1The word of the LORD came to me also, saying,
2"You must not take a wife, and you must not have sons or daughters in this place."
3For this is what the LORD says about the sons and the daughters who are born in this place, and about their mothers who gave them birth, and about their fathers who were their fathers in this land:
4"They will die terrible deaths. No one will mourn for them, and they will not be buried. They will lie like dung on the face of the ground. The sword and the famine will destroy them, and their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth."
5For this is what the LORD says: "Do not enter the house of mourning. Do not go to weep or to grieve for them. For I have taken away my peace from this people, says the LORD, and my lovingkindness and my mercies."
6"Both the great and the small will die in this land. They will not be buried. No one will mourn for them, or cut himself, or shave his head for them."
7"No one will tear himself for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. No one will give them the cup of comfort to drink for their father or their mother."
8"You must not go into the house of feasting either, to sit with them and eat and drink."
9For this is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: "Look, before your own eyes and in your own days I will put an end in this place to the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."
10"When you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, 'Why has the LORD spoken all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?'"
11"Then you will say to them, 'It is because your fathers left me, says the LORD, and followed other gods, and served them, and worshipped them. They left me, and did not keep my law.'"
12"'And you have done worse than your fathers. Look, each of you follows the stubborn desire of his own evil heart, and will not listen to me.'"
13"'So I will throw you out of this land into a land you do not know, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favour.'"
14"So look, the days are coming, says the LORD, when people will no longer say, 'As the LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,'"
15"but, 'As the LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel up from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them.' For I will bring them back into their own land, which I gave to their fathers."
16"Look, I will send for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they will fish for them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes in the rocks."
17"For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face, and their iniquity is not hidden from my eyes."
18"First I will repay their iniquity and their sin double, because they have defiled my land. They have filled my inheritance with the dead bodies of their detestable and disgusting idols."
19LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble, the Gentiles will come to you from the ends of the earth and will say, "Surely our fathers received nothing but lies, empty things, and things of no use at all."
20Can a man make gods for himself, when they are not gods?
21"So look, this time I will make them know. I will make them know my hand and my might. And they will know that my name is The LORD."