Disaster Predicted

1And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2“You shall not take a wife, and there shall be no sons or daughters for you in this place. 3For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are conceived in this place, and concerning their mothers who give birth to them, and concerning their fathers, from whose stock they have been born in this land: 4They will die from grievous mortal illnesses. They will not be mourned, and they will not be buried. They will be like manure on the face of the earth. And they will be consumed by sword and by famine. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the land.”

5For thus says the Lord: “You shall not enter the house of feasting, and you shall not go to mourn or to console them. For I have taken away from this people, says the Lord, my peace, my mercy, and my pity. 6Both the great and the small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and they will not be mourned. And no one will cut themselves or make themselves bald on their behalf. 7And they will not break bread among themselves for the sake of him who mourns, so as to console him over the dead. And they will not give them a chalice to drink, so as to console them over their father and mother. 8And so, you shall not enter the house of feasting, so as to sit with them, and to eat and drink.” 9For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will take away from this place, in your sight and in your days, the voice of gladness and the voice of rejoicing, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.

10And when you announce all these words to this people, they will say to you: ‘Why would the Lord pronounce all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity and what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11And you shall say to them: It is because your fathers abandoned me, says the Lord. And they went after strange gods, and they served them and adored them. And they abandoned me, and they did not keep my law. 12But you have acted even worse than your fathers. For behold, each one walks after the depravity of his own evil heart, so that he does not listen to me. 13And so, I will cast you out of this land, into a land that you do not know, and that your fathers did not know. And in that place, you will serve, day and night, strange gods who will not give you rest.

God Will Restore Israel

14Therefore, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of Egypt,’ 15but instead, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of the north,’ and from all the lands to which I have cast them out. And I will lead them back into their own land, which I gave to their fathers.

16Behold, I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they will fish for them. And after this, I will send many hunters to them, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, and on every hilltop, and in the caverns of the rocks. 17For my eyes are upon all their ways. They have not been hidden from my face, and their iniquity has not been concealed from my eyes. 18But first, I will repay their double iniquities and their sins. For they have defiled my land with the dead bodies of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

19“O Lord, my strength, and my health, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: the Gentiles will approach you from the ends of the earth, and they will say: ‘Truly, our fathers possessed a lie, an emptiness that has not benefited them.’

20How can man make gods for himself, though these are not gods?”

21“Concerning this, behold: I will make it clear to them, in this turn. I will reveal to them my hand and my virtue. And they will know that the Lord is my name.”