The Father Commands Jeremiah Not to Marry
Our Father tells Jeremiah not to marry, not to attend funerals, not to join a feast — his own life becomes the sign that ordinary comfort is ending. When they ask what they did wrong, he tells them plainly. Beyond exile, a homecoming greater than the exodus.
16 1The word of our Father came to me:
2"You must not take a wife, and you must not have sons or daughters in this place."
3For our Father says this about sons and daughters born here, their mothers who bore them, and their fathers who fathered them in this land:
4They'll die of deadly diseases, unmourned, unburied, like dung on the ground. Sword and famine will finish them; their corpses will feed the birds of the sky and beasts of the earth.
5This is what our Father says: Don't enter a mourning house, don't go to lament or grieve for them, for I've withdrawn my peace from this people, declares our Father—my covenant love and compassion. 6Great and small will die unburied in this land: none will mourn, cut themselves, or shave their heads for them. a a v6 Cutting oneself and shaving the head were traditional signs of mourning in ancient Israel. 7No one breaks bread with mourners to comfort them over the dead, or gives them the cup of comfort for father or mother. b b v7 The "cup of consolation" was a shared drink offered to grieving families after a burial; here even this ordinary comfort is cut off.
8And do not enter a house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. 9So says the Father of heaven's armies, the Father of Israel: Before your eyes, in your days, I will silence in this place the sound of joy and gladness, the voices of bridegroom and bride.
10When you tell this people all these words, they'll ask, 'Why has our Father decreed this great disaster against us? What's our guilt, what our sin, that we sinned against our Father?'
11Then tell them: Because your fathers abandoned me, declares our Father, followed other gods, served and bowed to them, abandoned me, and disregarded my instruction.
12You've done worse than your ancestors, each following his own stubborn, evil heart, not listening to me. 13So I'll throw you from this land into one you and your fathers never knew, to serve other gods there day and night, since I'll show you no favor.
14"Days are coming," declares our Father, "when it will no longer be said, 'As our Father lives, who brought Israel up from Egypt,'
15but, 'As our Father lives, who brought Israel's people up from the north and from all the lands where he had driven them.' For I will bring them back to their land that I gave their fathers. c c v15 The promise of a homecoming greater than the rescue from Egypt — our Father gathering his children back from every land he had scattered them to.
16"Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares our Father; they will catch them. Then for many hunters, who will hunt them from every mountain, every hill, and the rock crevices. 17For my eyes are on all their ways, not hidden from my face, nor their guilt from my eyes. 18First I will repay their guilt and sin doubly—for making my land unclean with the corpses of their vile idols, and filling my inheritance with their detestable things."
19My Father, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble—to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless things that are of no use. 20Can a person make gods for himself? Yet these are not gods!"
21"Therefore, look—this time I will make them know; I will make them know my hand and my might, and they will know that my name is the Father."
