Part 22 (1/2)

Know that for Thee I have borne reproach From them who despise(704) Thy words. 16 [End them!(705) Thy word's my delight And the joy of my heart For Thy Name has been called upon me, Lord of Hosts!]

I have not sat in their company 17 Jesting and merry.(706) Because of Thy hand alone I sit, For with rage Thou hast filled me.

Why is my pain perpetual, 18 My wound past healing?

Art Thou to be a false stream to me, As waters that fail?

This to Him on Whom he had called as The Fountain of Living Water!

Therefore thus saith the Lord: 19 If thou wilt turn, then shall I turn thee, That before Me thou stand; And if thou bring forth the dear from the vile, As My Mouth thou shalt be.

[Then may those turn to thee, But not thou to them.]

For to this people I set thee 20 An impa.s.sable wall.(707) When they fight thee they shall not prevail, With thee am I to deliver,(708) And deliver thee I shall from the power of the wicked, 21 From the hand of the cruel redeem thee.

Thou(709) shalt not take a wife- XVI. 2 Rede of the Lord- Nor shall sons nor daughters be thine Within this place.

For thus hath the Lord said: 3 As for the sons and the daughters Born in this place, [As for their mothers who bore them And their fathers who gat them Throughout this land.]

Painfullest deaths shall they die 4 Unmourned, unburied, [Be for dung on the face of the ground, Consumed by famine and sword.]

And their corpses shall be for food To the birds of the heaven and beasts of the earth.(710) Thus saith the Lord: 5 Come not to the house of mourning, Nor go about to lament,(711) Because My Peace I have swept Away from this people.(712) For them shall none lament, 6_b_ Nor gash nor make themselves bald; Neither break bread(713) to the mourner,(714) 7 For the dead to console him, Nor pour him(715) the cup of condolement For his father or mother.

Come thou not to the house of feasting, 8 To sit with them eating and drinking.

For thus saith the Lord of Hosts,(716) 9 The G.o.d of Israel: Lo, I shall stay from this place, In your days, to your eyes, The voices of joy and of gladness, The voices of bridegroom and bride.

Follows, in 10-13, the moral reason of all this-the people's leaving of their G.o.d-and the doom of exile.

Heal me O Lord, and I shall be healed, XVII. 14 Save me and saved shall I be.(717) Lo, there be those, who keep saying to me. 15 ”Where is the Word of the Lord?

Pray let it come!”

But I have not pressed ... (?) 16 Nor for evil(718) kept at Thee, Nor longed for the woeful day, Thyself dost know.

Whatever came forth from my lips To Thy face it was.

Be not a (cause of) dismay to me, 17 My Refuge in evil days.

Shamed be my hunters, but shamed not I, 18 Dismayed, but dismayed not I.

Bring Thou upon them the day of disaster And break them twice over!

XVIII. 18. And they said, Come and let us devise against Jeremiah devices, for the Law(719) shall not perish from the priest, nor Counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the prophet. Come let us smite him with the tongue and pay no heed to any of his words.

O Lord, unto me give Thou heed, 19 And hark to the voice of my plea!(720) Shall evil be rendered for good, 20 That they dig a pit for my life?(721) O remember my standing before Thee, To bespeak their good- To turn Thy fury from off them.

Give therefore their sons to famine, 21 And spill them out to the sword.

Let their wives be widows and childless And their men be slain of death- And smitten their youths by the sword in battle.

May crying be heard from their homes, 22 As a troop comes sudden upon them!

For a pit have they dug to catch me, And hidden snares for my feet.

But Thou, O Lord, hast known 23 Their counsels for death against me.

Pardon Thou not their iniquities,(722) Nor blot from Thy Presence their sins;(723) But let them be tumbled before Thee Deal with them in time of Thy wrath.

Verses 21-23 are rejected by Duhm and Cornill, along with XI. 22_b_, 23, XII. 3_b_, XVII. 18 for no textual or metrical reasons, but only because these scholars shrink from attributing to Jeremiah such outbursts of pa.s.sion: just as we have seen them for similarly sheer reasons of sentiment refuse to consider as his the advice to desert to the enemy.(724) Yet they admit inconsistently the genuineness of VI. 11, XI.

20, XV. 15.(725)

Lord, Thou beguiledst me, and beguiled I let myself be, XX. 7 Too strong for me, Thou hast conquered, A jest I have been all the day, Every one mocks me.