Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men struck by the sword in battle.
- KJV Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.
- NKJV Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, And pour out their blood By the force of the sword; Let their wives become widows And bereaved of their children. Let their men be put to death, Their young men be slain By the sword in battle.
- NASB Therefore, give their children over to famine And turn them over to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be slaughtered to death, Their young men struck and killed by the sword in battle.
- NLT So let their children starve! Let them die by the sword! Let their wives become childless widows. Let their old men die in a plague, and let their young men be killed in battle!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jeremiah prays that judgment, including famine and sword, fall on his persecutors and their families. He hands their case over to God's justice.
Overview
This imprecatory plea asks God to bring upon his enemies the very calamities Judah's sin had earned. Such prayers express zeal for God's righteousness and trust that he, not the sufferer, will avenge wrong. They are best read in light of the cross, where judgment and mercy meet, and the believer's call to leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 109:9–20May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
- Lam 5:3We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.
- Jer 16:3–4For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land:
- Exod 22:24My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.
- Jer 15:8I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay.
- Jer 9:21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
- Amos 4:10“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Deut 32:25Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.
- Jer 20:1–6When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,
- Jer 12:3But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage.
- Jer 11:20–23O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.
- Jer 15:2–3If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’
- 2 Tim 4:14Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds.
- 2 Chr 36:17So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,
- Jer 20:11–12But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 18:21 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.