While I am loath to discuss only a portion of a verse or a few words, but I must start this writing with:
“I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not attended unto My words, and as for My teaching, they have rejected it.”
The evil in this partial text is the “Fruit of their thoughts”(JPS1917) or “The outcome of their own schemes”(JPS 1999). Often we read the evil or curse as something which G-D decrees upon us. This allows us to blame G-D for the tragedies in out lives, which HE could do. In reality I find that G-D stops my plans or says NO to my prayers, but when looking back I realize that, had my desires and plans been successful, I would have been much worse off than I am now. So, I have been protected from myself.
In this text I believed that it demonstrates that we are our own punishment. So why are we being punished in this fashion? Now I will show you the text from JPS 1917 version.
Jeremiah chapter 6:
“16 Thus saith the LORD: stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said: ‘We will not walk therein.’
17 And I set watchmen over you: ‘Attend to the sound of the horn’, but they said: ‘We will not attend.’
18 Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is against them.
19 Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not attended unto My words, and as for My teaching, they have rejected it.”
My comments regarding what I see or find interesting, rather than the fact that I find all of it interesting. In “rest for your souls” does this mean that at the very least my soul will be blessed even if my physical body is not blessed? (Blessed with money, power, fame, glory, . . . . ) See == to know or understand. “Stand Ye in the ways” means seek to understand. “Old paths” a well test path with evidence of outcome, dare I say Writings of Moses and the prophets. “Attend to the horn”, horn was used to sound the alarm of danger.
For me I can understand this to mean that “Deuteronomy 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, 16 in that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances;” or choose the LORD in every choice you make and keep HIS laws and ordinances.
Yaakov