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¹ THE word of the LORD came to me, saying,² You shall not take a wife for yourself, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place.³ For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and their fathers who begat them in this land;⁴ They shall die the death of those who are ravaged by famine; they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as refuse upon the face of the earth; and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be food for the fowls of the air and for the beasts of the earth.⁵ For thus says the LORD, Do not enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from the people, says the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies.⁶ Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall any one mourn for them or lament for them, or shave his head for them;⁷ Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their fathers or for their mothers.⁸ You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them to eat and to drink.⁹ For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 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 And it shall come to pass, when you tell this people all these words, and they shall say to you, Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have sinned against the LORD our God?¹¹ That you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the LORD, and have walked after other gods and have served them and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law,¹² And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, you walk away every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that you may not hearken to me;¹³ Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land which you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; there you shall serve other gods day and night; and I will have no compassion upon you.

¹⁴ Now, behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when it shall no more be said, The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;¹⁵ But, the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where I had driven them; and I will bring them again into their land which I gave to their fathers.¹⁶ Behold, I will send for many fishers, says the LORD, and they shall fish them from islands; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.¹⁷ For my eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from my eyes.¹⁸ And first I will doubly recompense them for their iniquities and their sins; because they have defiled my land with burnt offerings of their idols and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.¹⁹ O LORD, my strength and my helper and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come to thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely the idols of falsehood which our fathers have inherited are nothing, and there is no profit in them.²⁰ Behold, men make gods to themselves, and they are no gods.²¹ Therefore, behold, I will show them, and at this time I will make known to them my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is the LORD.