The Hebrew Prophets

When they fast I will not hear their prayers: and if they offer holocausts and victims, I will not receive them: for I will consume them by the sword, and by famine, and by the pestilence.

And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, the prophets say to them: You shall not see the sword, and there shall be no famine among you, but he will give you true peace in this place.

And the Lord said to me: The prophets prophesy falsely in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them: they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination and deceit, and the seduction of their own heart.

Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, whom I did not send, that say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.

And the people to whom they prophesy, shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there shall be none to bury them: they and their wives, their sons and their daughters, and I will pour out their own wickedness upon them.

And thou shalt speak this word to them: Let my eyes shed down tears night and day, and let them not cease, because the virgin daughter of my people is afflicted with a great affliction, with an exceeding grievous evil.

If I go forth into the fields, behold the slain with the sword: and if I enter into the city, behold them that are consumed with famine. The prophet also and the priest are gone into a land which they knew not.

Hast thou utterly cast away Juda, or hath thy soul abhorred Sion? why then hast thou struck us, so that there is no healing for us? we have looked for peace, and there is no good: and for the time of healing, and behold trouble.

We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, the iniquities of our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.

Give us not to be a reproach, for thy name's sake, and do not disgrace in us the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.

Are there any among the graven things of the Gentiles that can send rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou the Lord our God, whom we have looked for? for thou hast made all these things.

And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not towards this people: cast them out from my sight, and let them go forth.

And if they shall say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death: and such as are for the sword, to the sword: and such as are for famine, to famine: and such as are for captivity, to captivity.

And I will visit them with four kinds, saith the Lord: The sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

And I will give them up to the rage of all the kingdoms of the earth: because of Manasses the son of Ezechias the king of Juda, for all that he did in Jerusalem.

For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go to pray for thy peace?

Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and I will destroy thee: I am weary of entreating thee.

And I will scatter them with a fan in the gates of the land: I have killed and destroyed my people, and yet they are not returned from their ways.

Their widows are multiplied unto me above the sand of the sea: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young man a spoiler at noonday: I have cast a terror on a sudden upon the cities.

She that hath borne seven is become weak, her soul hath fainted away: her sun is gone down, while it was yet day: she is confounded, and ashamed: and the residue of them I will give up to the sword in the sight of their enemies, saith the Lord.

Woe is me, my mother: why hast thou borne me a man of strife, a man of contention to all the earth? I have not lent on usury, neither hath any man lent to me on usury: yet all curse me.

The Lord saith to me: Assuredly it shall be well with thy remnant, assuredly I shall help thee in the time of affliction, and in the time of tribulation against the enemy.

Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass?

Thy riches and thy treasures I will give unto spoil for nothing, because of all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

And I will bring thy enemies out of a land, which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in my rage, it shall burn upon you.