Jeremiah 16 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
1 A message from the Lord that came to me, saying,
1 Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
2 Don't marry or have children here.
2 “You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”
3 This is what the Lord says about children born here, and about their mothers and fathers—their parents here in this country:
3 For Yahweh says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land:
4 They will die from fatal diseases. No one will mourn for them. Their bodies won't be buried, but will lie on the ground like manure. They will be destroyed by war and famine, and their bodies will be food for birds of prey and wild animals.
4 “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as 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.”
5 This is what the Lord says: Don't enter a home where people are having a funeral meal. Don't visit them to mourn or to offer condolences, for I have taken away my peace, my trustworthy love, and my mercy from these people, declares the Lord.
5 For Yahweh 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 Yahweh, “even loving kindness and tender mercies.
6 Everyone, from the most important to the least, will die in this country. They will not be buried or mourned; there will be no rites for the dead such as cutting oneself or shaving of heads.
6 Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.
7 No funeral receptions will be held to comfort those who mourn—not even a comforting drink is to be offered at the loss of a father or mother.
7 Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 Don't go into a house where people are celebrating and sit down with them to eat and drink.
8 “You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.”
9 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am going to put a stop right here, while you watch, to any sounds of celebration and joy, the happy voices of the groom and bride.
9 For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
10 When you explain all this to them they'll ask you, “Why has the Lord ordered that such a terrible disaster should happen to us? What did we do wrong? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?”
10 It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’
11 Answer them: It's because your forefathers deserted me, declares the Lord. They went and followed other gods, serving them and worshiping them. They abandoned me and didn't keep my laws.
11 then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says Yahweh, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law.
12 You however have done even more evil than your forefathers. Look at how all of you followed your own stubborn evil thinking instead of obeying me.
12 You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me.
13 So I'm going to throw you out of this country and exile you in a country unfamiliar to you and your forefathers. There you'll serve other gods day and night, because I won't help you at all.
13 Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
14 But listen! The time is coming, declares the Lord, when people won't any longer make vows, saying, “On the Lord's life, who led the Israelites out of Egypt?”
14 “Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that it will no more be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’
15 Instead they'll say, “On the Lord's life, who led the Israelites back from the northern country and all the other countries where he had exiled them?” I'm going to bring them back to the country I gave their forefathers.
15 but, ‘As Yahweh 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 But for the moment I'm going to send for many fishermen and they'll catch them, declares the Lord. Then I'm going to send for many hunters, and they'll hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from their hiding places in the rocks.
16 “Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. 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.
17 I see everything they're doing. They can't hide from me, and their sins aren't hidden from me either.
17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.
18 First I'm going to pay them back double for their wickedness and sin, because they have made my land unclean with the lifeless bodies of their disgusting idols, filling my special country with their offensive pagan images.
18 First I will recompense 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 abominations.”
19 Lord, you are my strength and my fortress, my safe place in the time of trouble. Nations will come to you from all over the earth, and they will say, “The religion of our forefathers was a total lie! The idols they worshiped were useless—no good at all.
19 Yahweh, my strength, my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.
20 How can people make gods for themselves? These aren't gods!”
20 Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?”
21 Now they'll see! I'll show them, and then they'll recognize my power and strength. Then they'll know that I am the Lord!
21 “Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might. Then they will know that my name is Yahweh.”
Cross references (21)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Jeremiah 1:4; Jeremiah 1:2; Jeremiah 2:1
- 2 1 Corinthians 7:26–27; Luke 23:29; Genesis 19:14; Luke 21:23; Matthew 24:19
- 3 Jeremiah 16:5; Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 6:21
- 4 Jeremiah 25:33; Psalm 83:10; Jeremiah 9:22; Zephaniah 1:17; Jeremiah 34:20
- 5 Ezekiel 24:16–23; Isaiah 27:11; Jeremiah 15:1–4; Deuteronomy 31:17; Jeremiah 16:6–7
- 6 Deuteronomy 14:1; Jeremiah 47:5; Jeremiah 41:5; Leviticus 19:28; Jeremiah 48:37
- 7 Ezekiel 24:17; Hosea 9:4; Deuteronomy 26:14; Job 42:11; Proverbs 31:6–7
- 8 Ecclesiastes 7:2–4; Jeremiah 15:17; Isaiah 22:12–14; Amos 6:4–6; Luke 17:27–29
- 9 Hosea 2:11; Ezekiel 26:13; Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 25:10; Isaiah 24:7–12
- 10 Jeremiah 5:19; Deuteronomy 29:24–25; 1 Kings 9:8–9; Jeremiah 13:22; Jeremiah 2:35
- 11 Psalm 106:35–41; Ezekiel 11:21; Nehemiah 9:26–29; Jeremiah 22:9; 1 Peter 4:3
- 12 Jeremiah 13:10; Jeremiah 7:26; Ecclesiastes 9:3; Jeremiah 9:14; Jeremiah 7:24
- 13 Deuteronomy 28:36; Deuteronomy 4:26–28; Jeremiah 15:14; Jeremiah 17:4; 2 Chronicles 7:20
- 14 Jeremiah 23:7–8; Deuteronomy 15:15; Exodus 20:2; Hosea 3:4–5; Micah 6:4
- 15 Jeremiah 3:18; Jeremiah 32:37; Jeremiah 24:6; Amos 9:14; Ezekiel 39:28
- 16 Habakkuk 1:14–15; Amos 4:2; Micah 7:2; Revelation 6:15–17; Amos 9:1–3
- 17 Proverbs 15:3; Proverbs 5:21; Jeremiah 23:24; Psalm 90:8; Job 34:21–22
- 18 Isaiah 40:2; Numbers 35:33–34; Jeremiah 17:18; Jeremiah 2:7; Revelation 18:6
- 19 Isaiah 25:4; Nahum 1:7; Jeremiah 17:17; Isaiah 2:2–3; Isaiah 44:10
- 20 Psalm 115:4–8; Isaiah 37:19; Galatians 4:8; Acts 19:26; Isaiah 36:19
- 21 Psalm 9:16; Jeremiah 33:2; Psalm 83:18; Amos 5:8; Exodus 15:3
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
… we now see fulfilled, he thus spoke: "O Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of evils, to Thee shall the nations come from the utmost end of the earth, saying, Truly our fathers have worshipped lying images, wherein there is no profit." But that the Jews, by whom He behoved even to be slain, were not going …
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)
Therefore nations that are converted to Christ afterwards, and taking to heart the impieties of their parents, and saying now what the prophet Jeremias himself said, "Truly a lie our fathers have worshipped, vanity which hath not profited them" --when, I say, they now say this, they renounce the opinions and blasphemies of their unjust parents....There have led us away …
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 8 (1888)
… if the heathen who came from the ends of the earth, in the words of Jeremias, "The Gentiles shall come unto Thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our forefathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit:" if the heathen forsook their idols, to come to the God of Israel; ought Israel …
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 8 (1888)