Day 324 The Bible in a Year (Orthodox canon)

Jeremiah 1

1 The word of God which came to Jeremias the [son] of Chelcias, of the priests, who dwelt in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: 2 [accordingly] as the word of God came to him in the days of Josias son of Amos king of Juda, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 And it was in the days of Joakim son of Josias king of Juda, until the eleventh year of Sedekias king of Juda, [even] until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. 4 And the word of the Lord came to him, [saying], 5 Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth from the womb, I sanctified thee; I appointed thee a prophet to the nations. 6 And I said, O Lord, thou that art supreme Lord, behold, I know not [how] to speak, for I am a child. 7 And the Lord said to me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all to whomsoever I shall send thee, and according to all [the words] that I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. 8 Be not afraid before them: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 9 And the Lord stretched forth his hand to me, and touched my mouth: and the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words into thy mouth. 10 Behold, I have appointed thee this day over nations and over kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to rebuild, and to plant. 11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, What seest thou? And I said, A rod of an almond tree. 12 And the Lord said to me, Thou hast well seen: for I have watched over my words to perform them. 13 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, A caldron on the fire; and the face of it is toward the north. 14 And the Lord said to me, From the north shall flame forth evils upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For, behold, I call together all the kingdoms of the earth from the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and shall set each one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls round about her, and against all the cities of Juda. 16 And I will speak to them in judgment, concerning all their iniquity, [forasmuch] as they have forsaken me, and sacrificed to strange gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. 17 And do thou gird up thy loins, and stand up, and speak all [the words] that I shall command thee: be not afraid of their face, neither be thou alarmed before them; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 18 Behold, I have made thee this day as a strong city, and as a brazen wall, strong [against] all the kings of Juda, and the princes thereof, and the people of the land. 19 And they shall fight against thee; but they shall by no means prevail against thee; because I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

Jeremiah 2

2 And he said, Thus saith the Lord, I remember the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thine espousals, in following the Holy One of Israel, saith the Lord. 3 Israel was the holy [people] to the Lord, [and] the first-fruits of his increase: all that devoured him shall offend; evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord. 4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and every family of the house of Israel. 5 Thus saith the Lord, What trespass have your fathers found in me, that they have revolted far from me, and gone after vanities, and become vain? 6 And they said not, Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who guided us in the wilderness, in an untried and trackless land, in a land which no man at all went through, and no man dwelt there? 7 And I brought you to Carmel, that ye should eat the fruits thereof, and the good thereof; and ye went in, and defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. 8 The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that held by the law knew me not: the shepherds also sinned against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after that which profited not. 9 Therefore I will yet plead with you, and will plead with your children's children. 10 For go to the isles of the Chettians, and see; and send to Kedar, and observe accurately, and see if such things have been done; 11 if the nations will change their gods, though they are not gods: but my people have changed their glory, [for that] from which they shall not be profited. 12 The heaven is amazed at this, and is very exceedingly horror-struck, saith the Lord. 13 For my people has committed two [faults], and evil ones: they have forsaken me, the fountain of water of life, and hewn out for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water. 14 Is Israel a servant, or a home-born slave? why has he become a spoil? 15 The lions roared upon him, and uttered their voice, which have made his land a wilderness: and his cities are broken down, that they should not be inhabited. 16 Also the children of Memphis and Taphnas have known thee, and mocked thee. 17 Has not thy forsaking me brought these things upon thee? saith the Lord thy God. 18 And now what hast thou to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Geon? and what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of rivers? 19 Thine apostasy shall correct thee, and thy wickedness shall reprove thee: know then, and see, that thy forsaking me [has been] bitter to thee, saith the Lord thy God; and I have taken no pleasure in thee, saith the Lord thy God. 20 For of old thou hast broken thy yoke, and plucked asunder thy bands; and thou hast said, I will not serve thee, but will go upon every high hill, and under every shady tree, there will I indulge in my fornication. 21 Yet I planted thee a fruitful vine, entirely of the right sort: how art thou a strange vine turned to bitterness! 22 Though thou shouldest wash thyself with nitre, and multiply to thyself soap, [still] thou art stained by thine iniquities before me, saith the Lord. 23 How wilt thou say, I am not polluted, and have not gone after Baal? behold thy ways in the burial-ground, and know what thou hast done: her voice has howled in the evening: 24 she has extended her ways over the waters of the desert; she was hurried along by the lusts of her soul; she is given up [to them], who will turn her back? none that seek her shall be weary; at [the time of] her humiliation they shall find her. 25 Withdraw thy foot from a rough way, and thy throat from thirst: but she said, I will strengthen myself: for she loved strangers, and went after them. 26 As is the shame of a thief when he is caught, so shall the children of Israel be ashamed; they, and their kings, and their princes, and their priests, and their prophets. 27 They said to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast begotten me: and they have turned [their] backs to me, and not their faces: yet in the time of their afflictions they will say, Arise, and save us. 28 And where are thy gods, which thou madest for thyself? will they arise and save in the time of thine affliction? for according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Juda; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem they sacrificed to Baal. 29 Wherefore do ye speak unto me? ye all have been ungodly, and ye all have transgressed against me, saith the Lord. 30 In vain have I smitten your children; ye have not received correction: a sword has devoured your prophets as a destroying lion; yet ye feared not. 31 Hear ye the word of the Lord: thus saith the Lord, Have I been a wilderness or a dry land to Israel? wherefore has my people said, We will not be ruled over, and will not come to thee any more? 32 Will a bride forget her ornaments, or a virgin her girdle? but my people has forgotten me days without number. 33 What fair device wilt thou yet employ in thy ways, so as to seek love? [it shall] not [be] so; moreover thou hast done wickedly in corrupting thy ways; 34 and in thine hands has been found the blood of innocent souls; I have not found them in holes, but on every oak. 35 Yet thou saidst, I am innocent: only let his wrath be turned away from me. Behold, I [will] plead with thee, whereas thou sayest, I have not sinned. 36 For thou hast been so exceedingly contemptuous as to repeat thy ways; but thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assur. 37 For thou shalt go forth thence also with thine hands upon thine head; for the Lord has rejected thine hope, and thou shalt not prosper in it.

Jeremiah 3

1 If a man put away his wife, and she depart from him, and become another man's, shall she return to him any more at all? shall not that woman be utterly defiled? yet thou hast gone a-whoring with many shepherds, and hast returned to me, saith the Lord. 2 Lift up thine eyes [to look] straight forward, and see where thou hast not been utterly defiled. Thou hast sat for them by the wayside as a deserted crow, and hast defiled the land with thy fornications and thy wickedness. 3 And thou didst retain many shepherds for a stumbling-block to thyself: thou hadst a whore's face, thou didst become shameless toward all. 4 Hast thou not called me as it were a home, and the father and guide of thy virgin-time? 5 Will [God's anger] continue for ever, or be preserved to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done these bad things, and hadst power [to do them]. 6 And the Lord said to me in the days of Josias the king, Hast thou seen what things the house of Israel has done to me? they have gone on every high mountain, and under every shady tree, and have committed fornication there. 7 And I said after she had committed all these acts of fornication, Turn again to me. Yet she returned not. And faithless Juda saw her faithlessness. 8 And I saw that (for all the sins of which she was convicted, wherein the house of Israel committed adultery, and I put her away, and gave into her hands a bill of divorcement,) yet faithless Juda feared not, but went and herself also committed fornication. 9 And her fornication was nothing accounted of; and she committed adultery with wood and stone. 10 And for all these things faithless Juda turned not to me with all her heart, but falsely. 11 And the Lord said to me, Israel has justified himself more than faithless Juda. 12 Go and read these words toward the north, and thou shalt say, Return to me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not set my face against you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry with you for ever. 13 Nevertheless, know thine iniquity, that thou hast sinned against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every shady tree, but thou didst not hearken to my voice, saith the Lord. 14 Turn, ye children that have revolted, saith the Lord; for I will rule over you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you in to Sion: 15 and I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they shall certainly tend you with knowledge. 16 And it shall come to pass that when ye are multiplied and increased upon the land, saith the Lord, in those days they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Holy One of Israel: it shall not come to mind; it shall not be named; neither shall it be visited; nor shall [this] be done any more. 17 In those days and at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered to it: and they shall not walk any more after the imaginations of their evil heart. 18 In those days the house of Juda shall come together to the house of Israel, and they shall come, together, from the land of the north, and from all the countries, to the land, which I caused their fathers to inherit. 19 And I said, So be it, Lord, for [thou saidst], I will set thee among children, and will give thee a choice land, the inheritance of the Almighty God of the Gentiles: and I said, Ye shall call me Father; and ye shall not turn away from me. 20 But as a wife acts treacherously against her husband, so has the house of Israel dealt treacherously against me, saith the Lord. 21 A voice from the lips was heard, [even] of weeping and supplication of the children of Israel: for they have dealt unrighteously in their ways, they have forgotten God their Holy One. 22 Turn, ye children that are given to turning, and I will heal your bruises. Behold, we will be thy servants; for thou art the Lord our God. 23 Truly the hills and the strength of the mountains were a lying refuge: but by the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. 24 But shame has consumed the labours of our fathers from our youth; their sheep and their calves, and their sons and their daughters. 25 We have lain down in our shame, and our disgrace has covered us: because we and our fathers have sinned before our God, from our youth until this day; and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God.