Tanakh & Talmud. Various Authors

the priest,Nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.Come, and let us smite him with the tongue,And let us not give heed to any of his words.'¹⁹Give heed to me, O Lord,And hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.²⁰Shall evil be recompensed for good?For they have digged a pit for my soul.Remember how I stood before TheeTo speak good for them,To turn away Thy wrath from them.²¹Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,And hurl them to the power of the sword;And let their wives be bereaved of their children, and widows;And let their men be slain of death,And their young men smitten of the sword in battle.²²Let a cry be heard from their houses,When thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them;For they have digged a pit to take me,And hid snares for my feet.²³Yet, Lord, Thou knowestAll their counsel against me to slay me;Forgive not their iniquity,Neither blot out their sin from Thy sight;But let them be made to stumble before Thee;Deal Thou with them in the time of Thine anger.

       19Thus said the Lord: Go, and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests; ²and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee; ³and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

      Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle; ⁴because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have offered in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; ⁵and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into My mind. ⁶Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter; ⁷and I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life; and their carcasses will I give to be food for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; ⁸and I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof; ⁹and I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their life, shall straiten them. ¹⁰Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, ¹¹and shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, for want of room to bury. ¹²Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, even making this city as Topheth; ¹³and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses upon whose roofs they have offered unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods.

       ¹⁴Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord's house, and said to all the people: ¹⁵'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have made their neck stiff, that they might not hear My words.'

20Now Pashhur the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord. ³And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashhur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him: 'The Lord hath not called thy name Pashhur, but ³Magormissabib. ⁴For thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it; and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. ⁵Moreover I will give all the store of this city, and all the gains thereof, and all the wealth thereof, yea, all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, who shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. ⁶And thou, Pashhur, and all that dwell in thy house shall go into captivity; and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there shalt thou be buried, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied falsely.'

      ⁷O Lord, Thou hast enticed me, and I was enticed,Thou hast overcome me, and hast prevailed;I am become a laughing-stock all the day,Every one mocketh me.⁸For as often as I speak, I cry out,I cry: 'Violence and spoil';Because the word of the Lord is madeA reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day.⁹And if I say: 'I will not make mention of Him,Nor speak any more in His name',Then there is in my heart as it were a burning fireShut up in my bones,And I weary myself to hold it in,But cannot.¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many,Terror on every side:'Denounce, and we will denounce him';Even of all my familiar friends,Them that watch for my halting:'Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him,And we shall take our revenge on him.'¹¹But the Lord is with me as a mighty warrior;Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail;They shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not prospered,Even with an everlasting confusion which shall never be forgotten.¹²But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous,That seest the reins and the heart,Let me see Thy vengeance on them;For unto Thee have I revealed my cause. ¹³Sing unto the Lord,Praise ye the Lord;For He hath delivered the soul of the needyFrom the hand of evil-doers. ¹⁴Cursed be the dayWherein I was born;The day wherein my mother bore me,Let it not be blessed.¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought tidingsTo my father, saying:'A man-child is born unto thee';Making him very glad.¹⁶And let that man be as the citiesWhich the Lord overthrew, and repented not;And let him hear a cry in the morning,And an alarm at noontide;¹⁷Because He slew me not from the womb;And so my mother would have been my grave,And her womb always great.¹⁸Wherefore came I forth out of the wombTo see labour and sorrow,That my days should be consumed in shame?

      21The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying: ²'Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; peradventure the Lord will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from us.'

      ³Then said Jeremiah unto them: Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: ⁴Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel:

      Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, that besiege you without the walls, and I will gather them into the midst of this city. ⁵And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. ⁶And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence. ⁷And afterward, saith the Lord, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life; and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have compassion.

      ⁸And unto this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. ⁹He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out, and falleth away to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. ¹⁰For 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.

      ¹¹And unto the house of the king of Judah: Hear ye the word of the Lord; ¹²O