a man overcome,As a mighty man that cannot save?Yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us,And Thy name is called upon us;Leave us not.

       ¹⁰Thus saith the Lord unto this people:

      Even so have they loved to wander,They have not refrained their feet;Therefore the Lord doth not accept them,Now will He remember their iniquity,And punish their sins.

      ¹¹And the Lord said unto me: 'Pray not for this people for their good. ¹²When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offering and meal-offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.' ¹³Then said I: 'Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them: Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.' ¹⁴Then the Lord said unto me: 'The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I unto them; they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their own heart. ¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord: As for the prophets that prophesy in My name, and I sent them not, yet they say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land, by sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed; ¹⁶and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters; for I will pour their evil upon them.'

       ¹⁷And thou shalt say this word unto them:

      Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day,And let them not cease;For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach,With a very grievous blow.¹⁸If I go forth into the field,Then behold the slain with the sword!And if I enter into the city,Then behold them that are sick with famine!For both the prophet and the priest are gone about to a land, and knew it not. ¹⁹Hast Thou utterly rejected Judah?Hath Thy soul loathed Zion?Why hast Thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us?We looked for peace, but no good came;And for a time of healing, and behold terror!²⁰We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness,Even the iniquity of our fathers;For we have sinned against Thee.²¹Do not contemn us, for Thy name's sake,Do not dishonour the throne of Thy glory;Remember, break not Thy covenant with us.²²Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain?Or can the heavens give showers?Art not Thou He, O Lord our God, and do we not wait for Thee?For Thou hast made all these things.

      15Then said the Lord unto me: 'Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. ²And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? then thou shall tell them: Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity. ³And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to drag, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. ⁴And I will cause them to be a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

      ⁵For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem?Or who shall bemoan thee?Or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare?⁶Thou hast cast Me off, saith the Lord,Thou art gone backward;Therefore do I stretch out My hand against thee, and destroy thee;I am weary with repenting.⁷And I fan them with a fan in the gates of the land;I bereave them of children, I destroy My people,Since they return not from their ways.⁸Their widows are increased to Me above the sand of the seas;I bring upon them, against the mother, a chosen one,Even a spoiler at noonday;I cause anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly.⁹She that hath borne seven languisheth;Her spirit droopeth;Her sun is gone down while it was yet day,She is ashamed and confounded;And the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies,Saith the Lord.' ¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne meA man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!I have not lent, neither have men lent to me;Yet every one of them doth curse me.

      ¹¹The Lord said: 'Verily I will release thee for good; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. ¹²Can iron break iron from the north and brass? ¹³Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. ¹⁴And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not; for a fire is kindled in My nostril, which shall burn upon you.'

      ¹⁵Thou, O Lord, knowest;Remember me, and think of me, and avenge me of my persecutors;Take me not away because of Thy long-suffering;Know that for Thy sake I have suffered taunts.¹⁶Thy words were found, and I did eat them;And Thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart;Because Thy name was called on me, O Lord God of hosts.¹⁷I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced;I sat alone because of Thy hand;For Thou hast filled me with indignation.¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual,And my wound incurable, so that it refuseth to be healed?Wilt Thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook,As waters that fail? ¹⁹Therefore thus saith the Lord:If thou return, and I bring thee back,Thou shalt stand before Me;And if thou bring forth the precious out of the vile,Thou shalt be as My mouth;Let them return unto thee,But thou shalt not return unto them.²⁰And I will make thee unto this people a fortified brazen wall;And they shall fight against thee,But they shall not prevail against thee;For I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee,Saith the Lord.²¹And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked,And I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

       16The word of the Lord came also unto me, saying:

      ²Thou shalt not take thee a wife,Neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

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

      ⁴They shall die of grievous deaths;They shall not be lamented,Neither shall they be buried,They shall be as dung upon the face of the ground;And they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine;And their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven,And for the beasts of the earth.

      ⁵For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away My peace from this people, saith the Lord, even mercy and compassion. ⁶Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried; neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; ⁷neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. ⁸And thou shalt not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. ⁹For thus saith the