Chapter 16

The prophet is forbid to marry, troublesome times not suffering the cares of family: ℣.5 He must neither go to places of feasting, nor mourning, more dying than can be mourned or buried. ℣.10 All which is for their idolatry. ℣.15 but after captivity the people shall be released. ℣.16 And both Jews and Gentiles converted to Christ.

1. 1

   And the word of our Lord was made to me, saying: thou shalt not have sons and daughters in

2. 2

   Thou shalt not take a wife, and this place.

3. 3

   Because thus saith our Lord concerning sons and daughters, that are begotten in this place, and concerning their mothers, which bear them: and concerning their fathers, of whose stock they were born in this land:

4. 4

   by the deaths of diseases they shall die: they shall not be mourned, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as a dunghill upon the face of the earth: they shall be consumed, both with sword, & famine: & their carcass shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth.

5. 5

   For thus saith our Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith our Lord, mercy and commiserations.

6. 6

   And great and little shall die in this land: they shall not be buried nor mourned, and they shall not cut themselves, neither shall baldness be made for them.

7. 7

   And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth to comfort him upon the dead: and they shall not give them drink of the cup to comfort them upon their father and mother.

8. 8

   And enter not into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink:

9. 9

   because thus saith our Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will take away out of this place in your eyes & in your days the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.

10. 10

    And when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath our Lord spoken upon us all this great evil? What is our iniquity? And what is our sin, that we have sinned to the Lord our God?

11. 11

    Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith our Lord: and gone after strange gods, and served them, and adored them: and me they have forsaken, & my law they have not kept.

12. 12

    But you also have wrought worse than your fathers: for behold every one walketh after the perversity of his evil heart, that he hear me not.

13. 13

    And I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you & your fathers knew not: & there you shall serve strange gods day & night, which shall not give you any rest.

14. 14

    Therefore behold the days come, saith our Lord, and it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the Land of Ægypt.

15. 15

    But, The Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the North, and out of all the lands to the which I did cast them out: and I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers.

16. 16

    Behold I will send many fishers saith our Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every little hill, and out of the caves of rocks.

17. 17

    Because mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from mine eyes.

18. 18

    And I will repay first their double iniquities, and their sins: because they have contaminated my land with the carcasses of their idols, and with their abominations they have filled mine inheritance.

19. 19

    O Lord my force, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: In very deed our fathers have possessed lying, vanity which hath not profited them.

20. 20

    Why, shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are not gods?

21. 21

    Therefore behold I will shew them at this time, I will shew them my hand, and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord.