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5For this is what the LORD says: “Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal; do not go to mourn or show sympathy, because I have withdrawn my blessing, my love and my pity from this people,” declares the LORD.6“Both high and low will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, and no one will cut himself or shave his head for them.7No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead—not even for a father or a mother—nor will anyone give them a drink to console them.

8“And do not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down to eat and drink.9For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place.

10“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?’11then say to them, ‘It is because your fathers forsook me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.12But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me.13So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

14“However, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when men will no longer say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’15but they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.

16“But 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 and from the crevices of the rocks.17My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.18I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.”

19O LORD, my strength and my fortress,
my refuge in time of distress,
to you the nations will come
from the ends of the earth and say,
“Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods,
worthless idols that did them no good.

20Do men make their own gods?
Yes, but they are not gods!”

21“Therefore I will teach them—
this time I will teach them
my power and might.
Then they will know
that my name is the LORD.

2Even their children remember
their altars and Asherah polesThat is, symbols of the goddess Asherah
beside the spreading trees
and on the high hills.

3My mountain in the land
and yourOr hills / 3 and the mountains of the land. / Your wealth and all your treasures
I will give away as plunder,
together with your high places,
because of sin throughout your country.

4Through your own fault you will lose
the inheritance I gave you.
I will enslave you to your enemies
in a land you do not know,
for you have kindled my anger,
and it will burn forever.”

10“I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”

11Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
and in the end he will prove to be a fool.

12A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,
is the place of our sanctuary.

13O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the LORD,
the spring of living water.

14Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise.

15They keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it now be fulfilled!”

16I have not run away from being your shepherd;
you know I have not desired the day of despair.
What passes my lips is open before you.

17Do not be a terror to me;
you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

18Let my persecutors be put to shame,
but keep me from shame;
let them be terrified,
but keep me from terror.
Bring on them the day of disaster;
destroy them with double destruction.