Jeremiah 18 :: Amplified Bible (AMP)

Then the word of the LORD came to me:

“Therefore thus says the LORD,

‘Ask now among the nations,

Who has heard of such things?

The virgin Israel

Has done a very vile and horrible thing.

‘Will the snow of [Mount] Lebanon melt and vanish from its rocks [which tower above Israel]?

Will the cold, rushing waters of foreign lands [that flow down from the distant land] be dried up?

‘Yet My people have forgotten Me;

They burn incense to worthless gods,

They have stumbled from their ways

From the ancient roads,

To walk in pathways,

Not on a highway,

Making their land a desolation and a horror,

A thing to be hissed at perpetually;

Everyone who passes by will be astounded

And shake his head [in scorn].

‘I will scatter them like an east wind

Before the enemy;

I will show them My back and not My face

In the day of their disaster [says the LORD].’”

Then [my enemies] said, “Come and let us work out schemes against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest [as Jeremiah predicts], nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with our tongue [by making charges against him before the king], and let us ignore anything he says.”

Pay attention to me, O LORD [and intercede];

Listen to what my adversaries are saying [and are plotting against me]—

Should good be repaid with evil?

Yet they have dug a pit for me.

Remember [with compassion] that I stood before You

To speak good on their behalf,

To turn Your anger away from them.

Therefore, give their children over to the famine;

Give them over to the power of the sword.

And let their wives become childless and widowed;

Let their men meet death [by virulent disease],

Their young men be struck down by the sword in battle.

Let an outcry be heard from their houses

When You suddenly bring [a troop of] raiders upon them,

For they have dug a pit to capture me

And have hidden snares for my feet.

Yet You, O LORD, know

All their deadly plotting against me;

Do not forgive their wickedness

Or blot out their sin from Your sight.

But let them be overthrown before You;

Deal with them in the time of Your anger.