1 Then the word of the LORD {YHWH, Divine Sender} came to me, saying {lemor: speech introducer}:
2 You shall not take for yourself a wife {ishah: spouse}, and you shall not have sons or daughters in this place {makom: location}.
3 For thus says the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Proclaimer} concerning the sons and the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bear them, and concerning their fathers who beget them in this land {aretz: territory}.
4 They will die from deadly sicknesses; they will not be mourned {yissafedu: publicly lamented}, and they will not be buried {yikkaveru: given proper interment}. They will be like dung on the open face of the ground. They will be finished off by the sword and by famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.
5 For thus says the LORD {YHWH, Divine Judge}: Do not enter the house of mourning, and do not go to lament, and do not bemoan them, for I have withdrawn My peace from this people, declares the LORD—even lovingkindness {chesed: steadfast loyalty} and compassion {rachamim: tender mercy}.
6 Both the great and the small will die in this land; they will not be buried, and none will lament {yispedu: perform customary mourning} for them, nor will anyone cut himself, nor will anyone shave his head {yikkareach: make bald as mourning sign} for them.
7 No one will break bread for them in mourning to comfort {le-nachamo: compassionate encouragement} him for the dead, and no one will give him the cup {kos: ritual vessel} of consolations to drink for his father or his mother.
8 And you shall not go into a house of feasting{mishteh: communal celebration} to sit{lashevet: fellowship marker} with them to eat and to drink.
9 For thus says the LORD of hosts {YHWH Tsevaot, Commander of Armies} and the God of Israel {Elohei Yisrael, Covenant Guardian}: Look, I am about to stop in this place—before your eyes and during your days—the voice of joy {sason: jubilant celebration}, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.
10 And it shall be, when you declare all these words to this people, that they will say to you, “Why has the LORD {YHWH, Judge and Proclaimer} declared all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity{avonenu: guilt, moral perversity}, and what is our sin which we have sinned against the LORD our God?”
11 And you shall say to them, “Because your fathers have forsaken Me,” declares the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge}, “and have gone after other gods, and have served and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken, and My law {torah: instruction, covenant teaching} they have not kept.”
12 And you have done worse than your fathers {avoteikhem: previous generations}, and behold, each one of you walks after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so as not to listen to Me {elai: YHWH’s direct call}.
13 And I {YHWH, Divine Exiler} will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will not grant you favor {khanina: gracious mercy}.
14 “Therefore, behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Announcer}, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up {he'elah: caused to ascend} the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt.’”
15 But it will be said, “As the LORD {YHWH, Faithful Restorer} lives, who brought up the sons {bnei: male descendants} of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.” For I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers.
16 Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD {YHWH, Divine Commissioner}, and they will fish them. And after that, I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the clefts of the rocks {selaim: craggy hiding places}.
17 For my eyes are upon all their ways {darkheihem: moral conduct}; nothing is hidden from before Me {YHWH, Omniscient Judge}, and their iniquity is not concealed from my eyes.
18 But first, I {YHWH, Righteous Judge} will repay double for their iniquity and their sin because of their profaning my land. With the carcasses of their detestable things {shikkutzehem: repulsive idols} and their abominations, they have filled my inheritance.
19 O LORD {YHWH, Strong Deliverer}, my strength, my fortress, and my refuge in the day of trouble—to You the nations will come from the ends of the earth and will say, “Surely our fathers inherited falsehood, vanity, and there is no profit {mo’il: worth or benefit}.”
20 Shall a man make {ya’aseh: form or fashion} gods {elohim: Hebrew plural term for idols} for himself, and they are not gods?
21 Therefore, behold, I {YHWH, Supreme Revealer} am causing them to know—in this time I will cause them to know my hand {yad: power at work} and my might, and they will know that my name is the LORD.