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8.4
JEREMIAH
4Moreover thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord:
- Do men fall, and not rise up again?
- Doth 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 attended and listened,
- But they spoke not aright;
- No man repenteth him of his wickedness,
- Saying: 'What have I done?'
- Every one turneth away in his course,
- As a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle.
- 7Yea, the stork in the heaven
- Knoweth her appointed times;
- And the turtle and the swallow and the crane
- Observe the time of their coming;
- But My people know not
- The ordinance of the Lord.
- 8How do ye say: 'We are wise,
- And the Law of the Lord is with us'?
- Lo, certainly in vain hath wrought
- The vain pen of the scribes.
- 9The wise men are ashamed,
- They are dismayed and taken;
- Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord;
- And what wisdom is in them?
- 10Therefore will I give their wives unto others,
- And their fields to them that shall possess them;
- For from the least even unto the greatest
- Every one is greedy for gain,
- From the prophet even unto the priest
- Every one dealeth falsely.
- 11And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people lightly,
- Saying: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace.
- 12They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination;
- Yea, they are not at all ashamed,
- Neither know they how to blush;
- Therefore shall they fall among them that fall,
- In the time of their visitation they shall stumble,
- Saith the Lord.
- 13I will utterly consume them, saith the Lord;
- There are no grapes on the vine,
- Nor figs on the fig-tree,
- And the leaf is faded;
- And I gave them that which they transgress.
- 14'Why do we sit still?
- Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities,
- And let us be cut off there;
- For the Lord our God hath cut us off,
- 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 terror! '
- 16The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan;
- At the sound of the neighing of his strong ones
- The whole land trembleth;
- For they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it,
- The city and those that dwell therein.
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