The King James Version Bible

Letter of Jeremiah 6:30-43

  1. For how can they be called gods? because women set meat before the gods of silver, gold, and wood.

  2. And the priests sit in their temples, having their clothes rent, and their heads and beards shaven, and nothing upon their heads.

  3. They roar and cry before their gods, as men do at the feast when one is dead.

  4. The priests also take off their garments, and clothe their wives and children.

  5. Whether it be evil that one doeth unto them, or good, they are not able to recompense it: they can neither set up a king, nor put him down.

  6. In like manner, they can neither give riches nor money: though a man make a vow unto them, and keep it not, they will not require it.

  7. They can save no man from death, neither deliver the weak from the mighty.

  8. They cannot restore a blind man to his sight, nor help any man in his distress.

  9. They can shew no mercy to the widow, nor do good to the fatherless.

  10. Their gods of wood, and which are overlaid with gold and silver, are like the stones that be hewn out of the mountain: they that worship them shall be confounded.

  11. How should a man then think and say that they are gods, when even the Chaldeans themselves dishonour them?

  12. Who if they shall see one dumb that cannot speak, they bring him, and intreat Bel that he may speak, as though he were able to understand.

  13. Yet they cannot understand this themselves, and leave them: for they have no knowledge.

  14. The women also with cords about them, sitting in the ways, burn bran for perfume: but if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with him, she reproacheth her fellow, that she was not thought as worthy as herself, nor her cord broken.