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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 109:9–20Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
- Lam 5:3We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
- Jer 16:3–4For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land;
- Exod 22:24And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
- Jer 15:8Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.
- Jer 9:21For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
- Amos 4:10I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
- Deut 32:25The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
- Jer 20:1–6Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
- Jer 12:3But thou, O LORD, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
- Jer 11:20–23But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.
- Jer 15:2–3And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.
- 2 Tim 4:14Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
- 2 Chr 36:17Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.
- Jer 20:11–12But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall 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
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