And the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth : and the Lord said to me: Behold I have given My words in thy mouth. Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant.

1-22.

Jeremias' Expostulation. And the word of the Lord came Jeremias II. to me, saying: Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou followedst Me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. Israel is holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of His increase: all they that devour him offend evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord.

:

Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all ye families of the house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain ? And they have not said: Where is the Lord, that made us come up out of the land of Egypt? that led us through the desert, through a land uninhabited and unpassable, through a land of drought and the image of death, through a land wherein no man walked, nor any man dwelt? And I brought you into the land of Carmel,* to eat the fruit thereof and the best things thereof: and when ye entered in, you defiled My land, and made My inheritance an abomination.

The priests did not say: Where is the Lord? and they that held the law knew Me not, and the pastors transgressed against Me: and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and followed idols. Therefore will I yet contend in judgment with you, saith the Lord, and I will plead with your children.

Pass over to the isles of Cethim, and see: and send into Cedar, and consider diligently: and see if there hath been done any thing like this. If a nation hath changed their gods, and indeed they are not gods: but My people have changed their glory into an idol. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and, ye gates thereof, be very desolate, saith the Lord. For My people have done two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Is Israel a bondman, or a home-born slave? why then is he become a prey? The lions have roared upon him, and have a noise, they have made his land a wilderness: his cities are burnt down, and there is none to dwell in them. The children also

* That is, a land of plenty.

Jeremias

of Memphis and of Taphnes* have deflowered thee, even to the crown of the head. Hath not this been done to thee, because thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God at that time, when He led thee by the way?

And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? And what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?+ Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee to have left the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not with thee, saith the Lord the God of hosts. Of old time thou hast broken My yoke, thou hast burst My bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill and under every green tree thou didst prostitute thyself. Yet I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto Me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard? Though thou wash thyself with nitre, and multiply to thyself the herb borith, thou art stained in thy iniquity before Me, saith the Lord God.

SECT. CLXVII, JEREMIAS DEPLORES THE SINS AND MISERIES OF
HIS PEOPLE.

The Sins of God's People.-Who will give water to my Ix. 1-26. head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors. And they have bent their tongue as a bow for lies, and not for truth : they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and Me they have not known, saith the Lord. Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully. And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit through deceit they have refused to know Me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of My people? Their tongue is a piercing arrow, *Cities of Egypt.

This may have been said in reference to Josias having lost his life in mixing himself up in the war between Egypt and Assyria.

it hath spoken deceit with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: or shall not My soul be revenged on such a nation?

For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts, they are gone away and departed. And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.

God's Judgments.-Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through? And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken My law, which I gave them, and have not heard My voice, and have not walked in it. But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.

Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them, till they be consumed. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel. Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste: let them hasten and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.

Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; and teach your daughters wailing and every one her neighbour mourning. For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses, to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets. Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.

Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and

let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth for these things please Me, saith the Lord.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised, upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Jeremias Jeremias' Denunciations.-The sin of Juda is written with XVII. 1-18. a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond, it is graven upon the table of their heart, upon the horns of their altars. When their children shall remember their altars, and their groves, and their green trees upon the high mountains, sacrificing in the field, I will give thy strength and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin in all thy borders. And thou shalt be left stript of thy inheritance, which I gave thee, and I will make thee serve thy enemies in a land which thou knowest not: because thou hast kindled a fire in My wrath, it shall burn for ever.

Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like tamaric* in the desert, and he shall not see when good shall come: but he shall dwell in dryness in the desert, in a salt land, and not inhabited.

Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. And he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots towards moisture and it shall not fear when the heat cometh. And the leaf thereof shall be green, and in the time of drought it shall not be solicitous, neither shall it cease at any time to bring forth fruit.

The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it? I am the Lord who search the heart, and prove the reins: who give to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices. As the partridge hath hatched eggs which she did not lay, so is he that hath gathered riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days he shall leave them, and in his latter end he shall be a fool. A high and glorious throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctification: O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall * A barren shrub that grows in the driest parts of the wilderness.

be confounded: they that depart from Thee shall be written in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.* Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise.

Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come. And I am not troubled, following Thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, Thou knowest. That which went out of my lips hath been right in Thy sight. Be not Thou a terror unto me, Thou art my hope in the day of affliction. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction destroy them.

SECT. CLXVIII. JEREMIAS SENDS BARUCH TO READ HIS PROPHECY IN
THE TEMPLE. THE KING BURNS IT.

XXXVI,

B.C. 604. 1-10.

AND it came to pass in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Jeremias Josias king of Juda, that this word came to Jeremias by the Lord, saying: Take thee a roll of a book, and thou shalt write in it all the words that I have spoken to thee against Israel and Juda, and against all the nations from the day that I spoke to thee, from the days of Josias even to this day. If so be, when the house of Juda shall hear all the evils that I purpose to do unto them, that they may return every man from his wicked way: and I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.

Baruch. So Jeremias called Baruch the son of Nerias: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremias all the words of the Lord, which He spoke to him, upon the roll of a book. And Jeremias commanded Baruch, saying: I am shut up, and cannot go into the house of the Lord. Go thou in therefore, and read out of the volume, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people in the house of the Lord on the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the hearing of all Juda that come out of their cities: if so be they may present their supplication before the Lord, and may return every one from his wicked way: for great is the wrath and indignation which the Lord hath pronounced against this people.

*So our Lord repeatedly speaks of giving, in His teaching, a fountain of living water. St. John iv. and vii.

+ This roll is believed to have contained the prophecies of Jeremias as we have them in the first twenty-one chapters of his book.

Not that the prophet was now in prison, for the contrary appears from verse 19; but that he kept himself shut up, by reason of the persecutions he had lately met with.