Jeremiah 15

ירמיהו פרק ט״ו

Section: נביאים · נביאים אחרונים | Book: Jeremiah | Chapter: 15 of 52 | Day: 228 of 742

Date: September 27, 2026

קלאוד על הנ״ך

Chapter 15 is the answer to chapter 14, and the answer is no. Yirmiyahu had just finished one of the most elaborate intercessions in Nach - the drought liturgy, the confession mikveh Yisrael moshio b’et tzarah, the plea lo titosh otanu, do not abandon us - and what comes back is the most crushing sentence God ever speaks to a prophet about his people: im yaamod Moshe uShmuel lefanai ein nafshi el ha’am hazeh, though Moshe and Shmuel stood before Me, My soul would not be toward this people. Radak frames the verse as a direct retort to the praying that has just ended - why do you multiply prayer before Me, when even those greater than you would not be heard - and explains the choice of these two names with precision: both were Levites, both were prophets, and Shmuel was the greatest of the nevi’im after Moshe, as Tehillim pairs them, Moshe v’Aharon b’chohanav uShmuel b’korei shmo. Rashi goes further and finds in the pairing not a compliment but a method. Both men did beg mercy for Israel, he says, but neither imagined he could turn away the wrath before he had first turned the people around: Moshe said simu ish charbo and ground the calf into the water, and only then said e’eleh el Hashem ulai achaprah; Shmuel at Mitzpah first had Israel remove the Baalim, and only then said kivtzu et kol Yisrael haMitzpatah v’etpallel. The conclusion Rashi draws is the real verdict of the verse: you cannot bring them back to Me, therefore do not pray for them. The prohibition on intercession that chapter 7 issued and chapter 11 repeated is here given its reason. Prayer was never a lever for moving God around an unrepentant people; it was the second half of a process whose first half has failed. Metzudat David reads the pairing as an either-or, Moshe or Shmuel, meaning that even one such voice would suffice under any other circumstance and does not suffice now. And then the cold imperative: shalach me’al panai v’yetze’u, send them out of My sight and let them go. Radak notices how strange it is that the command is addressed to Yirmiyahu at all, and hears in it a bitter reassignment - if it is in your power to send them away, better that you send them than that you pray for them. The intercessor has been handed an eviction notice and told to serve it.

What follows in verses 2 through 4 is the shape of the refusal, built as fourfold catalogues that narrow as they go. First the answer to the question anah netze, to what shall we go forth: asher lamavet lamavet, those for death to death, those for the sword to the sword, those for famine to famine, those for captivity to captivity. Rashi and Radak both transmit the teaching of Chazal that the list is ordered by increasing severity - the sword is worse than plague because it disfigures and the bed does not, famine is worse than the sword because it tortures and the sword does not, as Eichah says tovim hayu chalelei cherev mechalelei ra’av, and captivity is worst of all because kulhu itnehu bah, all of them are contained within it. The verse reads like a census clerk assigning destinations, and that bureaucratic calm is its horror. Then verse 3, v’hifkadti aleihem arba mishpachot, and I will appoint over them four families - Metzudat David and Radak both gloss mishpachot as four kinds of punishment, a metaphorical usage, while Rashi notes that p’kidah here is the language of appointment and commission, as of officers given a post. The four posts are a descending scale of indignity: the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. Metzudat David divides the last pair with grim care, the birds to eat the corpses and the animals to ruin them by trampling underfoot, and Radak notes that dogs habitually drag a carcass along while they eat it. The sword kills a person; everything after the sword happens to what is left, and the catalogue is really a description of a body no one will bury. Then verse 4 names the cause, and the name startles: bigelal Menasheh ven Yechizkiyahu melech Yehudah al asher asah b’Yerushalayim. Menasheh has been dead for decades. Radak explains the charge in two parts - he led Yehudah into evil deeds, and he shed innocent blood until he filled Yerushalayim with corpses - and Metzudat David sharpens it into something more uncomfortable for the living: the meaning is that they have held fast to the deeds of Menasheh, and because he did what he did publicly, in the open in Yerushalayim, they learned from him and took hold of it. The generation is not being punished for an ancestor’s sin; it is being punished for still committing it. And the sentence is lizvaah l’chol mamlechot ha’aretz, a thing of shuddering, which Rashi derives from lo kam v’lo za in Esther and glosses with devastating economy: whoever hears the evil that has come upon you will shudder. From verse 5 the oracle turns and speaks to the city as a woman, and the register changes from sentencing to lament, which is stranger and more painful than the sentencing was. Ki mi yachmol alayich Yerushalayim umi yanud lach umi yasur lish’ol l’shalom lach: who will pity you, who will turn aside to ask after your welfare? Rashi reads yanud as yekonen, who will compose a lament, and explains yasur as turning off one’s road to reach you. Radak reconstructs the whole social scene behind the verb - the comforters of a mourner come wandering in from here and from there to sit with him and recount his troubles with him - and then delivers the reason no one is coming: ki at garamt churbanech shenatasht oti, you caused your own ruin, for you abandoned Me. That is verse 6. At natasht oti ne’um Hashem, achor telechi, you have forsaken Me, you go backward; va’at et yadi alayich va’ashchitech, and then four of the most terrible words in the book, nil’eiti hinachem, I am weary of relenting. Rashi’s gloss is the theology of the chapter in one sentence: many times I planned to destroy and I relented of the evil; now I am weary of relenting. Radak says the same - how many times have I relented of the evil I spoke to do to them and did not do it; I have grown weary of this, I can relent no longer. What has broken is not God’s mercy but the mechanism by which mercy kept postponing judgment. The thirteen attributes include nicham al hara’ah; here the attribute itself reports exhaustion. Then the images of the ending: va’ezrem b’mizreh b’sha’arei ha’aretz, I winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land, which Rashi explains with homely precision as a sieve, like one who winnows barley, so that they should not all be exiled to one place. Exile is not transport but dispersal, engineered so that no two grains land together. Shikalti ibadti et ami midarcheihem lo shavu - Metzudat David hears the logic as concessive, that even though I bereaved them and destroyed them they still did not turn from their ways and took no lesson, and Radak applies the clause historically to the ten tribes already gone, whose visible ruin taught Yehudah nothing. Then the widows, atzmu li almenotav mechol yamim, more numerous than the sand of the seas - and Metzudat David will not let that be read as triumph: I am not acting toward them as one who takes revenge, so that it would all count as little in My eyes; on the contrary, it counts before Me as much, and there is no joy in it for Me. Radak anchors the phrase in a real catastrophe, the day Pekach ben Remalyahu killed a hundred and twenty thousand men of Yehudah and left their wives widows. And over the mother, al em bachur shoded batzaharayim, Rashi identifies the em as Yerushalayim, which is an ir v’em b’Yisrael, and reads batzaharayim with chilling practicality: everything will be exposed before him, all their hidden treasures. The destroyer comes at noon not because noon is dramatic but because daylight is better for looting. Verse 9 closes the oracle with the figure who haunts the chapter: umlelah yoledet hashiv’ah, she who bore seven languishes, naf’chah nafshah, ba shimshah b’od yomam, her sun went down while it was yet day. Rashi and Metzudat David both identify her as Shomron and the northern kingdom, which produced seven royal dynasties - Yaravam ben Nevat and his house, Basha, Omri, Yehu, Menachem, Pekach, Hoshea - all already cut off and exiled, while Rashi reports the alternative of the Midrash Tanchuma which reads her as Yerushalayim and counts seven wicked kings of Yehudah instead. Radak takes shiv’ah as simple plenitude, many children, as in ad akarah yaldah shiv’ah. And b’od yomam, Rashi says out of Gittin, means before their time; they hurried to fall. A woman whose sun sets at noon is a woman who has outlived every reason she had to live.

Then verse 10 breaks the frame entirely, and what had been an oracle about a nation becomes the third and rawest of Yirmiyahu’s confessions. Oy li imi ki yelidtini ish riv v’ish madon l’chol ha’aretz. Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth. Metzudat David catches the gesture exactly: Yirmiyahu turned his speech toward his mother and said it to her, which is to say he has no one else to say it to, and so he addresses the one person implicated in his existence. Rashi states the cause plainly - he was lamenting over himself, that the people of his city hated him on account of his rebukes. And then the strangest argument in the verse, the one that shows how deep the wound is: lo nashiti v’lo nashu vi kuloh mekalelavni, I have not lent and I have not borrowed, yet everyone curses me. Rashi and Metzudat David both unfold the logic of ordinary life behind it. Sometimes men quarrel with a lender because he presses for his money, and sometimes with a borrower because he will not repay; money is the normal reason a man is hated in his town. But I have lent to no one and borrowed from no one, and still every one of them curses me. Radak adds that there is nothing whatever of this, only that they hate me because I rebuke them for their own good. The complaint is not that he suffers but that his suffering has no transactional explanation; he is hated for the one service he renders, and Radak’s etymology of mekalelavni catches even the texture of it, a word compounded from two roots, kalal and kalah, from cursing and from contempt, two wrongs fused into a single unparalleled form because the language needed a shorter way to say both at once. Against this God answers in verses 11 through 14, and the answer is at first oblique. Metzudat David hears it as consolation in the form of an oath: what do you care about their curse, behold I swear that I will leave you over for good, and all who curse you will die or go into captivity while you remain. Rashi records both the reading of Menachem, that sheritich is from she’erit, a remnant left over, and that of Dunash, that it is from the Aramaic mashre kitrin, untying knots, a release - in which case the promise is fulfilled precisely in chapter 40, hineh pitachtich hayom min ha’azikim asher al yadecha, behold I have loosed you today from the chains on your hand. And hifga’ti vecha, Rashi says, means that when the evil comes they will come begging you to seek mercy for them, as Tzidkiyahu will, derosh na ba’adenu et Hashem. Then verse 12, the hardest line in the chapter to construe: hayaro’a barzel barzel mitzafon unchoshet. Rashi’s reading turns it into an answer to verse 10 - Israel was compared to iron, holchei rachil nechoshet u’varzel, and Yirmiyahu in chapter 1 was made amud barzel v’chomot nechoshet, and his iron is stronger than theirs, so can their iron break yours? Metzudat David reads it as addressed to the nation and as a military taunt, do you imagine you can prevail against Nevuchadnetzar, whose northern iron is alloyed with bronze and harder still, and Radak gives the same, noting that Bavel is north of Eretz Yisrael, mitzafon tiftach hara’ah. Either way the metallurgy is the point: the prophet has been forged out of the same material as the empire, which is why he will outlast the people he is sent to. Verses 13 and 14 finish the oracle against the nation - cheilcha v’otzrotecha labaz eten lo vimchir, your wealth and your treasures I give as spoil without price, which Radak explains to mean that the looters will be so many that nothing will be sold or priced at all, each man simply seizing for himself - and then the fire kindled in My anger that burns against you.

Verse 15 is the heart of the chapter. Atah yadata, Hashem zochreni ufokdeni v’hinakem li merodfai: You know - remember me, visit me, avenge me of my persecutors. Then al l’erech apecha tikacheni, which Rashi renders after the Targum as lo titen archa l’ulvani, do not grant a reprieve to my humiliation; do not take my case and leave it lying in Your longsuffering, but hurry and avenge me. Radak reads it still more darkly: if You are going to be patient with them, then at least do not take me, do not let me die, so that I may see Your vengeance on them. The prophet is asking not to be made a casualty of God’s own patience. And then da se’eiti alecha cherpah, know that I have borne reproach for Your sake, which Metzudat David glosses as the reproach he bears on account of prophesying in Your name, and which Radak turns outward into a demand: show them that You knew and that it was not hidden from You. Verse 16 then gives the most beautiful description of prophetic experience in Nach, and its placement, wedged between a demand for vengeance and an accusation of betrayal, is what makes it almost unbearable. Nimtze’u devarecha va’ochlem, Your words were found and I ate them, vayhi devarcha li l’sason ulsimchat levavi ki nikra shimcha alai. Radak explains ochlem plainly: when Your words were found to me in prophecy I received them willingly, the way a person eats food that is sweet to him - and he identifies exactly what the joy consisted of: in this I rejoiced greatly, that they would say of me, a prophet of Hashem, while the other prophets are called prophets of the Ba’al. And Rashi, with four words, sets a time-stamp on it that breaks the verse open: latavah mitechilah, eagerly, at the beginning - and they were a joy to me, ki dimiti sheyishme’u elai atah, for I imagined that now they would listen to me. The joy is reported in the past tense and explained as a misunderstanding. He ate the words gladly because he thought they would work. Verse 17 is the cost of that eating: lo yashavti b’sod mesachakim va’e’eloz, I did not sit in the circle of the merrymakers and rejoice; mipnei yadecha badad yashavti ki za’am mileitani. Rashi reads yadecha as the prophecy that came to him from You, and says he sat alone and stunned, in mourning, because You filled me with a prophecy of fury about the destruction of Your house. Radak draws the contrast that organizes the verse: Your word was the gladness of my heart, and by levavi he means the gladness of the intellect, but the other gladness, the gladness of the body, of sitting in their company while they laugh and laughing with them, that I never had; I had not even their companionship, but sat alone, secluded in my house. The man who ate the word found that it fed him and isolated him in the same motion, and Radak offers a second reading of mipnei yadecha, as Your blow rather than Your prophecy, the beatings and the contempt that were the people’s answer to the words he had swallowed with such appetite. Which brings us to verse 18, where a prophet says what no prophet should be able to say. Lamah hayah che’evi netzach umakati anushah me’anah herafei, why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Rashi takes anushah as mortally sick, on the model of vayei’anash said of the child of Bat Sheva. Radak hears netzach as unending and daily, notes that a wound refusing to be healed is the language of poetry since a wound has no will of its own, and then lets the real question surface: lamah hayah zeh, mah avon yesh bi, why is this, what sin is there in me? And then the accusation. Hayo tihyeh li k’mo achzav mayim lo ne’emanu, will You be to me as a deceitful thing, as waters that fail? Rashi glosses achzav as a spring that stops, the Old French faylayne, failing, and says it is like a man whose confidence has been cut off from him, for You leave me to suffer at their hands. Metzudat David reads it the same way, a source of water that is cut off and abandons, water that does not keep faith, meaning that You withdrew from me the help and rescue from those who rise against me. Radak sees exactly what the image is aimed at and names the target: the comparison is directed against God because of what He said to Yirmiyahu at the beginning of his prophecy, v’ani hineh netaticha hayom l’ir mivtzar ul’amud barzel ulchomot nechoshet, and here they are, reproaching me and striking me. Radak concedes that chapter 1 had also said v’nilchamu elecha, they will fight against you, but Yirmiyahu had assumed the fighting would be temporary and have an end, and when he saw that it had no end he complained against God. That is the charge in full: not that God is cruel but that God is unreliable, a wadi in the Negev that runs in the spring and is dry stone by the time the traveler who counted on it arrives. No one else in Tanakh accuses God of being an intermittent stream.

The answer in verses 19 through 21 is the reason this chapter matters more than almost any other in the book, because it is not a rebuke and not a consolation but a re-commissioning. Lachen koh amar Hashem im tashuv va’ashivecha lefanai ta’amod. Radak hears God answer the accusation head on: you spoke against Me words that are not right when you said hayo tihyeh li k’mo achzav, and in this you sinned against Me; and now, if you return in teshuvah and regret what you said, I will bring you back and forgive you, and you will stand before Me as at first. And Radak adds the observation that seals the chapter’s architecture: standing before Hashem means prayer and thanksgiving and the receiving of prophecy, and this idiom is used only of a prophet - the same amidah as in verse 1, im yaamod Moshe uShmuel lefanai. The chapter opened by telling him that the two greatest men ever to stand before God could not help this people, and it closes by telling him that he himself may stand there. Rashi and Metzudat David read im tashuv differently and beautifully, as addressed through Yirmiyahu to Israel - if you bring Israel back, I will bring them back through you - and v’im totzi yakar mizolel k’fi tihyeh, if you bring forth the precious out of the vile, if you can extract a fit man from a wicked one and turn him to repentance, then you shall be as My mouth. Rashi’s gloss on k’fi tihyeh is the boldest sentence in the commentaries on this chapter: she’ani gozer gezerah v’atah mevatlah, that I decree a decree and you annul it. The man who a moment ago accused God of failing him is told that his word will carry the force of God’s own, and Radak cites the proof text about Shmuel, v’lo hipil mikol devarav artzah - the second invocation of Shmuel in the chapter, this time not as an intercessor who would fail but as a prophet whose words never fell to the ground. Then the warning that protects him: yashuvu hemah elecha v’atah lo tashuv aleihem, they shall return to you and you shall not return to them. Radak’s reading is pastoral and precise, guard yourself that you not turn to their wickedness in the course of working on them, lest they lead you astray with the abundance of their arguments; labor to bring them to you and be careful not to go over to them. Metzudat David hears in it a release from Yirmiyahu’s own fear, that he need not dread going out among them on his mission lest he learn from their deeds, because he can be secure in this. Then verse 20, the full restoration of the call: unetaticha la’am hazeh l’chomat nechoshet betzurah, I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze, v’nilchamu elecha v’lo yuchlu lach ki itcha ani l’hoshiacha ulhatzilecha. Radak reads the verse as God’s direct rebuttal of achzav - I will not be like a man who deceives; rather, as I said to you at the beginning, so I will do - and then explains the mistake in Yirmiyahu’s reading of chapter 1 with great care. I never said their war against you would last only a season; you did not understand My words well. What I promised was that they would not prevail over you, lo yuchlu lach lahamitecha, they will not be able to kill you; but they will indeed fight you, with words and with blows and with contempt, for as long as you rebuke them, and all this labor you will bear in order to bring them back to Me. And Radak finishes with the arithmetic of prophetic hope: even if you do not bring all of them back, it is impossible that you will not bring back some of them, as we saw when they wanted to kill him and the officers said ein la’ish hazeh mishpat mavet ki b’shem Hashem Elokeinu diber eleinu. Verse 21 closes it, v’hitzaltich miyad ra’im ufditich mikaf aritzim, and Metzudat David names the ra’im without hesitation: they are the men of Anatot. The chapter has come all the way around. It began with the refusal of the two greatest prayers in Israel’s history and ends with the renewal of one broken man’s commission; it began with shalach me’al panai, send them from My presence, and ends with lefanai ta’amod, you shall stand before Me. Nothing has been promised about the people. Everything has been promised about the prophet, and what he is promised is not relief but endurance - the wall of bronze was never a shelter, it was a position, and the only thing God undertakes is that it will hold.

פרק ט״ו · Chapter 15

פסוק א׳ · Verse 1

Hebrew:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֵלַ֔י אִם־יַעֲמֹ֨ד מֹשֶׁ֤ה וּשְׁמוּאֵל֙ לְפָנַ֔י אֵ֥ין נַפְשִׁ֖י אֶל־הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֑ה שַׁלַּ֥ח מֵעַל־פָּנַ֖י וְיֵצֵֽאוּ׃

English:

GOD said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel were to intercede with Me, I would not be won over to that people. Dismiss them from My presence, and let them go forth!

פסוק ב׳ · Verse 2

Hebrew:

וְהָיָ֛ה כִּי־יֹאמְר֥וּ אֵלֶ֖יךָ אָ֣נָה נֵצֵ֑א וְאָמַרְתָּ֨ אֲלֵיהֶ֜ם כֹּה־אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר לַמָּ֤וֶת לַמָּ֙וֶת֙ וַאֲשֶׁ֤ר לַחֶ֙רֶב֙ לַחֶ֔רֶב וַאֲשֶׁ֤ר לָרָעָב֙ לָרָעָ֔ב וַאֲשֶׁ֥ר לַשְּׁבִ֖י לַשֶּֽׁבִי׃

English:

And if they ask you, ‘To what shall we go forth?’ answer them, ‘Thus said GOD: Those destined for the plague, to the plague; Those destined for the sword, to the sword; Those destined for famine, to famine; Those destined for captivity, to captivity.

פסוק ג׳ · Verse 3

Hebrew:

וּפָקַדְתִּ֨י עֲלֵיהֶ֜ם אַרְבַּ֤ע מִשְׁפָּחוֹת֙ נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֔ה אֶת־הַחֶ֣רֶב לַהֲרֹ֔ג וְאֶת־הַכְּלָבִ֖ים לִסְחֹ֑ב וְאֶת־ע֧וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֛יִם וְאֶת־בֶּהֱמַ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לֶאֱכֹ֥ל וּלְהַשְׁחִֽית׃

English:

And I will appoint over them four kinds [of punishment]—declares GOD—the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the sky, and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

פסוק ד׳ · Verse 4

Hebrew:

וּנְתַתִּ֣ים (לזועה) [לְזַעֲוָ֔ה] לְכֹ֖ל מַמְלְכ֣וֹת הָאָ֑רֶץ בִּ֠גְלַ֠ל מְנַשֶּׁ֤ה בֶן־יְחִזְקִיָּ֙הוּ֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ יְהוּדָ֔ה עַ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֖ה בִּירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם׃

English:

I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, on account of King Manasseh son of Hezekiah of Judah, and of what he did in Jerusalem.’”

פסוק ה׳ · Verse 5

Hebrew:

כִּ֠י מִֽי־יַחְמֹ֤ל עָלַ֙יִךְ֙ יְר֣וּשָׁלַ֔͏ִם וּמִ֖י יָנ֣וּד לָ֑ךְ וּמִ֣י יָס֔וּר לִשְׁאֹ֥ל לְשָׁלֹ֖ם לָֽךְ׃

English:

But who will pity you, O Jerusalem, Who will console you? Who will turn aside to inquire About your welfare?

פסוק ו׳ · Verse 6

Hebrew:

אַ֣תְּ נָטַ֥שְׁתְּ אֹתִ֛י נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֖ה אָח֣וֹר תֵּלֵ֑כִי וָאַ֨ט אֶת־יָדִ֤י עָלַ֙יִךְ֙ וָֽאַשְׁחִיתֵ֔ךְ נִלְאֵ֖יתִי הִנָּחֵֽם׃

English:

You cast Me off —declares GOD— You go ever backward. So I have stretched out My hand to destroy you; I cannot relent.

פסוק ז׳ · Verse 7

Hebrew:

וָאֶזְרֵ֥ם בְּמִזְרֶ֖ה בְּשַׁעֲרֵ֣י הָאָ֑רֶץ שִׁכַּ֤לְתִּי אִבַּ֙דְתִּי֙ אֶת־עַמִּ֔י מִדַּרְכֵיהֶ֖ם לוֹא־שָֽׁבוּ׃

English:

I will scatter them as with a winnowing fork Through the settlements of the earth. I will bereave, I will destroy My people, For they would not turn back from their ways.

פסוק ח׳ · Verse 8

Hebrew:

עָֽצְמוּ־לִ֤י אַלְמְנוֹתָו֙ מֵח֣וֹל יַמִּ֔ים הֵבֵ֨אתִי לָהֶ֥ם עַל־אֵ֛ם בָּח֖וּר שֹׁדֵ֣ד בַּֽצׇּהֳרָ֑יִם הִפַּ֤לְתִּי עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ פִּתְאֹ֔ם עִ֖יר וּבֶהָלֽוֹת׃

English:

Their widows shall be more numerous Than the sands of the seas. I will bring against them— Young men and mothers together — A destroyer at noonday. I will bring down suddenly upon them Alarm and terror.

פסוק ט׳ · Verse 9

Hebrew:

אֻמְלְלָ֞ה יֹלֶ֣דֶת הַשִּׁבְעָ֗ה נָפְחָ֥ה נַפְשָׁ֛הּ (באה) [בָּ֥א] שִׁמְשָׁ֛הּ בְּעֹ֥ד יוֹמָ֖ם בּ֣וֹשָׁה וְחָפֵ֑רָה וּשְׁאֵרִיתָ֗ם לַחֶ֧רֶב אֶתֵּ֛ן לִפְנֵ֥י אֹיְבֵיהֶ֖ם נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {ס}         

English:

She who bore seven is forlorn, Utterly disconsolate; Her sun has set while it is still day, She is shamed and humiliated. The remnant of them I will deliver to the sword, To the power of their enemies —declares GOD.

פסוק י׳ · Verse 10

Hebrew:

אֽוֹי־לִ֣י אִמִּ֔י כִּ֣י יְלִדְתִּ֗נִי אִ֥ישׁ רִ֛יב וְאִ֥ישׁ מָד֖וֹן לְכׇל־הָאָ֑רֶץ לֹֽא־נָשִׁ֥יתִי וְלֹא־נָֽשׁוּ־בִ֖י כֻּלֹּ֥ה מְקַֽלְלַֽוְנִי׃ {ס}         

English:

Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me— A man of conflict and strife with all the land! I have not lent, And I have not borrowed; Yet everyone curses me.

פסוק י״א · Verse 11

Hebrew:

אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֔ה אִם־לֹ֥א (שרותך) [שֵׁרִיתִ֖יךָ] לְט֑וֹב אִם־ל֣וֹא ׀ הִפְגַּ֣עְתִּֽי בְךָ֗ בְּעֵ֥ת רָעָ֛ה וּבְעֵ֥ת צָרָ֖ה אֶת־הָאֹיֵֽב׃

English:

GOD said: Surely, a mere remnant of you Will I spare for a better fate! By the enemy from the north In a time of distress and a time of disaster, Surely, I will have you struck down!

פסוק י״ב · Verse 12

Hebrew:

הֲיָרֹ֨עַ בַּרְזֶ֧ל ׀ בַּרְזֶ֛ל מִצָּפ֖וֹן וּנְחֹֽשֶׁת׃

English:

Can iron break iron and bronze?

פסוק י״ג · Verse 13

Hebrew:

חֵילְךָ֧ וְאוֹצְרוֹתֶ֛יךָ לָבַ֥ז אֶתֵּ֖ן לֹ֣א בִמְחִ֑יר וּבְכׇל־חַטֹּאותֶ֖יךָ וּבְכׇל־גְּבוּלֶֽיךָ׃

English:

I will hand over your wealth and your treasures As a spoil, free of charge, Because of all your sins throughout your territory.

פסוק י״ד · Verse 14

Hebrew:

וְהַֽעֲבַרְתִּי֙ אֶת־אֹ֣יְבֶ֔יךָ בְּאֶ֖רֶץ לֹ֣א יָדָ֑עְתָּ כִּי־אֵ֛שׁ קָדְחָ֥ה בְאַפִּ֖י עֲלֵיכֶ֥ם תּוּקָֽד׃ {ס}         

English:

And I will bring your enemies By way of a land you have not known. For a fire has flared in My wrath, It blazes against you.

פסוק ט״ו · Verse 15

Hebrew:

אַתָּ֧ה יָדַ֣עְתָּ יְהֹוָ֗ה זׇכְרֵ֤נִי וּפׇקְדֵ֙נִי֙ וְהִנָּ֤קֶם לִי֙ מֵרֹ֣דְפַ֔י אַל־לְאֶ֥רֶךְ אַפְּךָ֖ תִּקָּחֵ֑נִי דַּ֕ע שְׂאֵתִ֥י עָלֶ֖יךָ חֶרְפָּֽה׃

English:

O ETERNAL One, you know— Remember me and take thought of me, Avenge me on those who persecute me; Do not yield to Your patience, Do not let me perish! Consider how I have borne insult On Your account.

פסוק ט״ז · Verse 16

Hebrew:

נִמְצְא֤וּ דְבָרֶ֙יךָ֙ וָאֹ֣כְלֵ֔ם וַיְהִ֤י (דבריך) [דְבָֽרְךָ֙] לִ֔י לְשָׂשׂ֖וֹן וּלְשִׂמְחַ֣ת לְבָבִ֑י כִּֽי־נִקְרָ֤א שִׁמְךָ֙ עָלַ֔י יְהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֥י צְבָאֽוֹת׃ {ס}         

English:

When Your words were offered, I devoured them; Your word brought me the delight and joy Of knowing that Your name is attached to me, O ETERNAL One, God of Hosts.

פסוק י״ז · Verse 17

Hebrew:

לֹא־יָשַׁ֥בְתִּי בְסוֹד־מְשַׂחֲקִ֖ים וָאֶעְלֹ֑ז מִפְּנֵ֤י יָֽדְךָ֙ בָּדָ֣ד יָשַׁ֔בְתִּי כִּי־זַ֖עַם מִלֵּאתָֽנִי׃

English:

I have not sat in the company of revelers And made merry! I have sat lonely because of Your hand upon me, For You have filled me with gloom.

פסוק י״ח · Verse 18

Hebrew:

לָ֣מָּה הָיָ֤ה כְאֵבִי֙ נֶ֔צַח וּמַכָּתִ֖י אֲנוּשָׁ֑ה מֵֽאֲנָה֙ הֵרָפֵ֔א הָי֨וֹ תִהְיֶ֥ה לִי֙ כְּמ֣וֹ אַכְזָ֔ב מַ֖יִם לֹ֥א נֶאֱמָֽנוּ׃ {ס}         

English:

Why must my pain be endless, My wound incurable, Resistant to healing? You have been to me like a spring that fails, Like waters that cannot be relied on.

פסוק י״ט · Verse 19

Hebrew:

לָכֵ֞ן כֹּה־אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה אִם־תָּשׁ֤וּב וַאֲשִֽׁיבְךָ֙ לְפָנַ֣י תַּעֲמֹ֔ד וְאִם־תּוֹצִ֥יא יָקָ֛ר מִזּוֹלֵ֖ל כְּפִ֣י תִֽהְיֶ֑ה יָשֻׁ֤בוּ הֵ֙מָּה֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְאַתָּ֖ה לֹא־תָשׁ֥וּב אֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

English:

Assuredly, thus said GOD: If you turn back, I shall take you back And you shall stand before Me; If you produce what is noble Out of the worthless, You shall be My spokesman. They shall come back to you, Not you to them.

פסוק כ׳ · Verse 20

Hebrew:

וּנְתַתִּ֜יךָ לָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֗ה לְחוֹמַ֤ת נְחֹ֙שֶׁת֙ בְּצוּרָ֔ה וְנִלְחֲמ֥וּ אֵלֶ֖יךָ וְלֹא־י֣וּכְלוּ לָ֑ךְ כִּֽי־אִתְּךָ֥ אֲנִ֛י לְהוֹשִׁיעֲךָ֥ וּלְהַצִּילֶ֖ךָ נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃

English:

Against this people I will make you As a fortified wall of bronze: They will attack you, But they shall not overcome you, For I am with you to deliver and save you —declares GOD.

פסוק כ״א · Verse 21

Hebrew:

וְהִצַּלְתִּ֖יךָ מִיַּ֣ד רָעִ֑ים וּפְדִתִ֖יךָ מִכַּ֥ף עָרִצִֽים׃ {ס}         

English:

I will save you from the hands of the wicked And rescue you from the clutches of the violent.

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