Today's Reading

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²"Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.

³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

⁴Do not trust in lying words, saying, "The Lord's temple, The Lord's temple, The Lord's temple, are these."

⁵For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

⁶if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:

⁷then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.

⁸Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.

⁹Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,

¹⁰and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are delivered"; that you may do all these abominations?

¹¹Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord.

¹²But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

¹³Now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer:

¹⁴therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

¹⁵I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶Therefore do not pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.

¹⁷Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

¹⁹Do they provoke me to anger?" says the Lord. "Do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?"

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: "Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched."

²¹Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.

²²For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

²³but this thing I commanded them, saying, 'Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'

²⁴But they did not listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

²⁵Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

²⁶yet they did not listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers."

²⁷"You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.

²⁸You shall tell them, 'This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of the Lord their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

²⁹Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.'"

³⁰"For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight," says the Lord: "they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

³¹They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

³²Therefore behold, the days come," says the Lord, "that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury.

³³The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.

³⁴Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste."

¹"At that time," says the Lord, "they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;

²and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.

³Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them," says the Lord of hosts.

⁴"Moreover you shall tell them, 'Thus says the Lord: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?

⁵Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.

⁶I listened and heard, but they did not speak what is right: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, "What have I done?" Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.

⁷Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people do not know the Lord's law.

⁸How can you say, "We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?" But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely.

⁹The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what kind of wisdom is in them?

¹⁰Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to those who shall possess them: for everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely.

¹¹They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, "Peace, peace;" when there is no peace.

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says the Lord.

¹³I will utterly consume them, says the Lord: no grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.'"

¹⁴"Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for the Lord our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

¹⁶The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein.

¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you," says the Lord.

¹⁸"Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: 'Isn't the Lord in Zion? Isn't her King in her?'" "Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?"

²⁰"'The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.'

²¹For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then isn't the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

¹Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

²Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men."

³"They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me," says the Lord.

⁴"Take heed everyone of his neighbor, and do not trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders.

⁵They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁶Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me," says the Lord.

⁷Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, "Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lies in wait for him.

⁹Shall I not visit them for these things?" says the Lord; "shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"

¹⁰"For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the livestock; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone."

¹¹"I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant."

¹²"Who is the wise man, that may understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?"

¹³The Lord says, "Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein,

¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them;

¹⁵therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.'"

¹⁷Thus says the Lord of hosts, "Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come:"

¹⁸"and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, 'How are we ruined! We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.'"

²⁰"Yet hear the word of the Lord, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation.

²¹'For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.'

²²Speak, 'Thus says the Lord, "The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather them."'"

²³Thus says the Lord, "Do not let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, do not let the rich man glory in his riches;

²⁴but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight," says the Lord.

²⁵"Behold, the days come," says the Lord, "that I will punish all those who are circumcised in uncircumcision:

²⁶Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and Christ Jesus our hope;

²to Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³As I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, stay at Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine,

⁴neither to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which cause speculation, rather than God's stewardship, which is in faith-

⁵but the goal of this command is love, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith;

⁶from which things some, having missed the mark, have turned aside to vain talking;

⁷desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor about what they strongly affirm.

⁸But we know that the law is good, if a man uses it lawfully,

⁹as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

¹⁰for the sexually immoral, nor men who practice sexual relations with men, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine;

¹¹according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

¹²And I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;

¹³although I was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

¹⁴The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

¹⁶However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life.

¹⁷Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

¹⁸This instruction I commit to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which led the way to you, that by them you may wage the good warfare;

¹⁹holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust away made a shipwreck concerning the faith;

²⁰of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding:

²that you may maintain discretion, that your lips may preserve knowledge.

³For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil,

⁴But in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to Sheol.

⁶She gives no thought to the way of life. Her ways are crooked, and she doesn't know it.

⁷Now therefore, my sons, listen to me. Do not depart from the words of my mouth.

⁸Remove your way far from her. Do not come near the door of her house,

⁹lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one;

¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich another man's house.

¹¹You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed,

¹²and say, "How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

¹³neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me!

¹⁴I have come to the brink of utter ruin, in the midst of the gathered assembly."

¹⁵Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.

¹⁶Should your springs overflow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁷Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers with you.

¹⁸Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

¹⁹A loving doe and a graceful deer- let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love.

²⁰For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?

²¹For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord. He examines all his paths.

²²The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.

²³He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.