Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis and Gems of the Laments, Preaching, and Deeds of Jeremiah
I. Hear, Jeremiah, hear, O priest, hear, O prophet of the Lord. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you: and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you, and I gave you as a prophet to the nations. Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am a child. I have made you a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and a wall of bronze, over all the land. What do you see, Jeremiah? I see a rod that watches. You have seen well, for I will watch over My word to fulfill it. What do you see? I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the face of the north. From the North evil shall be spread over all the inhabitants of the earth.
II. Israel is holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of His harvest. What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Be astonished, O heavens, at this: and be exceedingly desolate, O you gates thereof. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. Know and see that it is evil and bitter to have forsaken the Lord your God. From of old you have broken My yoke, you have burst My bonds, and you have said: I will not serve.
III. You have committed fornication with many lovers: yet return to Me, says the Lord: at least from now on call upon Me: My Father, You are the guide of my virginity. Faithless Judah, and rebellious Israel, you have committed adultery with stone and wood. Return, and I will give you shepherds after My own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine. In that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall be gathered to it in the name of the Lord. How shall I put you among the children, and give you the desirable land, the goodly heritage of the armies of the nations? Return, O backsliding children, and I will heal your rebellions.
IV. If you take away your stumbling blocks from before My face, you shall not be moved. And you shall swear: The Lord lives, in truth, and in judgment, and in justice. Break up for yourselves fallow ground: be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts. Cry out: A lion has come up from his lair, and a destroyer of nations has risen up. Behold, he shall come up like a cloud, and his chariots like a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe to us, for we are laid waste. My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me: destruction upon destruction is called for: all the land is laid waste. All are wise to do evil; but to do good they have not known. I heard a voice as of a woman in labor, distresses as of a woman in childbirth. The voice of the daughter of Zion, dying and stretching forth her hands: woe is me, for my soul faints because of the slain.
V. Go about the streets of Jerusalem, and search in her broad places, whether you can find a man doing justice, and I will be merciful to her. Therefore a lion from the forest has struck them: a wolf in the evening has laid them waste: a leopard watches over their cities. Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land: the prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands, and my people loved such things.
VI. This is the city of visitation and vengeance, because every kind of fraud is found in her midst. Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary of holding it in. From the least even to the greatest, all pursue avarice: prophet and priest practice deceit, saying: Peace, peace, and there was no peace. I have set you as a tester among My people, a strong one: and you shall test their way. Call them refuse silver, for the Lord has rejected them.
VII. Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord.
I. Hear, O Jeremiah, hear, O priest, hear, O prophet of the Lord. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you: and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you, and I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am a child.
I have made you a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, over all the land.
What do you see, Jeremiah? I see a watching rod. You have seen well, for I will watch over My word to accomplish it.
What do you see? I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the north.
From the North evil shall be spread over all the inhabitants of the earth.
II. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of His harvest.
What iniquity did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me, and walked after vanity, and became vain?
Be astonished, O heavens, at this: and, O gates thereof, be exceedingly desolate.
For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Know and see that it is an evil and bitter thing to have forsaken the Lord your God.
Of old you have broken My yoke, you have burst My bonds, and you said: I will not serve.
III. You have committed fornication with many lovers: yet return to Me, says the Lord: at least from now on call Me: My Father, the guide of my virginity You are.
Faithless Judah, and rebellious Israel, you have committed adultery with stone and wood.
Return, and I will give you shepherds after My own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine.
In that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall be gathered to it in the name of the Lord.
How shall I place you among the children, and give you the desirable land, the most excellent heritage of the armies of the nations?
Return, O returning children, and I will heal your backslidings.
IV. If you will take away your offenses from before My face, you shall not be moved.
And you shall swear: The Lord lives in truth, and in judgment, and in justice.
Break up your fallow ground: be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.
Cry out: A lion has come up from his lair, and the plunderer of nations has risen up.
Behold, he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe to us, for we are laid waste.
My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me: destruction upon destruction is called for: the whole land is laid waste.
All are wise to do evil; but to do good they have not known.
I heard a voice as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one giving birth.
The voice of the daughter of Zion dying away, and spreading her hands: woe is me, for my soul has fainted because of the slain.
V. Go about the streets of Jerusalem, and seek in its squares, whether you can find a man who does justice, and I will be merciful to it.
Therefore a lion from the forest has struck them: a wolf at evening has laid them waste: a leopard watches over their cities.
Astonishing and wondrous things have been done in the land: the prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands, and my people loved such things.
VI. This is the city of visitation and vengeance, because every kind of fraud is found in the midst of it.
Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary of holding it in.
From the least to the greatest, all pursue avarice: prophet and priest practice deceit, saying: Peace, peace, and there was no peace.
I have made you a strong tester among My people: and you shall test their ways. Call them rejected silver, because the Lord has cast them off.
VII. Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord.
Synopsis of the Laments of Jeremiah
Therefore do not pray for this people, and do not stand in My way: for I will not hear you.
VIII. They shall spread out the bones of the princes, priests, and citizens before the sun and moon which they served, and which they worshipped.
And all who remain shall choose death rather than life.
The kite in the sky knows its season: the turtledove, and the swallow, and the stork keep the time of their coming: but My people do not know the judgment of the Lord.
IX. Who will give my head water, and my eyes a fountain of tears? And I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.
Let everyone guard himself against his neighbor, and let him not trust in any brother.
Let our eyes shed tears, and let our eyelids flow with water.
For death has climbed in through our windows, it has entered our houses, to destroy children from outside, young men from the streets.
X. Do not fear the signs of the sky, which the nations fear: for they can do neither evil nor good.
Who will not fear You, O King of the nations? For Yours is the glory: in all the kingdoms there is none like You.
Let the gods who did not make the heavens and the earth perish from the earth, and from those things which are under heaven.
Our God is He who makes the earth by His power, prepares the world by His wisdom, and by His prudence stretches out the heavens.
He makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind from His treasuries.
XI. Cursed is the man who does not hear the words of this covenant.
What is it that My beloved has done many wicked deeds in My house?
The Lord called your name a fruitful, beautiful, fruit-bearing, splendid olive tree.
At the sound of a word, a great fire blazed up in it, and its branches were burned.
And I was like a gentle lamb that is carried to the slaughter: and I did not know it.
They all devised plans against me, saying: Let us put wood in his bread, and let us cut him off from the land of the living.
But You, O Lord of hosts, who judge justly, and try the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them: for to You I have revealed my cause.
XII. You are indeed just, O Lord, if I should dispute with You: yet let me speak just things to You.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper: why is it well with all who transgress and act unjustly?
Gather them together as a flock for the slaughter, and sanctify them for the day of killing: for they have said: He will not see our end.
If you grew weary running with foot soldiers, how will you be able to contend with horses?
I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My heritage: I have given My beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.
XIII. By the Lord's command I hid a loincloth in the Euphrates: and after many days I took it out, and behold, it had rotted. Thus, says the Lord, I will make the pride of Judah rot.
For as a loincloth clings to a man's loins, so I made the whole house of Israel cling to Me.
Weeping it shall weep, and my eye shall shed tears, because the flock of the Lord has been captured.
Say to the king and to the queen: Humble yourselves, sit down: for the crown of your glory has fallen from your head.
If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots: then you also may do good, when you have learned evil.
XIV. O Hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of tribulation: why will You be as a stranger in the land, and as a traveler turning aside to stay?
XV. If Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My soul would not be turned toward this people: cast them out from My face, and let them depart.
Where shall we go? Those destined for death, to death: those for the sword, to the sword: those for famine, to famine: and those for captivity, to captivity.
Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will go to plead for your peace? You have forsaken Me, you have gone backward.
Woe is me, my mother, why did you bring me forth, a man of strife, a man of discord? All curse me.
XVI. You shall not take a wife, and you shall have no sons or daughters in this place.
For they shall die by deaths of disease: they shall not be mourned, and they shall not be buried.
Behold, I will take away from this place the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
Truly our fathers possessed falsehood, vanity that did not profit them.
XVII. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron with a point of diamond, engraved upon the breadth of their heart.
Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.
The heart of all is wicked and unsearchable: who can know it?
O Hope of Israel, O Lord: all who forsake You shall be confounded: those who depart from You shall be written in the earth: because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.
And I was not troubled, following You as my shepherd: and I did not desire the day of man. You know.
Be not a terror to me; You are my hope in the day of affliction.
XVIII. Arise, and go down to the potter's house: behold, as clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
Synopsis of the Laments of Jeremiah
Behold, I am fashioning evil against you.
XIX. Break the earthen flask before the people in the valley of the son of Hinnom, for thus I will break this people and this city: they shall be buried in Topheth.
XX. You have deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived: You were stronger than I, and You prevailed.
I am become a derision all the day long, all mock me.
Cursed be the day on which I was born: the day on which my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.
XXI. Say to King Zedekiah: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: but whoever goes out and deserts to the Chaldeans shall live.
XXII. Say to Shallum the son of Josiah: He shall not return here anymore; but in the place to which I have transferred him, there he shall die.
Say to Jehoiakim: Woe to him who builds his house in injustice, and oppresses his friend, and does not pay him his wages.
They shall not mourn him: Alas, my brother; alas, my lord: he shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, rotting and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord: Write this man childless: for there shall not be of his seed a man who sits upon the throne of David.
XXIII. Woe to the shepherds who scatter and tear apart the flock of My pasture. I will raise up shepherds over them, and they shall feed them.
Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall go forth, and a tempest shall burst upon the heads of the wicked.
Shall a man be hidden in secret places, and I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?
Are not My words like fire, and like a hammer that shatters rock?
XXIV. What do you see, Jeremiah? Figs, good figs, very good; and bad ones, very bad.
Thus says the Lord: As these good figs, so I will regard the captivity of Judah for good, and I will bring them back into this land.
And as the very bad figs, so I will deliver Zedekiah and the rest who remained in Jerusalem, to vexation and affliction, to reproach, and to a byword, and to a curse.
XXV. I will send Nebuchadnezzar My servant, and all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
Take the cup of the wine of this fury from My hand, and make all the nations drink of it: that I may deliver them to desolation, astonishment, hissing, and a curse.
Drink, and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise not again before the sword which I send among you.
The Lord shall roar from on high, and from His holy dwelling He shall utter His voice.
XXVI. I will make this house like Shiloh: and this city I will deliver as a curse to all the nations of the earth.
XXVII. Thus says the Lord: O Jeremiah, make for yourself chains and bonds: and put them on your neck. And you shall send them to the king of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon.
XXVIII. Thus says the Lord to Hananiah: You have broken wooden chains, and you shall make iron chains in their place: for I have placed the iron yoke of Nebuchadnezzar upon the neck of all nations.
XXIX. Thus says the Lord: Build houses in Babylon: plant gardens: take wives, for you shall remain there seventy years.
XXX. Woe, for that day is great, nor is there any like it: and it is the time of Jacob's tribulation.
XXXI. I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore I have drawn you, taking pity.
Cry out, sound the alarm against the chief of the nations: Save, O Lord, Your people, the remnant of Israel.
I have surely heard Ephraim going into exile: You have chastised me, and I was instructed, like an untamed calf.
The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall encompass a man.
XXXII. Buy for yourself, O Jeremiah, the field of your cousin, which is in Anathoth, for thus says the Lord: Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall yet be possessed in this land.
Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, most mighty, great and powerful: whose eyes are open over all the ways of the children of Adam, that You may repay each one according to his ways.
XXXIII. Jerusalem shall be to Me a name, and a joy, and a praise, and an exultation among all the nations of the earth.
There shall be heard in it the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say: Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures forever.
XXXIV. Hear, O King Zedekiah: you shall be captured, and you shall enter Babylon: you shall not die by the sword, but in peace, and they shall mourn you: Alas, my lord.
You did not listen to Me, to proclaim the seventh year of liberty each to his neighbor: therefore I proclaim to you a liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine.
XXXV. I set before the Rechabites cups full of wine, and I said: Drink wine. They answered: We will not drink.
Therefore thus says the Lord: There shall not fail a man from the line of Jonadab the son of Rechab, standing in My sight for all days.
XXXVI. Thus says the Lord: Take, O Jeremiah, a scroll, and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you, against Israel and Judah.
There shall be none of Jehoiakim who sits upon the throne of David, and his corpse shall be cast out to the heat by day, and to the frost by night.
Synopsis of the Laments of Jeremiah
XXXVII. Thus says the Lord: The Chaldeans who have withdrawn from Jerusalem to fight against Pharaoh shall return, and they shall take the city, and burn it with fire.
XXXVIII. Thus says the Lord: Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever escapes to the Chaldeans shall live.
XXXIX. Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem, blinds Zedekiah, kills his sons and the nobles, and frees Jeremiah.
Say to Ebed-Melech: I will deliver you, and your life shall be saved, because you placed your trust in Me.
XL. Nebuzaradan said to Jeremiah: If it pleases you to come with me to Babylon, I will set my eyes upon you; but if not, dwell with Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon has set over the cities of Judah.
XLI. Ishmael kills Gedaliah and takes the people captive: Johanan pursues him and frees the people; with them, fearing the Chaldeans, he plans to flee to Egypt.
XLII. Johanan and the leaders consult Jeremiah: to whom he says: Remain in Judea, and obey the Chaldeans: for all who enter Egypt shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.
XLIII. They disregard him and flee, and drag Jeremiah with them to Egypt. Jeremiah prophesies in Tahpanhes: Nebuchadnezzar shall come, and he shall strike the land, the shrines and the gods of Egypt.
XLIV. Why, O Jews, do you provoke God by sacrificing to foreign gods in the land of Egypt?
Behold, I will deliver Pharaoh Hophra into the hand of those who seek his life.
XLV. Thus says the Lord to Baruch: You said, woe is wretched me, for the Lord has added sorrow to my sorrow.
Behold, those whom I have built, I destroy: and do you seek great things for yourself? I will give you your life as your reward.
XLVI. Thus says the Lord against the army of Pharaoh Necho: Prepare the shield, stand in your helmets, polish the lances, put on your breastplates.
Egypt is a fair and beautiful heifer: a goad from the north shall come upon her. After this it shall be inhabited as in the days of old.
XLVII. Thus says the Lord against the Philistines: Baldness has come upon Gaza, Ashkelon has fallen silent.
O sword of the Lord, how long will you not be still? How shall it be still, when the Lord has commanded it, and has appointed it there?
XLVIII. Against Moab: Flee, save your lives, and you shall be like tamarisks in the desert.
Give a flower to Moab, for it shall go forth blooming: cursed is he who withholds his sword from blood.
XLIX. Against the sons of Ammon: Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste: Milcom shall be taken captive, his priests and his princes together.
I have made you small, O Edom, among the nations, contemptible among men.
How have they forsaken the praiseworthy city, the city of joy?
I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the fortifications of Ben-Hadad.
L. Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is conquered.
The sword against the Chaldeans, says the Lord, and against the inhabitants of Babylon: the sword against her diviners, the sword against her mighty men, the sword against her horses, and against all her multitude.
LI. Flee from the midst of Babylon, and let everyone save his own life: for it is the time of vengeance from the Lord: He Himself will repay the recompense.
Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, making all the earth drunk: the nations drank of her wine, and therefore they were shaken.
Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, who corrupt the whole earth: I will roll you down from the rocks, and I will make you a burnt mountain.
Consecrate the nations against Babylon, the kings of the Medes, her captains, and all the land of her dominion.
I will make the Chaldeans drunk, that they may fall asleep and sleep an everlasting sleep.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with he-goats.
The heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall praise over Babylon: for from the north the plunderers shall come upon her.
You who have escaped the sword, come: remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem rise up in your heart.
Say to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, you shall read all the words of this book, and you shall cast the book into the midst of the Euphrates, and you shall say: Thus shall Babylon be submerged, and shall not rise up again because of the affliction.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.