This weekly Tanach Podcast with Rabbi Yisroel Chaim Blumenthal has been brought to you by Jews for Judaism. We will discuss Jeremiah Chapters 15-16 today.
1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.
2. Judah mourns, and her cities are cut off; they have become blackened to the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem has risen.
3. And their mighty ones have sent their youths for water. They have come upon pits and have found no water; their vessels have returned empty; they have been ashamed and confounded and have covered their heads.
4. Because the earth was broken for there was no rain on the earth, farmers were ashamed; they covered their heads.
5. For also the hind in the field has borne and abandoned, for there was no grass.
6. And wild donkeys stood by the rivulets, they gasped for air like jackals, their eyes failed for there is no herbage.
7. If our iniquities have testified against us, O Lord, do for Your name's sake, for our backslidings have increased; we have sinned to You.
8. O hope of Israel, his Savior at time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, and like a wayfarer who turns aside to lodge?
9. Why should You be like a man overcome, like a mighty man, unable to save? For You are in our midst, O Lord, and Your name is called upon us; forsake us not.
10. So says the Lord to this people; So have they loved to wander, they have not kept their feet back; therefore, the Lord did not accept them; now He will remember their iniquity and visit their sins [upon them].
11. And the Lord said to me; Do not pray for this people for good.
12. If they fast, I will not hearken to their prayer, and if they offer up a burnt offering or a meal offering, I do not accept them, but I will utterly destroy them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence.
13. And I said, "Ah, O Lord God, behold the prophets say to them, 'You will see no sword, neither will you have a famine, I will give you a true peace in this place.
14. And the Lord said to me; The prophets are prophesying lies in My name; I did not send them neither did I command them, nor did I speak to them. A false vision, divination, a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart they prophesy to you.
15. Therefore, so says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name although I have not sent them, and they say, "Sword and famine shall not be in this land." Those prophets shall perish by the sword and the famine.
16. And the people to which they prophesy, shall be cast in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and no one will bury them, they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, and I will pour out upon them their evil.
17. And you shall say this word to them: May my eyes run down with tears day and night and not be silent, for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, a very grievous blow.
18. If I go out to the field, behold the slain of the sword, and if I go into the city, behold those ill with famine, for even the prophet and even the priest have gone around to a land [which] they had not known.
19. Have You indeed rejected Judah? Has Your soul despised Zion? Why have You smitten us and we have no cure? We hope for peace, but there is no good, and for a time of healing, but behold, there is terror.
20. We know, O Lord, our wickedness, the iniquity of our forefathers, for we have sinned to You.
21. Do not condemn us for Your name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of Your glory. Remember, do not break Your covenant with us.
22. Are there among the vanities of the nations those who give rain? Does the heaven give raindrops? Is it not You, O Lord our God? Now let us hope for You, for You have done all these.