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Jeremiah 16

Jeremiah’s restricted life signals coming judgment, while God promises return and declares that the nations will know his name.

YHWH tells Jeremiah to remain unmarried and stay away from houses of mourning and feasting. His absence signals the coming collapse of family and communal life through death and exile. When the people ask why disaster is coming, Jeremiah must name their idolatry and refusal to listen. A promise of return interrupts the warnings, yet judgment remains certain. Jeremiah then addresses God as his refuge and foresees nations confessing the worthlessness of their inherited gods.

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1Then the LORD’s word came to me, saying,
2“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”
3For the LORD 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:
4“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”
5For the LORD says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says the LORD, “even loving kindness and tender mercies.
6Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.
7Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
8“You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.”
9For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
10It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’
11then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says the LORD, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law.
12You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me.
13Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
14“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that it will no more be said, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’
15but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
17For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.
18First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
19LORD, my strength, my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.
20Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?”
21“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.”
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Jeremiah 16:19Jeremiah names YHWH as his refuge and foresees distant nations acknowledging the emptiness of their inherited gods.
Jeremiah 16:17God’s sight reaches every hiding place, explaining why the people cannot escape accountability for their ways.
Jeremiah 16:4The unburied dead reveal the severity of the coming disaster and explain the command against Jeremiah’s marriage.
Where this chapter reaches

Deuteronomy and Ezekiel share Jeremiah’s warnings that abandoning YHWH for other gods brings judgment and exile, alongside promises of gathering the scattered people. Isaiah shares the expectation that nations will turn toward YHWH and acknowledge the worthlessness of idols.

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After reading the whole chapter

What stands out to you about Jeremiah calling God his refuge amid these warnings?

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How does the promise of return affect your reading of the judgment surrounding it?

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Questions people ask about Jeremiah 16

Why did God tell Jeremiah not to marry?

The command concerns Jeremiah’s life in the place facing judgment. Verses 3–4 explain that parents and children will die through devastating calamity, with bodies left unburied. His unmarried life becomes part of the warning, alongside his absence from mourning and feasting. The passage establishes no general ban on marriage.

Who are the fishermen and hunters in Jeremiah 16:16?

The fishermen and hunters picture agents whom God sends to catch people wherever they hide. Their identities are not named. Although the image follows a promise of return, verses 17–18 connect it with exposed sin and punishment, making an inescapable search for judgment the strongest reading in context.

What does Jeremiah 16 say about Israel returning from exile?

Verses 14–15 promise that God will bring Israel back from the north and from every country where he has driven them. This return will become a defining account of God’s deliverance, surpassing the exodus from Egypt in the people’s speech. The promise appears amid warnings that judgment must still come.

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Jeremiah · 52 chapters
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).