Back to Jeremiah 8

Jeremiah 8:10

Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.

  • KJV King James Version

    Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall possess them; for from the least even unto the greatest every one is greedy for gain, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

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Cross-references (18)

Passages linked to Jeremiah 8:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • Jeremiah 6:12-13 Their houses will be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh.” “For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness. From the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.
  • Ezekiel 33:31 They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain.
  • Deuteronomy 28:30-32 You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.
  • Isaiah 28:7 They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment.
  • Isaiah 56:10-12 His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. “Come,” say they, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”
  • Jeremiah 23:11-17 for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says Yahweh. Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh. “I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” Yahweh of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh. They say continually to those who despise me, ‘Yahweh has said, “You will have peace;” ’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’
  • Ezekiel 22:27-28 Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘The Lord Yahweh says,’ when Yahweh has not spoken.
  • Amos 5:11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
  • Zephaniah 1:13 Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.
  • Titus 1:11 whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake.
  • Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
  • Jeremiah 23:25-26 “I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?
  • Jeremiah 32:32 because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger: they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
  • Lamentations 4:13 It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.
  • Micah 3:5 Yahweh says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
  • Micah 3:11 Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”
  • Titus 1:7 For the overseer must be blameless, as God’s steward, not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain;
  • 2 Peter 2:1-3 But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

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Explain this verse (14 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain GOD here threatens punishment, because he found that he…

GOD here threatens punishment, because he found that he effected nothing, and that he had to do with an obstinate people, having before tried whether they were reclaimable. Having seen that exhortations were of no avail, he now comes to extreme severity, I will give, he says, their wives to strangers. He sets forth, by a particular instance, the evils which usually accompany wars: and nothing is more distressing than when the wife is snatched away from her husband; for if husbands had their option, they would prefer instant death than to bear such a disgrace. Jeremiah then shews that the most atrocious thing that happens to conquered nations was nigh the Jews, — that their men would be deprived of their wives. He afterwards says the same thing of their fields; God declares that he would give the fields to their possessors. By this mode of speaking he intimates, that they would be deprived of their fields, not for a short time, but perpetually.

There is, indeed, a contrast here implied: for it sometimes happens, that enemies prevail and plunder everything; but yet they take no long possession of the fields, for a change succeeds: but when he calls enemies possessors, he means that there would be such a calamity, that the Jews would for a long time, even for their life, be banished from their country, and would lose their possessions. They thought that the land was so given to them, that it could never be taken from them: and doubtless the Lord would have never expelled them, had they not defiled it with their pollutions; but as they had polluted it by their sins, they deserved to be banished from it. So the Prophet shews that their confidence was absurd, in thinking that they would be the perpetual inheritors of that land: “Succeed you, “he says, “shall others, who shall possess it as it were by an hereditary right.” We now perceive the Prophet’s meaning.

Read full note →

He afterwards mentions the reason why God had resolved to deal so severely with them, For they are, he says, from the least to the greatest given up to avarice He means that no equity prevailed among the people; for under one kind of sin he includes all frauds and plunders, and every kind of injustice. He then says, that every one was addicted to his own gain, so that they practiced mutual wrongs without any regard to what was right and just.

He then enlarges on the subject and says, that all, from the prophet to the priest, acted deceitfully There is here also a part mentioned for the whole. But Jeremiah in various ways sets forth the wrongs by which men harassed one another. Nor does he exclude violence when he speaks of fraud; but it is the same as though he said, that they, being forgetful of what was right, practiced fraud of every kind. It was, indeed, a dreadful thing, that there remained no rectitude or justice in the prophets and the priests, who ought to have carried light for others, and to have shewn to them the right way, as God had constituted them to be the leaders of the people. Since, then, even these acted deceitfully, there must have been among the common people the most disgraceful injustice. Hence the Prophet shews by these words, that God could not be charged with too much rigor, as though he treated the people cruelly; for there was such a mass of wickedness, that it could no longer be borne. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 8:10 Therefore will I give their wives unto…
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Therefore will I give their wives unto others,.... To…
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 10. Therefore will I give their wives] From…
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 8:10-12. Therefore will I give their wives unto…
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain These verses are almost identical with Jer 6:12-15.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Others. Idumeans, &c. Yet most part of the land…
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Repeated from Jer 6:12-15. See a similar repetition, Jer…
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 10-12. Were they ashamed — Identical with Jer_6:12-15, but…
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10–12. See summary at commencement of section. These verses…
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (10-12) Every one from the least . . .—The…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 10-12. These verses are almost the same as…
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 8:10-12 These verses repeat 6:13-15.

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