Bible Strands
Jeremiah 23:10
For the land is full of adulterers—because of the curse, the land mourns and the pastures of the wilderness have dried up—their course is evil and their power is misused.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses Judah concerning the moral decay of its religious leaders, immediately following his description of his own physical distress over God’s holy words.
The words — מְנָאֲפִים (me.na'apim) translates to "adulterers," and אָבְלָה ('avlah) means "it has dried up," describing the land’s desolate condition.
The thread — The link between covenant failure and environmental ruin appears in Psalms 107:34 and Hosea 4:2, which catalogs the identical sins, while Hosea 4:3 explicitly ties those sins to the land’s mourning.
Why it lands — The passage requires readers to recognize that communal idolatry and ethical corruption directly trigger ecological and social collapse, leaving no basis for spiritual complacency.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.
Cross-references
- Psalms 107:34 and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Hosea 4:2 Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
- Jeremiah 5:7 “Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.
- Jeremiah 9:2 If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
- Jeremiah 9:10 I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
- Malachi 3:5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- Isaiah 24:6 Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.
- Ezekiel 22:9 Among you are slanderous men bent on bloodshed; within you are those who eat on the mountain shrines and commit acts of indecency.
- Jeremiah 7:9 Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known,
- Jeremiah 12:3 But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage.