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Matthew
	English: Douay-Rheims	Latin: Vulgata Clementina	Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
	Matthew 13
10.	And his disciples came and said to him: Why speakest thou to them in parables?	Et accedentes discipuli dixerunt ei : Quare in parabolis loqueris eis ?	και προσελθοντες οι μαθηται ειπον αυτω δια τι εν παραβολαις λαλεις αυτοις
11.	Who answered and said to them: Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: but to them it is not given.	Qui respondens, ait illis : Quia vobis datum est nosse mysteria regni cælorum : illis autem non est datum.	ο δε αποκριθεις ειπεν αυτοις οτι υμιν δεδοται γνωναι τα μυστηρια της βασιλειας των ουρανων εκεινοις δε ου δεδοται
12.	For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath.	Qui enim habet, dabitur ei, et abundabit : qui autem non habet, et quod habet auferetur ab eo.	οστις γαρ εχει δοθησεται αυτω και περισσευθησεται οστις δε ουκ εχει και ο εχει αρθησεται απ αυτου
13.	Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.	Ideo in parabolis loquor eis : quia videntes non vident, et audientes non audiunt, neque intelligunt.	δια τουτο εν παραβολαις αυτοις λαλω οτι βλεποντες ου βλεπουσιν και ακουοντες ουκ ακουουσιν ουδε συνιουσιν
14.	And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive.	Et adimpletur in eis prophetia Isaiæ, dicentis : Auditu audietis, et non intelligetis : et videntes videbitis, et non videbitis.	και αναπληρουται αυτοις η προφητεια ησαιου η λεγουσα ακοη ακουσετε και ου μη συνητε και βλεποντες βλεψετε και ου μη ιδητε
15.	For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.	Incrassatum est enim cor populi hujus, et auribus graviter audierunt, et oculos suos clauserunt : nequando videant oculis, et auribus audiant, et corde intelligant, et convertantur, et sanem eos.	επαχυνθη γαρ η καρδια του λαου τουτου και τοις ωσιν βαρεως ηκουσαν και τους οφθαλμους αυτων εκαμμυσαν μηποτε ιδωσιν τοις οφθαλμοις και τοις ωσιν ακουσωσιν και τη καρδια συνωσιν και επιστρεψωσιν και ιασομαι αυτους
16.	But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.	Vestri autem beati oculi quia vident, et aures vestræ quia audiunt.	υμων δε μακαριοι οι οφθαλμοι οτι βλεπουσιν και τα ωτα υμων οτι ακουει
17.	For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them.	Amen quippe dico vobis, quia multi prophetæ et justi cupierunt videre quæ videtis, et non viderunt : et audire quæ auditis, et non audierunt.	αμην γαρ λεγω υμιν οτι πολλοι προφηται και δικαιοι επεθυμησαν ιδειν α βλεπετε και ουκ ειδον και ακουσαι α ακουετε και ουκ ηκουσαν

Navarre Bible Commentary (RSV)

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From: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13

When Israel was devout, it had nothing to fear

------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] The word of the Lord came to me, saying, [2] ”Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,

I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. [3] Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it became guilty; evil came upon them, says the Lord.”

[7] And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. [8] The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit.

[12] Be appalled. O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, [13] for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

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Commentary:

2:1-25:38. Most of the oracles are in verse in this part of the book, but there are some prose passages. It is possible that the scroll containing the earliest oracles (which was burnt in 605 by order of King Jehoiakim: cf. 36:2l-23) was made up largely of the poems found in this part (2:1-25:38). They would have been arranged in some sort of thematic order with an eye, too, on chronology.

In the first ten chapters, the oracles turn on the two great themes of the two introductory visions. Firstly, in connexion with the vision of the root of almond (1:11-12), we get a summary of the sins that the prophet has noticed in his role as watchman: Israel and Judah have forsaken the Lord; therefore they must be chastised. God has been faithful, but the people have rejected him; this wrong must be righted without delay--unless there is a genuine change of heart (2:1-4:4). Secondly, in connexion with the vision of the boiling pot facing away from the north (1:13-19), we get oracles threatening destruction from that quarter (4:5-10:25).

>From chapter 11 on, prose passages appear with greater frequency, and Jeremiah’s symbolic actions begin to have a higher profile. The prophet has personal experience of suffering, and his cries for help epitomize the way the people feel when they are struck down by misfortune in punishment for their sins (11:1-20:18). This part of the book ends with a severe indictment of those who ought to have given leadership but failed to do so (21:1-25:38).

All of this first part of the book is a severe warning to the people of Jerusalem and the entire kingdom of Judah. Even so, divine mercy can still be discerned: there is a prospect of forgiveness and salvation.

2:1-4:4. The oracles contained in this section were spoken early in Jeremiah’s ministry, during the reign of Josiah, and possibly before that king set in train his religious reform (for nowhere does Jeremiah refer to it). This means that they would date from the period 627-622 BC. The difference is clearly drawn (3:6-11) between Israel, the Northern kingdom, whose capital was Samaria, and which had fallen to Assyria in 722, and Judah, the Southern kingdom, whose capital was Jerusalem. Assyria had been in control of Israel for some one hundred years, but now it was in decline; and Josiah, king of Judah, was trying to re-establish national unity on all levels – social, political and religious. His efforts would culminate in the great religious reform that began in 622 and which sought to centralize all ritual religious worship in Jerusalem.

The oracles in this section are set in this historical background. The earliest, those conserved in verse form, were spoken by Jeremiah himself and exude the vitality and pain of someone who was an eyewitness. The passages that now appear in prose may well have been added later, when the book was being rewritten after the first manuscript was burned (cf. 36:21-23). These oracles are a warning about sin, about the punishment that it draws down, and about the need for personal conversion in order to attain salvation. The text as it now stands makes it clear that the misfortune that overtook the people of Israel was due to their unfaithfulness to God (2:1-37). Even so, the Lord calls all to conversion; if they respond, he will restore peace and unity to the people (3:1-4:4).

2:1-37. The oracles in this chapter follow the pattern of pleadings used in the ancient Middle East when pacts or alliances were broken. First, the accused party and the witnesses are apprised of the subject of the dispute used. Then the benefits enjoyed by the accused are spelt out; he, for his part, should have adhered to what he agreed in the covenant. This is followed by a list of charges, often couched in the form of questions: and then at the end comes a demand for immediate action to be taken to set things right. If no agreement is arrived at, a declaration of war inevitably follows.

The word of the Lord here is not that of a judge but of one of the two parties who made the Covenant and has been deceived by the unfaithfulness of the other. The prophet begins by reminding the people of all the benefits they received from God during the time that they were faithful to him. In the early days, as they made their way through the wilderness, they had a loving relationship with the Lord, and he took care of them (vv. 1-3); he rescued them from Egypt and brought them to the land promised to them as their inheritance (cf. Hos 1-3). However, instead of staying true to the Lord, the Israelites forsook him and fell lower than other nations (symbolized here by the peoples of the Aegean, “the coasts of Cyprus”, and the Arab lands, “Kedar”: v. 10). Their religion centred on a personal God who took provident care of his followers, yet they turned their backs on him to worship Baal and other gods, who are quite worthless (vv. 6-7). They may form alliances with earthly powers in the hope of getting help, but to no avail.

Even the language that Jeremiah uses shows that Israel has been distancing itself from God (he is upbraiding Israel, to have Judah react). In the opening verses he addresses his people using the familiar form of the word “you” (vv. 2-3), then he changes to the formal “you” (vv. 4-10), and eventually uses the third person (vv. 11-15). Only in the second part of these oracles does the familiar form return, when he reproves the people, to get them to mend their ways (v. 16-37).

The metaphor of the leaking cisterns (v. 13) conveys very well just how ineffective are Israel’s pacts with foreign nations. In Jeremiah’s time, there was a lot of debate about whether or not to make alliances with Assyria or Egypt to ensure survival in the face of hostile foreign powers. The prophet regards such pacts as being of no real use, but he also points to the danger of idolatry that may arise through contact with foreigners. Hence the sarcasm in vv. 16-18: Memphis and Tahpanhes, were two cities on the Lower Nile; “the Euphrates”: literally, “River” (no definite article) in Hebrew. The people’s fascination with the waters and lands of Egypt and Assyria indicates the pull exercised by those great powers on Israel. God had taken care of his people, he had given them a beautiful land of their own, yet Israel had turned away from him and gone after idols -- infidelity leading to idolatry (vv. 4-27). Yet Israel will not acknowledge that it has done wrong, so the Lord accuses the people of their sins and warns them that if they don’t change they will be brought low (vv. 28-37).

2:13. The image of the broken cisterns that cannot hold water is used again and again in Christian writing as an example of the condition of man when, instead of trusting in the Lord, he relies on himself or on earthly things. St Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, advises us to look for really solid support: “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God: and where the Spirit is. there is the Church and all grace. The Spirit is truth. Those who are not possessed of the Spirit are not suckled at their mother’s breast to give them life, nor do they draw from the living waters that flow from the body of Christ: they hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, and drink stagnant water. They abandon the faith of the Church and are no longer protected; they reject the Spirit and are not enlightened. Having departed from the way of truth, they are overcome by every error; they can find no sure footing. Their beliefs change from one moment to the next, and they never come to any conclusion because they would rather be the masters of words than followers of the truth. They do not build on rock, but on sand” (Adversus haereses, 3, 24, 1-2).

For his part, St John of the Cross applies the image to those who neglect God in their insatiable desire for possessions. “Their appetite grows and their thirst increases the further they find themselves from the only source that can satisfy them, who is God. God himself said of them through Jeremiah his prophet: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. What they drink in created things cannot satisfy their thirst, but only increases it. They sin in a thousand ways through their love for created things, and do themselves incalculable harm” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 3, 19, 7).