rsv Jeremiah:16:1-17 SEEK
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The word of the LORD came to me :
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You shall not take a wife ,
nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place .
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For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place ,
and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who begot them in this land :
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They shall die of deadly diseases .
They shall not be lamented ,
nor shall they be buried ;
they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground .
They shall perish by the sword and by famine ,
and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth .
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For thus says the LORD :
Do not enter the house of mourning ,
or go to lament ,
or bemoan them ;
for I have taken away my peace from this people ,
says the LORD ,
my steadfast love and mercy .
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Both great and small shall die in this land ;
they shall not be buried ,
and no one shall lament for them or cut himself or make himself bald for them .
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No one shall break bread for the mourner ,
to comfort him for the dead ;
nor shall any one give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother .
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You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them ,
to eat and drink .
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For thus says the LORD of hosts ,
the God of Israel :
Behold ,
I will make to cease from 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 .
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And when you tell this people all these words ,
and they say to you , `
Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us ?
What is our iniquity ?
What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God ?'
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then you shall say to them : `
Because your fathers have forsaken me ,
says the LORD ,
and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them ,
and have forsaken me and have not kept my law ,
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and because you have done worse than your fathers ,
for behold ,
every one of you follows his stubborn evil will ,
refusing to listen to me ;
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therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land which neither you nor your fathers have known ,
and there you shall serve other gods day and night ,
for I will show you no favor .'
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Therefore ,
behold ,
the days are coming ,
says the LORD ,
when it shall no longer be said , `
As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt ,'
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but `
As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them .'
For I will bring them back to their own land which I gave to their fathers .
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Behold ,
I am sending for many fishers ,
says the LORD ,
and they shall catch them ;
and afterwards I will send for many hunters ,
and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill ,
and out of the clefts of the rocks .
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For my eyes are upon all their ways ;
they are not hid from me ,
nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes .