ey--"We heed not!"
Therefore, O nations, hearken, 18
And own My record against them (?)(253)
Hear thou, O Earth, 19
Lo, evil I bring to this people,
The fruit of their own devices,(254)
Since they have not heeded My Word,
And My Law have despised.
To Me what is incense that cometh from Sheba, 20
Sweet-cane from a far-off land?
Your holocausts are not acceptable,
Nor your sacrifice pleasing.
Therefore thus hath the Lord said: 21
Behold I set for this people
Blocks upon which to stumble;
Fathers and children together,
Neighbour and friend shall perish.

None of the foregoing brief and separate Oracles diverts from the moral
theme of all these earlier utterances of the Prophet, that Judah's
afflictions, whether from Nature or from invaders, are due to her own
wickedness. And this record even the foreign peoples are called to
witness--another proof that from the first Jeremiah had a sense of a
mission to _the nations_ as well as to his own countrymen.

7. There follows the Seventh, the last of the Songs which may be referred
to the Scythian invasion, Ch. VI. 22-26. It repeats the distance from
which, in the fateful North, those hordes have been _stirred_ to their
work of judgment, their ruthlessness and terrific tumult, the panic they
produce, and bitter mourning. The usual formula introduces the verses.

22. Thus hath the Lord said:

Lo, a people comes out of the North,
A nation(255) astir from the ends of the earth,
The bow and the javelin they grasp, 23
Cruel and ruthless,
The noise of them booms like the sea,
On horses they ride--
Arrayed as one man for the battle
On thee, O Daughter of Sion!
We have heard their fame, 24
Limp are our hands;
Anguish hath gripped us,
Pangs as of travail.
Fare not forth to the field, 25
Nor walk on the way,
For the sword of a foe,
Terror all round!
Daughter of My people, gird on thee sackcloth 26
And wallow in ashes!
Mourn as for an only-begotten,
Wail of the bitterest!
For of a sudden there cometh
The spoiler upon us.(256)

This is the last of Jeremiah's Oracles on the Scythians. There is little
or no doubt of their date--before 621-20. What knowledge of this new people
and their warfare the Prophet displays! What conscience of the ethical
purpose of the Lord o