Physical and Spiritual Drought
14 The word of Adonai that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts:
2 Judah will mourn, and her gates languish.
They will bow in black to the ground
And Jerusalem’s wail will go up.
3 Their nobles will send their lads for water.
They come to the cisterns,
but find no water.
Their jars return empty.
They are ashamed and humiliated;
they cover their heads.
4 Because the ground is cracked,
since there has been no rain in the land,
the farmers are ashamed—
they cover their heads.
5 For even the doe in the field
abandons her newborn fawn,
because there is no grass.
6 Wild donkeys stand on the barren hills,
as they pant for air like jackals.
Their eyes fail,
since there is no foliage.
7 Though our iniquities testify against us,
Adonai, act for Your Name’s sake.
For our backslidings are many.
We have sinned against You.
8 O hope of Israel,
Savior in time of trouble,
why are You like a stranger in the land,
or like a traveler who stays for a night?
9 Why are You like a man overcome,
like a champion who cannot save?
Yet you, Adonai, are in our midst,
and we are called by Your Name.
Do not forsake us!
10 Thus says Adonai to this people:
How they loved to wander.
They did not restrain their feet.
So Adonai does not accept them.
Now will He remember their iniquity,
and punish their sins.
11 So Adonai said to me: “Do not pray for the good of this people. 12 If they fast, I will not hear their cry. If they offer burnt offering or grain offering, I will not accept them. Instead I will consume them with sword, with famine and with plague.”
13 Then I said: “Oh my Lord, Adonai! The prophets keep telling them: ‘You will not see the sword nor famine, but I will give you true peace in this place.’”
14 Then Adonai said to me: “The prophets prophesy lies in My Name! I did not send them, nor commanded them, nor did I speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, divination, futility, a delusion of their heart.”
15 Therefore thus says Adonai: “About the prophets who prophesy in My Name, though I did not send them, yet keep saying, ‘Sword and famine will never be in this land’—by sword and famine will those prophets be consumed. 16 Also the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them, their wives, their sons or their daughters. For I will pour their disaster on them.”
17 You will say this word to them:
“Let my eyes overflow with tears.
Night and day, may they never stop.
For the virgin daughter of my people
is crushed with a great blow,
with a sorely infected wound.”
Intercessory Confession
18 If I go out into the field,
see, those slain by the sword!
And if I enter into the city,
see, the sick with famine!
For both prophet and kohen
will travel to a land they do not know.
19 Have You utterly rejected Judah?
Has Your soul loathed Zion?
Why have You smitten us,
and there is no healing for us?
We looked for shalom,
but nothing good came,
and for a time of healing,
but suddenly, terror!
20 We acknowledge our wickedness, Adonai,
the iniquity of our fathers,
for we have sinned against You.
21 Do not despise us, for Your Name’s sake.
Do not dishonor Your glorious throne.
Remember Your covenant with us—
do not break it!
22 Can any of the idols of the nations bring rain?
Or can the skies grant showers?
Is it not You, Adonai our God?
Do we not wait for You?
For You have done all these things.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 14:19
