Jeremiah Must Not Marry

1Then the word of YHWH came to me saying, 2“You must not take a wife, neither are you to have sons or daughters in this place.” 3For YHWH says concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and their fathers who became their father in this land: 4“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

5For YHWH says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says YHWH, “my lovingkindness and tender mercies. 6Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. People will not lament for them, nor will anyone cut themselves or shave their head for them. 7No one will break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. No one will give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

8“You must not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” 9For YHWH Almighty, the God of Israel says: “Look, before y’all’s eyes and in y’all’s days, I will eliminate from this place the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. 10It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has YHWH pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against YHWH our God?’ 11then you are to tell them, ‘Because y’all’s ancestors have forsaken me,’ says YHWH, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. 12But y’all have done evil more than y’all’s ancestors, Look! Each of y’all follow the stubbornness of your own wicked heart without listening to me. 13Therefore I will cast y’all out of this land into the land that y’all have not known, neither you* nor your* ancestors. There y’all will serve other gods day and night, for I will show y’all no mercy.’

14“Therefore look, the days come,” says YHWH, “that it will no more be said, ‘As YHWH lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.’ 15but rather, ‘As YHWH lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.

16“See, I will send for many fishermen,” says YHWH, “and they will catch them. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. 18First I will repay their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their disgusting idols.”