Along The Way (October 20th - 26th)
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Jeremiah 52:1-16
The Destruction of Jerusalem Reviewed
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around. So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city wall, and all the soldiers fled and went out from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the King’s Garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered, deserting him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the officers of Judah at Riblah. He put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in fetters, and the king of Babylon took him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day of his death.
In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month — which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon — Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the artisans. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.
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Jeremiah 52:17-34
The pillars of bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried all the bronze to Babylon. They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the ladles, and all the vessels of bronze used in the temple service. The captain of the guard took away the small bowls also, the firepans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the ladles, and the bowls for libation, both those of gold and those of silver. As for the two pillars, the one sea, the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing. As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; its circumference was twelve cubits; it was hollow, and its thickness was four fingers. Upon it was a capital of bronze; the height of the capital was five cubits; latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, encircled the top of the capital. And the second pillar had the same, with pomegranates. There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates encircling the latticework numbered one hundred.
The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold. From the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers, seven men of the king’s council who were found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found inside the city. Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.
This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand twenty-three Judeans; in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took into exile from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile of the Judeans seven hundred forty-five persons; all the persons were four thousand six hundred.
Jehoiachin Favored in Captivity
In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year he began to reign, showed favor to King Jehoiachin of Judah and brought him out of prison; he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes, and every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table. For his allowance, a regular daily allowance was given him by the king of Babylon, as long as he lived, up to the day of his death.
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Lamentations 1
The Deserted City
How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become subject to forced labor.
She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers,
she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
they have become her enemies.
Judah has gone into exile with suffering
and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations;
she finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
in the midst of her distress.
The roads to Zion mourn,
for no one comes to the festivals;
all her gates are desolate;
her priests groan;
her young girls grieve,
and her lot is bitter.
Her foes have become the masters;
her enemies prosper
because the Lord has made her suffer
for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
captives before the foe.
From daughter Zion has departed
all her majesty.
Her princes have become like stags
that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
before the pursuer.
Jerusalem remembers all the precious things
that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy
and there was no one to help her,
the enemy looked on;
they mocked over her downfall.
Jerusalem sinned grievously,
so she has become a filthy thing;
all who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness;
she herself groans
and turns her face away.
Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
she took no thought of her future;
her downfall was appalling,
with none to comfort her.
Look, O Lord, at my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!
Enemies have stretched out their hands
over all her precious things;
she has even seen the nations
invade her sanctuary,
those whom you forbade
to enter your congregation.
All her people groan
as they search for bread;
they trade their treasures for food
to revive their lives.
Look, O Lord, and see
how worthless I have become.
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.
From on high he sent fire;
it went deep into my bones;
he spread a net for my feet;
he turned me back;
he has left me stunned,
faint all day long.
My transgressions were bound into a yoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
they weigh on my neck,
sapping my strength;
the Lord handed me over
to those whom I cannot withstand.
The Lord has rejected
all my warriors in the midst of me;
he proclaimed a time against me
to crush my young men;
the Lord has trodden as in a winepress
the virgin daughter Judah.
For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my courage;
my children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.
Zion stretches out her hands,
but there is no one to comfort her;
the Lord has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should become his foes;
Jerusalem has become
a filthy thing among them.
The Lord is in the right,
for I have rebelled against his word;
but hear, all you peoples,
and behold my suffering;
my young women and young men
have gone into captivity.
I called to my lovers,
but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
perished in the city
while seeking food
to revive their lives.
Look, O Lord, at how distressed I am;
my stomach churns;
my heart is wrung within me
because I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death.
They heard how I was groaning,
with no one to comfort me.
All my enemies heard of my trouble;
they are glad that you have done it.
Bring on the day that you have announced,
and let them be as I am.
Let all their evildoing come before you,
and deal with them
as you have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions;
for my groans are many,
and my heart is faint.
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Lamentations 2
God’s Warnings Fulfilled
How the Lord in his anger
has humiliated daughter Zion!
He has thrown down from heaven to earth
the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.
The Lord has destroyed without mercy
all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has broken down
the strongholds of daughter Judah;
he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
the kingdom and its rulers.
He has cut down in fierce anger
all the might of Israel;
he has withdrawn his right hand from them
in the face of the enemy;
he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
consuming all around.
He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like a foe;
he has killed all those
in whom we took pride
in the tent of daughter Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.
The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has destroyed Israel.
He has destroyed all its palaces,
laid in ruins its strongholds,
and multiplied in daughter Judah
mourning and lamentation.
He has broken down his booth like a garden;
he has destroyed his tabernacle;
the Lord has abolished in Zion
festival and Sabbath
and in his fierce indignation has spurned
king and priest.
The Lord has scorned his altar,
disowned his sanctuary;
he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
a clamor was raised in the house of the Lord
as on a day of festival.
The Lord determined to lay in ruins
the wall of daughter Zion;
he stretched the line;
he did not withhold his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament;
they languish together.
Her gates have sunk into the ground;
he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
guidance is no more,
and her prophets obtain
no vision from the Lord.
The elders of daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence;
they have thrown dust on their heads;
they put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
My eyes are spent with weeping;
my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out on the ground
because of the destruction of my people,
because infants and babes faint
in the streets of the city.
They cry to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
on their mothers’ bosoms.
What can I say for you, to what compare you,
O daughter Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter Zion?
For vast as the sea is your ruin;
who can heal you?
Your prophets have seen for you
false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
to restore your fortunes
but have seen oracles for you
that are false and misleading.
All who pass along the way
clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads
at daughter Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?”
All your enemies
open their mouths against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
they cry: “We have devoured her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
at last we have seen it!”
The Lord has done what he purposed;
he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you
and exalted the might of your foes.
Cry aloud to the Lord!
O wall of daughter Zion!
Let tears stream down like a torrent
day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
your eyes no respite!
Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the watches!
Pour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him
for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
at the head of every street.
Look, O Lord, and consider!
To whom have you done this?
Should women eat their offspring,
the children they have borne?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The young and the old are lying
on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
in the day of your anger you have killed them,
slaughtering without mercy.
You invited my enemies from all around
as if for a day of festival;
and on the day of the anger of the Lord,
no one escaped or survived;
those whom I bore and reared,
my enemy has destroyed.
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Lamentations 3
God’s Steadfast Love Endures
I am one who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath;
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long.
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me sit in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has put heavy chains on me;
though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
he has blocked my ways with hewn stones;
he has made my paths crooked.
He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;
he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;
he bent his bow and set me
as a mark for his arrow.
He shot into my vitals
the arrows of his quiver;
I have become the laughingstock of all my people,
the object of their taunt songs all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel;
he has made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “Gone is my glory
and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.”
The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for one to bear
the yoke in youth,
to sit alone in silence
when the Lord has imposed it,
to put one’s mouth to the dust
(there may yet be hope),
to give one’s cheek to the smiter
and be filled with insults.
For the Lord will not
reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.
When all the prisoners of the land
are crushed under foot,
when justice is perverted
in the presence of the Most High,
when one’s case is subverted —
does the Lord not see it?
Who can command and have it done,
if the Lord has not ordained it?
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that evil and good come?
Why should any who draw breath complain
about the punishment of their sins?
Let us test and examine our ways
and return to the Lord.
Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
to God in heaven.
We have transgressed and rebelled,
and you have not forgiven.
You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
killing without pity;
you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer can pass through.
You have made us filth and rubbish
among the peoples.
All our enemies
have opened their mouths against us;
panic and pitfall have come upon us,
devastation and destruction.
My eyes flow with rivers of tears
because of the destruction of my people.
My eyes will flow without ceasing,
without respite,
until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees.
My eyes cause me grief
at the fate of all the young women in my city.
Those who were my enemies without cause
have hunted me like a bird;
they flung me alive into a pit
and hurled stones on me;
water closed over my head;
I said, “I am lost.”
I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear
to my cry for help, but give me relief!”
You came near when I called on you;
you said, “Do not fear!”
You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life.
You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;
judge my cause.
You have seen all their malice,
all their plots against me.
You have heard their taunts, O Lord,
all their plots against me.
The whispers and murmurs of my assailants
are against me all day long.
Whether they sit or rise — see,
I am the object of their taunt songs.
Pay them back for their deeds, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands!
Give them anguish of heart;
your curse be on them!
Pursue them in anger and destroy them
from under the Lord’s heavens.
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Lamentations 4
The Punishment of Zion
How the gold has grown dim;
how the pure gold is changed!
The sacred stones lie scattered
at the head of every street.
The precious children of Zion,
worth their weight in fine gold —
how they are reckoned as earthen pots,
the work of a potter’s hands!
Even the jackals offer the breast
and nurse their young,
but my people has become cruel,
like the ostriches in the wilderness.
The tongue of the infant sticks
to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
but there is nothing for them.
Those who feasted on delicacies
perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
cling to ash heaps.
For the chastisement of my people has been greater
than the punishment of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment,
though no hand was laid on it.
Her princes were purer than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
their form cut like sapphire.
Now their visage is blacker than soot;
they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
it has become as dry as wood.
Happier were those pierced by the sword
than those pierced by hunger,
whose life drains away, deprived
of the produce of the field.
The hands of compassionate women
have boiled their own children;
they became their food
in the destruction of my people.
The Lord gave full vent to his wrath;
he poured out his hot anger
and kindled a fire in Zion
that consumed its foundations.
The kings of the earth did not believe,
nor did any of the inhabitants of the world,
that foe or enemy could enter
the gates of Jerusalem.
It was for the sins of her prophets
and the iniquities of her priests,
who shed the blood of the righteous
in her midst.
Blindly they wandered through the streets,
so defiled with blood
that no one was able
to touch their garments.
“Away! Unclean!” people shouted at them;
“Away! Away! Do not touch!”
So they became fugitives and wanderers;
it was said among the nations,
“They shall stay here no longer.”
The Lord himself has scattered them;
he will regard them no more;
no honor was shown to the priests,
no favor to the elders.
Our eyes failed, ever watching
vainly for help;
we were watching eagerly
for a nation that could not save.
They dogged our steps
so that we could not walk in our streets;
our end drew near; our days were numbered,
for our end had come.
Our pursuers were swifter
than the eagles in the heavens;
they chased us on the mountains;
they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
The Lord’s anointed, the breath of our life,
was taken in their pits —
the one of whom we said, “Under his shadow
we shall live among the nations.”
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom,
you that live in the land of Uz;
but to you also the cup shall pass;
you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.
The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished;
he will keep you in exile no longer;
but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish;
he will uncover your sins.
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Lamentations 5
A Plea for Mercy
Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to aliens.
We have become orphans, fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven;
we are weary; we are given no rest.
We have made a pact with Egypt and Assyria
to get enough bread.
Our ancestors sinned; they are no more,
and we bear their iniquities.
Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to deliver us from their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
Our skin is black as an oven
from the scorching heat of famine.
Women are raped in Zion,
young women in the towns of Judah.
Princes are hung up by their hands;
no respect is shown to the elders.
Young men are compelled to grind,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.
The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
Because of this our hearts are sick;
because of these things our eyes have grown dim:
because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate;
jackals prowl over it.
But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old —
unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.