Jeremiah Chapter 2 verse 13 Holy Bible
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
read chapter 2 in ASV
For my people have done two evils; they have given up me, the fountain of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water.
read chapter 2 in BBE
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew them out cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water.
read chapter 2 in DARBY
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
read chapter 2 in KJV
read chapter 2 in WBT
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
read chapter 2 in WEB
For two evils hath My people done, Me they have forsaken, a fountain of living waters, To hew out for themselves wells -- broken wells, That contain not the waters.
read chapter 2 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - Two evils. Israel has not merely offended, like the heathen, by idolatry, but by deserting the only God who can satisfy the needs of human nature. The fountain of living waters. So Jeremiah 17:13 (comp. Psalm 36:9). Fountain; literally, tank or reservoir. Such reservoirs were "dug in the ground (see on Jeremiah 6:7), and chiefly intended for storing living waters, i.e. those of springs and rivulets" (Payne Smith). Cisterns, broken cisterns. A cistern, by its very nature, will only hold a limited amount, and the water "collected from clay roofs or from marly soil, has the color of weak soapsuds, the taste of the earth or the stable." Who would prefer such an impure supply to the sweet, wholesome water of a fountain? But these cisterns cannot even be depended upon for this poor, turbid drink. They are "broken," like so many even of the best rock-hewn cisterns (Thomson, 'The Land and the Book,' p. 287). How fine a description of the combined attractiveness and disappointingness of heathen religions, qualities the more striking in proportion to the scale on which the religions problem is realized (e.g. in Hinduism)!
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) The fountain of living waters.--The word rendered "well," as in Proverbs 10:11; Proverbs 18:4; "fountain," as in Psalm 36:9, is used of water flowing from the rock. The "cistern," on the other hand, was a tank for surface water. A word identical in sound and meaning, though differently spelt, is variously rendered by "pit," "well," or "cistern."
