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.
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.
- 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.
- 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 Yahweh says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land:
- Exod 22:24and my wrath will grow 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 on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
- Jer 9:21For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.
- Amos 4:10“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- Deut 32:25Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
- Jer 20:1–6Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in Yahweh’s house, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.
- Jer 12:3But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and try my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
- Jer 11:20–23But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, I shall see your vengeance on them; for to you I have revealed my cause.
- Jer 15:2–3It shall happen, when they tell you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “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 captivity, to captivity.”’
- 2 Tim 4:14Alexander, the coppersmith, did much evil to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds,
- 2 Chr 36:17Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.
- Jer 20:11–12But Yahweh is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail. They shall be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which 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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