אַחַר

Yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what is coming, and who can tell him what will come after him?

…before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is darkened, and the clouds return after the rain,

Take me away with you—let us hurry! May the king bring me to his chambers. We will rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. It is only right that they adore you.

My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.

I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as at the beginning. After that you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.”

And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”

…this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may consider and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, and after Me none will come.

This is what the LORD says: “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, along with the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you; they will come over in chains and bow down to you. They will confess to you: ‘God is indeed with you, and there is no other; there is no other God.’”

Behind the door and doorpost you have set up your memorial. Forsaking Me, you uncovered your bed; you climbed up and opened it wide. And you have made a pact with those whose bed you have loved; you have gazed upon their nakedness.

…rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.

All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,

“Those who consecrate and purify themselves to enter the groves—to follow one in the center of those who eat the flesh of swine and vermin and rats—will perish together,” declares the LORD.

“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves.

The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’

I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it.

At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.

…if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,

Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,

They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground.

Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”

I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”

Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”

They have returned to the sins of their forefathers who refused to obey My words. They have followed other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their fathers.

Even your brothers—your own father’s household—even they have betrayed you; even they have cried aloud against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.

But after I have uprooted them, I will once again have compassion on them and return each one to his inheritance and to his land.

These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.

Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.

And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you follows the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.

But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd; I have not desired the day of despair. You know that the utterance of my lips was spoken in Your presence.

But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD.

Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.’

…all the kings of the north, both near and far, one after another—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach will drink it too.

But shortly after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off his neck, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.)

I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them.

After I returned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I struck my thigh in grief. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD: