Jeremiah 31

1 At that time, says the LORD, I will be the God of all the tribes of Israel, and they shall be my people.
2 Thus says the LORD: The people that escaped the sword have found favor in the desert. As Israel comes forward to be given his rest,
3 the LORD appears to him from afar: With age-old love I have loved you; so I have kept my mercy toward you.
4 Again I will restore you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin Israel; Carrying your festive tambourines, you shall go forth dancing with the merrymakers.
5 Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; those who plant them shall enjoy the fruits.
6 Yes, a day will come when the watchmen will call out on Mount Ephraim: Rise up, let us go to Zion, to the LORD, our God.
7 For thus says the LORD: Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The LORD has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel.
8 Behold, I will bring them back from the land of the north; I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, The mothers and those with child; they shall return as an immense throng.
9 They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, proclaim it on distant coasts, and say: He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together, he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
11 The LORD shall ransom Jacob, he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
12 Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion, they shall come streaming to the LORD'S blessings: The grain, the wine, and the oil, the sheep and the oxen; They themselves shall be like watered gardens, never again shall they languish.
13 Then the virgins shall make merry and dance, and young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
14 I will lavish choice portions upon the priests, and my people shall be filled with my blessings, says the LORD.
15 Thus says the LORD: In Ramah is heard the sound of moaning, of bitter weeping! Rachel mourns her children, she refuses to be consoled because her children are no more.
16 Thus says the LORD: Cease your cries of mourning, wipe the tears from your eyes. The sorrow you have shown shall have its reward, says the LORD, they shall return from the enemy's land.
17 There is hope for your future, says the LORD; your sons shall return to their own borders.
18 I hear, I hear Ephraim pleading: You chastised me, and I am chastened; I was an untamed calf. If you allow me, I will return, for you are the LORD, my God.
19 I turn in repentance; I have come to myself, I strike my breast; I blush with shame, I bear the disgrace of my youth.
20 Is Ephraim not my favored son, the child in whom I delight? Often as I threaten him, I still remember him with favor; My heart stirs for him, I must show him mercy, says the LORD.
21 Set up road markers, put up guideposts; Turn your attention to the highway, the road by which you went. Turn back, O virgin Israel, turn back to these your cities.
22 How long will you continue to stray, rebellious daughter? The LORD has created a new thing upon the earth: the woman must encompass the man with devotion.
23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: When I change their lot in the land of Judah and her cities, they shall again repeat this greeting: May the LORD bless you, holy mountain, abode of justice!
24 Judah and all her cities, the farmers and those who lead the flock, shall dwell there together.
25 For I will refresh the weary soul; every soul that languishes I will replenish.
26 Upon this I awoke and opened my eyes; but my sleep was sweet to me.
27 The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will seed the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.
28 As I once watched over them to uproot and pull down, to destroy, to ruin, and to harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD.
29 In those days they shall no longer say, The fathers ate unripe grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,
30 but through his own fault only shall anyone die: the teeth of him who eats the unripe grapes shall be set on edge.
31 The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD.
33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the LORD. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
35 Thus says the LORD, He who gives the sun to light the day, moon and stars to light the night; Who stirs up the sea till its waves roar, whose name is LORD of hosts:
36 If ever these natural laws give way in spite of me, says the LORD, Then shall the race of Israel cease as a nation before me forever.
37 Thus says the LORD: If the heavens on high can be measured, or the foundations below the earth be sounded, Then will I cast off the whole race of Israel because of all they have done, says the LORD.
38 The days are coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt as the LORD'S, from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.
39 The measuring line shall be stretched from there straight to the hill Gareb and then turn to Goah.
40 The whole valley of corpses and ashes, all the slopes toward the Kidron Valley, as far as the corner of the Horse Gate at the east, shall be holy to the LORD. Never again shall the city be rooted up or thrown down.

Jeremiah 32

1 This message came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.
2 At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was imprisoned in the quarters of the guard, at the king's palace.
3 Zedekiah, king of Judah, had imprisoned him there, remonstrating: How dare you prophesy: Thus says the LORD: I am handing over this city to the king of Babylon, who will capture it.
4 Neither shall Zedekiah, king of Judah, escape the hands of the Chaldeans; rather shall he be handed over to the king of Babylon. They shall meet and speak face to face,
5 and Zedekiah shall be taken to Babylon. There he shall remain, until I attend to him, says the LORD; in fighting the Chaldeans, you cannot win!
6 This message came to me from the LORD, said Jeremiah:
7 Hanamel, son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you with the offer: Buy for yourself my field in Anathoth, since you, as nearest relative, have the first right of purchase.
8 Then, as the LORD foretold, Hanamel, my uncle's son, came to me to the quarters of the guard and said, Please buy my field in Anathoth, in the district of Benjamin; as nearest relative, you have the first claim to possess it; make it yours. I knew this was what the LORD meant,
9 so I bought the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, paying him the money, seventeen silver shekels.
10 When I had written and sealed the deed, called witnesses and weighed out the silver on the scales,
11 I accepted the deed of purchase, both the sealed copy, containing title and conditions, and the open one.
12 This deed of purchase I gave to Baruch, son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed, and before all the men of Judah who happened to be in the quarters of the guard.
13 In their presence I gave Baruch this charge:
14 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both the sealed and the open deed of purchase, and put them in an earthen jar, so that they can be kept there a long time.
15 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
16 After giving the deed of purchase to Baruch, son of Neriah, I prayed thus to the LORD:
17 Ah, Lord GOD, you have made heaven and earth by your great might, with your outstretched arm; nothing is impossible to you.
18 You continue your kindness through a thousand generations; and you repay the fathers' guilt, even into the lap of their sons who follow them. O God, great and mighty, whose name is LORD of hosts,
19 great in counsel, mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of men, giving to each according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds:
20 you have wrought signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and to this day, both in Israel and among all other men, until now you have gained renown.
21 With strong hand and outstretched arm you brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt amid signs and wonders and great terror.
22 This land you gave them, as you had promised their fathers under oath, a land flowing with milk and honey.
23 They entered and took possession of it, but they did not listen to your voice; by your law they did not live, and what you commanded they failed to do. Hence you let all these evils befall them.
24 See, the siegeworks have arrived at this city to breach it; the city will be handed over to the Chaldeans who are attacking it, amid sword, famine, and pestilence. What you threatened has happened, you see it yourself;
25 and yet you tell me, O Lord GOD: Buy the field with money, call in witnesses. But the city has already been handed over to the Chaldeans!
26 Then this word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
27 I am the LORD, the God of all mankind! Is anything impossible to me?
28 This now is what the LORD says: I will hand over this city to the Chaldeans, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to take.
29 The Chaldeans who are attacking it shall enter this city and set fire to it, burning it and its houses, on the roofs of which incense was burned to Baal and libations were poured out to strange gods as a provocation to me.
30 The Israelites and the Judeans from their youth have done only what is evil in my eyes; the Israelites did nothing but provoke me with the works of their hands, says the LORD.
31 From the day it was built to this day, this city has excited my anger and wrath,
32 so that I must put it out of my sight for all the wickedness the Israelites and Judeans, with their kings and their princes, their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem, have done to provoke me.
33 They turned their backs to me, not their faces; though I kept teaching them, they would not listen to my correction.
34 They defiled the house named after me by the horrid idols they set up in it.
35 They built high places to Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and immolated their sons and daughters to Molech, bringing sin upon Judah; this I never commanded them, nor did it even enter my mind that they should practice such abominations.
36 Now, therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, which as you say is handed over to the king of Babylon amid sword, famine, and pestilence:
37 Behold, I will gather them together from all the lands to which in anger, wrath, and great rage I banish them; I will bring them back to this place and settle them here in safety.
38 They shall be my people, and I will be their God.
39 One heart and one way I will give them, that they may fear me always, to their own good and that of their children after them.
40 I will make with them an eternal covenant, never to cease doing good to them; into their hearts I will put the fear of me, that they may never depart from me.
41 I will take delight in doing good to them: I will replant them firmly in this land, with all my heart and soul.
42 For thus says the LORD: Just as I brought upon this people all this great evil, so I will bring upon them all the good I promise them.
43 Fields shall again be bought in this land, which you call a desert, without man or beast, handed over to the Chaldeans.
44 Fields shall be bought with money, deeds written and sealed, and witnesses shall be used in the land of Benjamin, in the suburbs of Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah and of the hill country, in the cities of the foothills and of the Negeb, when I change their lot, says the LORD.