Jer 38 | EngLXX | STEP | At that time, says the Lord, I will be a God to the family of Israel, and they shall beto me a people.

Jeremiah 38

1 At that time, says the Lord, I will be a God to the family of Israel, and they shall beto me a people. 2 Thus says the Lord, I found him warm in the wilderness with them that were slain withthe sword: go you⌃ and destroy not Israel. 3 The Lord appeared to him from afar,saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore have I drawn you in compassion. 4 For I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall yet take yourtimbrel, and go forth with the party of them that make merry. 5 For you⌃ have planted vineyards on the mountains of Samaria: plant you⌃, and praise. 6 For it is a day when those that plead on the mountains of Ephraim shall call,saying, Arise you⌃, and go up to Sion to the Lord your God. 7 For thus says the Lord to Jacob; Rejoice you⌃, and exult over the head of the nations:make proclamation, and praise you⌃: say, The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel. 8 Behold, I bring them from the north, and will gather them from the end of the earth tothe feast of the passover: andthe people shall beget a great multitude, and they shall return hither. 9 They went forth with weeping, and I will bring them back with consolation, causing themto lodge by the channels of waters in a straight way, and they shall not err in it: for I am become afather to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. 10 Hear the words of the Lord, you⌃ nations, and proclaimthem to the islands afar off; say, He that scattered Israel will also gather him, and keephim as one that feeds his flock. 11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, he has rescued him out of the hand of themthat were stronger than he. 12 And they shall come, and shall rejoice in the mount of Sion, and shall come to the goodthings of the Lord,even to a land of corn, and wine, and fruits, and cattle, and sheep: and their soul shall beas a fruitful tree; and they shall hunger no more. 13 Then shall the virgins rejoice in the assembly of youth, and the old men shall rejoice;and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will make them merry. 14 I will expand and cheer with wine the soul of the priests the sons of Levi, and my peopleshall be satisfied with my good things: thus says the Lord. 15 A voice was heard in Rama, of lamentation, and of weeping, and wailing; Rachel wouldnot cease weeping for her children, because they are not. 16 Thus says the Lord; Let your voice cease from weeping, and your eyes from your tears:for their is a reward for your works; and they shall return from the land ofyour enemies. 17 There shall be an dwellinghome for your children. 18 I have heard the sound of Ephraim lamenting,and saying, You have chastened me, and I was chastened; I as a calf was notwillingly taught: turn you me, and I shall turn; for youare the Lord my God. 19 For after my captivity I repented; and after I knew, I groaned for the day of shame,and showed you that I bore reproach from my youth. 20 Ephraim is a beloved son, a pleasing child to me: for because my words are in him, Iwill surely remember him: therefore I made hasteto help him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord. 21 Prepare yourself, O Sion; execute vengeance; look to your ways: return, O virgin of Israel,by the way by which you went, return mourning to your cities. 22 How long, O disgraced daughter, will you turn away? for the Lord has created safety fora new plantation: men shall go about in safety. 23 For thus says the Lord; They shall yet speak this word in the land of Juda, and in thecities thereof, when I shall turn his captivity; blessed be the Lord on his righteous holy mountain! 24 And there shall be dwellers in the cities of Juda, and in all his land, together withthe husbandman, andthe shepherd shall go forth with the flock. 25 For I have saturated every thirsting soul, and filled every hungry soul. 26 Therefore I awake, and [*]saw; and my sleep was sweet to me. 27 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israeland the house of Juda with the seed of man, and the seed of beast. 28 And it shall come to pass, that as I watched over them, to pull down, and to afflict,so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall certainly not say, The fathers ate a sour grape, and the children'steeth were set on edge. But every one shall die in his own sin; and the teeth of him that eats the sour grapeshall be set on edge. Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the houseof Israel, and with the house of Juda: not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I tookhold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode not in my covenant, and I disregardedthem, says the Lord. For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days,says the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will beto them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not at all teach every one hisfellow citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, fromthe least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sinsI will remember no more. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the moon and the stars fora light by night, andmakes a roaring in the sea, so that the waves thereof roar; the Lord Almighty is his name: if these ordinances cease from before me, says the Lord, then shall the family of Israelcease to be a nation before me forever. Though the sky should be raised to agreater height, says the Lord, and though the ground of the earth should be sunklower beneath, yet I will not cast off the family of Israel, says the Lord, for all that theyhave done. Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when the city shall be built to the Lord from thetower of Anameel to the gate of the corner. And the measurement of it shall proceed in front of them as far as the hills of Gareb,and it shall be compassed with a circular wall of choice stones. And all the Asaremoth even to Nachal Kedron, as far as the corner of the horse-gate eastward,shall be holiness to the Lord; and it shall not fail any more, and shall not be destroyed for ever.