Jeremiah

¹The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. ²Yahweh’s word came to him in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. ³It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. ⁴Now Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

⁵“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

⁶Then I said, “Ah, Lord ” Yahweh! Behold, I don’t know how to speak; for I am a child.”

⁷But Yahweh said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for you must go to whomever I send you, and you must say whatever I command you. ⁸Don’t be afraid because of them, for I am with you to rescue you,” says Yahweh.

⁹Then Yahweh stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. Then Yahweh said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰Behold, I have today set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

¹¹Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?”

¹²Then Yahweh said to me, “You have seen well; for I watch over my word to perform it.”

¹³Yahweh’s word came to me the second time, saying, “What do you see?”

¹⁴Then Yahweh said to me, “Out of the north, evil will break out on all the inhabitants of the land. ¹⁵For behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says Yahweh.

¹⁶I will utter my judgments against them concerning all their wickedness,

¹⁷“You therefore put your belt on your waist, arise, and say to them all that I command you. Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I dismay you before them. ¹⁸For behold, I have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. ¹⁹They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you; for I am with you”, says Yahweh, “to rescue you.”

¹Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ²“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says,

³Israel was holiness to Yahweh,

⁴Hear Yahweh’s word, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel! ⁵Yahweh says,

⁶They didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,

⁷I brought you into a plentiful land

⁸The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’

⁹“Therefore I will yet contend with you,” says Yahweh,

¹⁰For pass over to the islands of Kittim, and see.

¹¹Has a nation changed its gods,

¹²“Be astonished, you heavens, at this

¹³“For my people have committed two evils:

¹⁴Is Israel a slave?

¹⁵The young lions have roared at him and raised their voices.

¹⁶The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.

¹⁷“Haven’t you brought this on yourself,

¹⁸Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor?

¹⁹“Your own wickedness will correct you,

²⁰“For long ago I broke off your yoke,

²¹Yet I had planted you a noble vine,

¹“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says Yahweh.

²“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness. ³Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed. ⁴Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth!’?

⁵“‘Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.”

⁶Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there. ⁷I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to me;’ but she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear, but she also went and played the prostitute. ⁹Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood. ¹⁰Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says Yahweh.

¹¹Yahweh said to me, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. ¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says Yahweh; ‘I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful,’ says Yahweh. ‘I will not keep anger forever. ¹³Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’” says Yahweh. ¹⁴“Return, backsliding children,” says Yahweh, “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. ¹⁵I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶It will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says Yahweh, “they will no longer say, ‘the ark of Yahweh’s covenant!’ It will not come to mind. They won’t remember it. They won’t miss it, nor will another be made. ¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘Yahweh’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Yahweh’s name, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

¹⁹“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

²⁰“Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. ²¹A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.

¹“If you will return, Israel,” says Yahweh, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed; ²and you will swear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations will bless themselves in him, and they will glory in him.”

³For Yahweh says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns. ⁴Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. ⁵Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’ ⁶Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.”

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant. ⁸For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us. ⁹“It will happen at that day,” says Yahweh, “that the heart of the king will perish, along with the heart of the princes. The priests will be astonished, and the prophets will wonder.”

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace;’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart.”

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind blows from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse. ¹²A full wind from these will come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.”

¹³Behold, he will come up as clouds, and his chariots will be as the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined. ¹⁴Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you? ¹⁵For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes evil from the hills of Ephraim: ¹⁶“Tell the nations, behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah. ¹⁷As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me,’” says Yahweh. ¹⁸“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment. ²¹How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

¹“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there is anyone who does justly, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her. ²Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”

³O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

⁴Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know Yahweh’s way, nor the law of their God. ⁵I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. ⁶Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

⁷“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses. ⁸They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife. ⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁰“Go up on her walls, and destroy, but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches, for they are not Yahweh’s. ¹¹For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” says Yahweh.

¹²They have denied Yahweh, and said, “It is not he. Evil won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine. ¹³The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”

¹⁴Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them. ¹⁵Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say. ¹⁶Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men. ¹⁷They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

¹⁸“But even in those days,” says Yahweh, “I will not make a full end of you. ¹⁹It will happen when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

²⁰“Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, ²¹‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:

¹“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem, for evil looks out from the north with a great destruction. ²I will cut off the beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion. ³Shepherds with their flocks will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

⁴“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. ⁵Arise! Let’s go up by night, and let’s destroy her palaces.” ⁶For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the city to be visited. She is filled with oppression within herself. ⁷As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me. ⁸Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

⁹Yahweh of Armies says, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”

¹⁰To whom should I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, Yahweh’s word has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. ¹¹Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding it in.

¹²Their houses will be turned to others,

¹³“For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness.

¹⁴They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially,

¹⁵Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?

¹⁶Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ¹⁷I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’ ¹⁸Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them. ¹⁹Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. ²⁰To what purpose does frankincense from Sheba come to me, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.”

²¹Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.”

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’”

³Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. ⁴Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’ ⁵For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; ⁶if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt, ⁷then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. ⁸Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. ⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations? ¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says Yahweh.

¹²“But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; ¹⁴therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring

¹⁶“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. ¹⁹Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

²⁰Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

²¹Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat.

¹“At that time,” says Yahweh, “they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. ²They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth. ³Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says Yahweh of Armies. ⁴“Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says:

⁵Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding?

⁶I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right.

⁷Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times.

⁸“‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?”

⁹The wise men are disappointed.

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to others

¹¹They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying,

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?

¹³“‘I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh.

¹⁴“Why do we sit still?

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came;

¹⁶The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan.

¹⁷“For, behold, I will send serpents,

¹⁸Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow!

¹⁹Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off:

²⁰“The harvest is past.

²¹For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt.

¹Oh that my head were waters,

²Oh that I had in the wilderness

³“They bend their tongue,

⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbor,

⁵Friends deceive each other,

⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit.

⁷Therefore Yahweh of Armies says,

⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow.

⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says Yahweh.

¹⁰I will weep and wail for the mountains,

¹¹“I will make Jerusalem heaps,

¹²Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

¹³Yahweh says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways, ¹⁴but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.” ¹⁵Therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. ¹⁶I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

¹⁷Yahweh of Armies says,

¹⁸Let them make haste

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,

²⁰Yet hear Yahweh’s word, you women.

¹Hear the word which Yahweh speaks to you, house of Israel! ²Yahweh says,

³For the customs of the peoples are vanity;

⁴They deck it with silver and with gold.

⁵They are like a palm tree, of turned work,

⁶There is no one like you, Yahweh.

⁷Who shouldn’t fear you,

⁸But they are together brutish and foolish,

⁹There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish,

¹⁰But Yahweh is the true God.

¹¹“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’”

¹²God has made the earth by his power.

¹³When he utters his voice,

¹⁴Every man has become brutish and without knowledge.

¹⁵They are vanity, a work of delusion.

¹⁶The portion of Jacob is not like these;

¹⁷Gather up your wares out of the land,

¹⁸For Yahweh says,

¹⁹Woe is me because of my injury!

²⁰My tent has been destroyed,

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²“Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; ³and say to them, Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Cursed is the man who doesn’t hear the words of this covenant, ⁴which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace,’ saying, ‘Obey my voice and do them, according to all which I command you; so you shall be my people, and I will be your God; ⁵that I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as it is today.”

⁶Yahweh said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Hear the words of this covenant, and do them. ⁷For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, rising early and protesting, saying, “Obey my voice.” ⁸Yet they didn’t obey, nor turn their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of their evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they didn’t do them.’”

⁹Yahweh said to me, “A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁰They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. ¹¹Therefore Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on them which they will not be able to escape; and they will cry to me, but I will not listen to them. ¹²Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble. ¹³For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.’

¹⁴“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to me because of their trouble.

¹⁵What has my beloved to do in my house,

¹⁶Yahweh called your name, “A green olive tree,

¹⁷For Yahweh of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense to Baal.

¹⁸Yahweh gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it. Then you showed me their doings. ¹⁹But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plans against me, saying,

²⁰But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously,

²¹“Therefore Yahweh says concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy in Yahweh’s name, that you not die by our hand’—

¹You are righteous, Yahweh,

²You have planted them. Yes, they have taken root.

³But you, Yahweh, know me.

⁴How long will the land mourn,

⁵“If you have run with the footmen,

⁶For even your brothers, and the house of your father,

⁷“I have forsaken my house.

⁸My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest.

⁹Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey?

¹⁰Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard.

¹¹They have made it a desolation.

¹²Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness;

¹³They have sown wheat,

¹⁴Yahweh says, “Concerning all my evil neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. ¹⁵It will happen that after I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them. I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. ¹⁶It will happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, ‘As Yahweh lives;’ even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the middle of my people. ¹⁷But if they will not hear, then I will pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it,” says Yahweh.

¹Yahweh said to me, “Go, and buy yourself a linen belt, and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water.”

²So I bought a belt according to Yahweh’s word, and put it on my waist.

³Yahweh’s word came to me the second time, saying, ⁴“Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”

⁵So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me.

⁶After many days, Yahweh said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there.”

⁷Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was ruined. It was profitable for nothing.

⁸Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ⁹“Yahweh says, ‘In this way I will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. ¹⁰This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and have gone after other gods to serve them and to worship them, will even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing. ¹¹For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me,’ says Yahweh; ‘that they may be to me for a people, for a name, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’

¹²“Therefore you shall speak to them this word: ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel says, “Every container should be filled with wine.”’ They will tell you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every container should be filled with wine?’ ¹³Then tell them, ‘Yahweh says, “Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. ¹⁴I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says Yahweh: “I will not pity, spare, or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.”’”

¹⁵Hear, and give ear.

¹⁶Give glory to Yahweh your God,

¹⁷But if you will not hear it,

¹⁸Say to the king and to the queen mother,

¹⁹The cities of the South are shut up,

²⁰Lift up your eyes,

²¹What will you say when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you?

¹This is Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

²“Judah mourns,

³Their nobles send their little ones to the waters.

⁴Because of the ground which is cracked,

⁵Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young,

⁶The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights.

⁷Though our iniquities testify against us,

⁸You hope of Israel,

⁹Why should you be like a scared man,

¹⁰Yahweh says to this people:

¹¹Yahweh said to me, “Don’t pray for this people for their good. ¹²When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

¹³Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, the prophets tell them, ‘You will not see the sword, neither will you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’”

¹⁴Then Yahweh said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. ¹⁵Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. ¹⁶The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

¹⁷“You shall say this word to them:

¹⁸If I go out into the field,

¹⁹Have you utterly rejected Judah?

²⁰We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness,

²¹Do not abhor us, for your name’s sake.

¹Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out! ²It will happen when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says:

³“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. ⁴I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

⁵For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

⁶You have rejected me,” says Yahweh.

⁷I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land.

⁸Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas.

⁹She who has borne seven languishes.

¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife,

¹¹Yahweh said,

¹²Can one break iron,

¹³I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder without price,

¹⁴I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know;

¹⁵Yahweh, you know.

¹⁶Your words were found,

¹⁷I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice.

¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual,

¹⁹Therefore Yahweh says,

²⁰I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall.

²¹“I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,

¹Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ²“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.” ³For Yahweh says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: ⁴“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

⁵For Yahweh says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says Yahweh, “even loving kindness and tender mercies. ⁶Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them. ⁷Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

⁸“You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” ⁹For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. ¹⁰It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity?’ or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’ ¹¹then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says Yahweh, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. ¹²You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me. ¹³Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

¹⁴“Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that it will no more be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ ¹⁵but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

¹⁹Yahweh, my strength, my stronghold,

²⁰Should a man make to himself gods

²¹“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know,

¹“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron,

²Even their children remember their altars

³My mountain in the field,

⁴You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you.

⁵Yahweh says:

⁶For he will be like a bush in the desert,

⁷“Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh,

⁸For he will be as a tree planted by the waters,

⁹The heart is deceitful above all things

¹⁰“I, Yahweh, search the mind.

¹¹As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid,

¹²A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning,

¹³Yahweh, the hope of Israel,

¹⁴Heal me, O Yahweh, and I will be healed.

¹⁵Behold, they ask me,

¹⁶As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you.

¹⁷Don’t be a terror to me.

¹⁸Let them be disappointed who persecute me,

¹⁹Yahweh said this to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. ²⁰Tell them, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, you kings of Judah, all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.”

³Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels. ⁴When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ⁶“House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says Yahweh. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. ⁷At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it, ⁸if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them. ⁹At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, ¹⁰if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they not obey my voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would benefit them.

¹¹“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a plan against you. Everyone return from his evil way now, and amend your ways and your doings.”’ ¹²But they say, ‘It is in vain; for we will walk after our own plans, and we will each follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”

¹³Therefore Yahweh says:

¹⁴Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field?

¹⁵For my people have forgotten me.

¹⁶to make their land an astonishment,

¹⁷I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy.

¹⁸Then they said, “Come! Let’s devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law won’t perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let’s strike him with the tongue, and let’s not give heed to any of his words.”

¹⁹Give heed to me, Yahweh,

²⁰Should evil be recompensed for good?

¹Thus said Yahweh, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests; ²and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you. ³Say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle. ⁴Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods that they didn’t know—they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah—and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind. ⁶Therefore, behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.

⁷“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ⁸I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. ⁹I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

¹⁰“Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you, ¹¹and shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. ¹²This is what I will do to this place,” says Yahweh, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.”’”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where Yahweh had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of Yahweh’s house, and said to all the people: ¹⁵“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’”

¹Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in Yahweh’s house, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in Yahweh’s house. ³On the next day, Pashhur released Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, “Yahweh has not called your name Pashhur, but Magormissabib.20:3 “Magormissabib” means “surrounded by terror” ⁴For Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes will see it. I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them captive to Babylon, and will kill them with the sword. ⁵Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all its precious things, yes, I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies. They will make them captives, take them, and carry them to Babylon. ⁶You, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house will go into captivity. You will come to Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried, you, and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.’”

⁷Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded.

⁸For as often as I speak, I cry out;

⁹If I say that I will not make mention of him,

¹⁰For I have heard the defaming of many:

¹¹But Yahweh is with me as an awesome mighty one.

¹²But Yahweh of Armies, who tests the righteous,

¹³Sing to Yahweh!

¹⁴Cursed is the day in which I was born.

¹⁵Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying,

¹⁶Let that man be as the cities which Yahweh overthrew,

¹⁷because he didn’t kill me from the womb.

¹⁸Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow,

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying, ²“Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may withdraw from us.”

³Then Jeremiah said to them, “Tell Zedekiah: ⁴‘Yahweh, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls; and I will gather them into the middle of this city. ⁵I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation. ⁶I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence. ⁷Afterward,” says Yahweh, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.”’

⁸“You shall say to this people, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. ⁹He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he will live, and he will escape with his life. ¹⁰For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.”’

¹¹“Concerning the house of the king of Judah, hear Yahweh’s word: ¹²House of David, Yahweh says,

¹³Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,

¹⁴I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh;

¹Yahweh said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there: ²‘Hear Yahweh’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne—you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. ³Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses—they, their servants, and their people. ⁵But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this house will become a desolation.”’”

⁶For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

⁷I will prepare destroyers against you,

⁸“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this great city?’ ⁹Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’”

¹⁰Don’t weep for the dead.

¹¹For Yahweh says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more. ¹²But he will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will see this land no more.”

¹³“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,

¹⁴who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’

¹⁵“Should you reign because you strive to excel in cedar?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness,

¹⁸Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

¹⁹He will be buried with the burial of a donkey,

²⁰“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out.

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity,

¹“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh. ²Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says Yahweh. ³“I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. They will no longer be afraid or dismayed, neither will any be lacking,” says Yahweh.

⁵“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh,

⁶In his days Judah will be saved,

⁷“Therefore, behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that they will no more say, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ ⁸but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up and who led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will dwell in their own land.”

⁹Concerning the prophets:

¹⁰“For the land is full of adulterers;

¹¹for both prophet and priest are profane.

¹²Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness.

¹³“I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria.

¹⁴In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing:

¹⁵Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets:

¹⁶Yahweh of Armies says,

¹⁷They say continually to those who despise me,

¹⁸For who has stood in the council of Yahweh,

¹⁹Behold, Yahweh’s storm, his wrath, has gone out.

²⁰Yahweh’s anger will not return until he has executed

²¹I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran.

¹Yahweh showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before Yahweh’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. ²One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

³Then Yahweh asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

⁴Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ⁵“Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good. ⁶For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. ⁷I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.

⁸“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely Yahweh says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. ⁹I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. ¹⁰I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

¹The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (this was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), ²which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ³From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, Yahweh’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.

⁴Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear), ⁵saying, “Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahweh has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forever more. ⁶Don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; then I will do you no harm.”

⁷“Yet you have not listened to me,” says Yahweh, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.”

⁸Therefore Yahweh of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words, ⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. ¹⁰Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. ¹¹This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

¹²“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. ¹³I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”

¹⁵For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. ¹⁶They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

¹⁷Then I took the cup at Yahweh’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom Yahweh had sent me: ¹⁸Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; ¹⁹Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people; ²⁰and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon;

¹In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from Yahweh: ²“Yahweh says: ‘Stand in the court of Yahweh’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah which come to worship in Yahweh’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Don’t omit a word. ³It may be they will listen, and every man turn from his evil way, that I may relent from the evil which I intend to do to them because of the evil of their doings.’” ⁴You shall tell them, “Yahweh says: ‘If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law which I have set before you, ⁵to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you, even rising up early and sending them—but you have not listened— ⁶then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.’”

⁷The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in Yahweh’s house. ⁸When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You shall surely die! ⁹Why have you prophesied in Yahweh’s name, saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?’” All the people were crowded around Jeremiah in Yahweh’s house.

¹⁰When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to Yahweh’s house; and they sat in the entry of the new gate of Yahweh’s house. ¹¹Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes and to all the people, saying, “This man is worthy of death, for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.”

¹²Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and to all the people, saying, “Yahweh sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard. ¹³Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey Yahweh your God’s voice; then Yahweh will relent from the evil that he has pronounced against you. ¹⁴But as for me, behold, I am in your hand. Do with me what is good and right in your eyes. ¹⁵Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, on this city, and on its inhabitants; for in truth Yahweh has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”

¹⁶Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets: “This man is not worthy of death; for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God.”

¹⁷Then certain of the elders of the land rose up, and spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying, ¹⁸“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says:

¹⁹Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Didn’t he fear Yahweh, and entreat the favor of Yahweh, and Yahweh relented of the disaster which he had pronounced against them? We would commit great evil against our own souls that way!”

²⁰There was also a man who prophesied in Yahweh’s name, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath Jearim; and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah. ²¹When Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men and all the princes heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Uriah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt.

¹In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²Yahweh says to me: “Make bonds and bars, and put them on your neck. ³Then send them to the king of Edom, to the king of Moab, to the king of the children of Ammon, to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. ⁴Give them a command to their masters, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “You shall tell your masters: ⁵‘I have made the earth, the men, and the animals that are on the surface of the earth by my great power and by my outstretched arm. I give it to whom it seems right to me. ⁶Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant. I have also given the animals of the field to him to serve him. ⁷All the nations will serve him, his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.

⁸“‘“‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says Yahweh, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. ⁹But as for you, don’t listen to your prophets, to your diviners, to your dreams, to your soothsayers, or to your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, “You shall not serve the king of Babylon;” ¹⁰for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, so that I would drive you out, and you would perish. ¹¹But the nation that brings their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, that nation I will let remain in their own land,’ says Yahweh; ‘and they will till it and dwell in it.’”’”

¹²I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. ¹³Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon;’ for they prophesy a lie to you. ¹⁵For I have not sent them,” says Yahweh, “but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

¹⁶Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, Yahweh says, “Don’t listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Behold, the vessels of Yahweh’s house will now shortly be brought again from Babylon;’ for they prophesy a lie to you. ¹⁷Don’t listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon, and live. Why should this city become a desolation? ¹⁸But if they are prophets, and if Yahweh’s word is with them, let them now make intercession to Yahweh of Armies, that the vessels which are left in Yahweh’s house, in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, don’t go to Babylon. ¹⁹For Yahweh of Armies says concerning the pillars, concerning the sea, concerning the bases, and concerning the rest of the vessels that are left in this city, ²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn’t take when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem— ²¹yes, Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says concerning the vessels that are left in Yahweh’s house, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem:

¹That same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet, who was of Gibeon, spoke to me in Yahweh’s house, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, ²“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. ³Within two full years I will bring again into this place all the vessels of Yahweh’s house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. ⁴I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, who went to Babylon,’ says Yahweh; ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’”

⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people who stood in Yahweh’s house, ⁶even the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May Yahweh do so. May Yahweh perform your words which you have prophesied, to bring again the vessels of Yahweh’s house, and all those who are captives, from Babylon to this place. ⁷Nevertheless listen now to this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all the people: ⁸The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence. ⁹As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet happens, then the prophet will be known, that Yahweh has truly sent him.”

¹⁰Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, and broke it. ¹¹Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, “Yahweh says: ‘Even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from off the neck of all the nations within two full years.’” Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

¹²Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, ¹³“Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “You have broken the bars of wood, but you have made in their place bars of iron.” ¹⁴For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they will serve him. I have also given him the animals of the field.”’”

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, Hananiah! Yahweh has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. ¹⁶Therefore Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will send you away from off the surface of the earth. This year you will die, because you have spoken rebellion against Yahweh.’”

¹⁷So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

¹Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, ²(after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem), ³by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon). It said:

⁴Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵“Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. ⁶Take wives and father sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, and don’t be diminished. ⁷Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to Yahweh for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” ⁸For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you. Don’t listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. ⁹For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them,” says Yahweh. ¹⁰For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. ¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. ¹²You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. ¹⁴I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

¹⁵Because you have said, “Yahweh has raised us up prophets in Babylon,” ¹⁶Yahweh says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who haven’t gone with you into captivity, ¹⁷Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad. ¹⁸I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, ¹⁹because they have not listened to my words,” says Yahweh, “with which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear,” says Yahweh.

²⁰Hear therefore Yahweh’s word, all you captives whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²¹Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: “Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he will kill them before your eyes.

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book. ³For, behold, the days come,’ says Yahweh, ‘that I will reverse the captivity of my people Israel and Judah,’ says Yahweh. ‘I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.’”

⁴These are the words that Yahweh spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah. ⁵For Yahweh says:

⁶Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child.

⁷Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it!

⁸It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will break his yoke from off your neck,

⁹but they will serve Yahweh their God,

¹⁰Therefore don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says Yahweh.

¹¹For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you;

¹²For Yahweh says,

¹³There is no one to plead your cause,

¹⁴All your lovers have forgotten you.

¹⁵Why do you cry over your injury?

¹⁶Therefore all those who devour you will be devoured.

¹⁷For I will restore health to you,

¹⁸Yahweh says:

¹⁹Thanksgiving will proceed out of them

²⁰Their children also will be as before,

²¹Their prince will be one of them,

¹“At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”

²Yahweh says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”

³Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying,

⁴I will build you again,

⁵Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.

⁶For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry,

⁷For Yahweh says,

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country,

⁹They will come with weeping.

¹⁰“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations,

¹¹For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob,

¹²They will come and sing in the height of Zion,

¹³Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance,

¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness,

¹⁵Yahweh says:

¹⁶Yahweh says:

¹⁷There is hope for your latter end,” says Yahweh.

¹⁸“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus,

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son?

²¹“Set up road signs.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. ²Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.

³For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; ⁴and Zedekiah king of Judah won’t escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes will see his eyes; ⁵and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says Yahweh, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper?”’”

⁶Jeremiah said, “Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, ⁷‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.”’”

⁸“So Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to Yahweh’s word, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself.’

⁹I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels 35 ounces. of silver. ¹⁰I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances to him. ¹¹So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open; ¹²and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.

¹³“I commanded Baruch before them, saying, ¹⁴Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days.’ ¹⁵For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: ‘Houses and fields and vineyards will yet again be bought in this land.’

¹⁶Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to Yahweh, saying, ¹⁷“Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you. ¹⁸You show loving kindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The great, the mighty God, Yahweh of Armies is your name: ¹⁹great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings; ²⁰who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even to this day, both in Israel and among other men; and made yourself a name, as it is today; ²¹and brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, with wonders, with a strong hand, with an outstretched arm, and with great terror;

¹Moreover Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still locked up in the court of the guard, saying, ²“Yahweh who does it, Yahweh who forms it to establish it—Yahweh is his name, says: ³‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don’t know.’ ⁴For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defense against the mounds and against the sword: ⁵‘While men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city, ⁶behold, I will bring it health and healing, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth. ⁷I will restore the fortunes of Judah and Israel, and will build them as at the first. ⁸I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. ⁹This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’”

¹⁰Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’ ¹¹the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh.

¹²Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. ¹³In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the South, in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of him who counts them,” says Yahweh.

¹⁴“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.

¹⁵“In those days and at that time,

¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved,

¹⁷For Yahweh says: “David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. ¹⁸The Levitical priests won’t lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn meal offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.”

¹⁹Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, ²⁰“Yahweh says: ‘If you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, so that there will not be day and night in their time, ²¹then my covenant could also be broken with David my servant, that he won’t have a son to reign on his throne; and with the Levitical priests, my ministers.

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, with all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities, saying: ²“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire. ³You won’t escape out of his hand, but will surely be taken and delivered into his hand. Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you mouth to mouth. You will go to Babylon.”’

⁴“Yet hear Yahweh’s word, O Zedekiah king of Judah. Yahweh says concerning you, ‘You won’t die by the sword. ⁵You will die in peace; and with the burnings of your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so they will make a burning for you. They will lament you, saying, “Ah Lord!” for I have spoken the word,’ says Yahweh.”

⁶Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, ⁷when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities.

⁸The word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them, ⁹that every man should let his male servant, and every man his female servant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free, that no one should make bondservants of them, of a Jew his brother. ¹⁰All the princes and all the people obeyed who had entered into the covenant, that everyone should let his male servant and everyone his female servant go free, that no one should make bondservants of them any more. They obeyed and let them go, ¹¹but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

¹²Therefore Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ¹³“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: ¹⁴At the end of seven years, every man of you shall release his brother who is a Hebrew, who has been sold to you, and has served you six years. You shall let him go free from you. But your fathers didn’t listen to me, and didn’t incline their ear. ¹⁵You had now turned, and had done that which is right in my eyes, in every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor. You had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name; ¹⁶but you turned and profaned my name, and every man caused his servant and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their pleasure, to return. You brought them into subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids.’”

¹⁷Therefore Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you a liberty,” says Yahweh, “to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will make you be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts: ¹⁹the princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf. ²⁰I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.

²¹“I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their life and into the hands of the king of Babylon’s army, who has gone away from you.

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, ²“Go to the house of the Rechabites, and speak to them, and bring them into Yahweh’s house, into one of the rooms, and give them wine to drink.”

³Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, with his brothers, all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; ⁴and I brought them into Yahweh’s house, into the room of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was by the room of the princes, which was above the room of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold. ⁵I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Drink wine!”

⁶But they said, “We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall drink no wine, neither you nor your children, forever. ⁷You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, or have any; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land in which you live as nomads.’ ⁸We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters; ⁹and not to build houses for ourselves to dwell in. We have no vineyard, field, or seed; ¹⁰but we have lived in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us. ¹¹But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, we said, ‘Come! Let’s go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for fear of the army of the Syrians; so we will dwell at Jerusalem.’”

¹²Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, ¹³“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, “Will you not receive instruction to listen to my words?” says Yahweh. ¹⁴“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab that he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they obey their father’s commandment; but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking, and you have not listened to me. ¹⁵I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, ‘Every one of you must return now from his evil way, amend your doings, and don’t go after other gods to serve them. Then you will dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers;’ but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me. ¹⁶The sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father which he commanded them, but this people has not listened to me.”’

¹⁷“Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them, but they have not heard; and I have called to them, but they have not answered.’”

¹⁸Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he commanded you,’ ¹⁹therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Jonadab the son of Rechab will not lack a man to stand before me forever.’”

¹In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, ²“Take a scroll of a book, and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. ³It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I intend to do to them, that they may each return from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

⁴Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all Yahweh’s words, which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book. ⁵Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am restricted. I can’t go into Yahweh’s house. ⁶Therefore you go, and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth, Yahweh’s words, in the ears of the people in Yahweh’s house on the fast day. Also you shall read them in the ears of all Judah who come out of their cities. ⁷It may be they will present their supplication before Yahweh, and will each return from his evil way; for Yahweh has pronounced great anger and wrath against this people.”

⁸Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book Yahweh’s words in Yahweh’s house. ⁹Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, proclaimed a fast before Yahweh. ¹⁰Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the book in Yahweh’s house, in the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of Yahweh’s house, in the ears of all the people.

¹¹When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all Yahweh’s words, ¹²he went down into the king’s house, into the scribe’s room; and behold, all the princes were sitting there, Elishama the scribe, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor, Gemariah the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes. ¹³Then Micaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people. ¹⁴Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, “Take in your hand the scroll in which you have read in the ears of the people, and come.”

¹⁵They said to him, “Sit down now, and read it in our hearing.”

¹⁶Now when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one toward another, and said to Baruch, “We will surely tell the king of all these words.” ¹⁷They asked Baruch, saying, “Tell us now, how did you write all these words at his mouth?”

¹⁸Then Baruch answered them, “He dictated all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.”

¹⁹Then the princes said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah go hide. Don’t let anyone know where you are.”

²⁰They went in to the king into the court, but they had laid up the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe. Then they told all the words in the hearing of the king. ²¹So the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the room of Elishama the scribe. Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king, and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king.

¹Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. ²But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, listened to Yahweh’s words, which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah.

³Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Pray now to Yahweh our God for us.”

⁴Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people, for they had not put him into prison. ⁵Pharaoh’s army had come out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

⁶Then Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, ⁷“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, will return to Egypt into their own land. ⁸The Chaldeans will come again, and fight against this city. They will take it and burn it with fire.”’

⁹“Yahweh says, ‘Don’t deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely depart from us;” for they will not depart. ¹⁰For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with fire.’”

¹¹When the army of the Chaldeans had withdrawn from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army, ¹²then Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the middle of the people. ¹³When he was in Benjamin’s gate, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are defecting to the Chaldeans!”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah said, “That is false! I am not defecting to the Chaldeans.”

¹⁵The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.

¹⁶When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days, ¹⁷then Zedekiah the king sent and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?”

¹⁸Moreover Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? ¹⁹Now where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you, nor against this land?’ ²⁰Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.”

²¹Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

¹Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the people, saying, ²“Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live. He will escape with his life and he will live.’ ³Yahweh says, ‘This city will surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will take it.’”

⁴Then the princes said to the king, “Please let this man be put to death, because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them; for this man doesn’t seek the welfare of this people, but harm.”

⁵Zedekiah the king said, “Behold, he is in your hand; for the king can’t do anything to oppose you.”

⁶Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

⁷Now when Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king was then sitting in Benjamin’s gate), ⁸Ebedmelech went out of the king’s house, and spoke to the king, saying, ⁹“My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon. He is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.”

¹⁰Then the king commanded Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take from here thirty men with you, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he dies.”

¹¹So Ebedmelech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took from there rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. ¹²Ebedmelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Now put these rags and worn-out garments under your armpits under the cords.”

¹³So they lifted Jeremiah up with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon; and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

¹⁴Then Zedekiah the king sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to himself into the third entry that is in Yahweh’s house. Then the king said to Jeremiah, “I will ask you something. Hide nothing from me.”

¹⁵Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I declare it to you, will you not surely put me to death? If I give you counsel, you will not listen to me.”

¹⁶So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, “As Yahweh lives, who made our souls, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.”

¹⁷Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you will go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your soul will live, and this city will not be burned with fire. You will live, along with your house. ¹⁸But if you will not go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, then this city will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire, and you won’t escape out of their hand.’”

¹⁹Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have defected to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me.”

²⁰But Jeremiah said, “They won’t deliver you. Obey, I beg you, Yahweh’s voice, in that which I speak to you; so it will be well with you, and your soul will live. ²¹But if you refuse to go out, this is the word that Yahweh has shown me:

¹In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it. ²In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. ³All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer the Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. ⁴When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. ⁶Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah. ⁷Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

⁸The Chaldeans burned the king’s house and the people’s houses with fire and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. ⁹Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained. ¹⁰But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, who had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.

¹¹Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon commanded Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard concerning Jeremiah, saying, ¹²“Take him and take care of him. Do him no harm; but do to him even as he tells you.”

¹³So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, Nebushazban, Rabsaris, and Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon ¹⁴They sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home. So he lived among the people.

¹⁵Now Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guard, saying, ¹⁶“Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will bring my words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you in that day. ¹⁷But I will deliver you in that day,” says Yahweh; “and you will not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. ¹⁸For I will surely save you. You won’t fall by the sword, but you will escape with your life, because you have put your trust in me,” says Yahweh.’”

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon. ²The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “Yahweh your God pronounced this evil on this place; ³and Yahweh has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. ⁴Now, behold, I release you today from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t. Behold, all the land is before you. Where it seems good and right to you to go, go there.” ⁵Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.”

⁶Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land.

⁷Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, women, children, and of the poorest of the land, of those who were not carried away captive to Babylon, ⁸then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men came to Gedaliah to Mizpah. ⁹Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore to them and to their men, saying, “Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you. ¹⁰As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans who will come to us; but you, gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken.”

¹¹Likewise when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ¹²then all the Jews returned out of all places where they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and gathered very much wine and summer fruits.

¹³Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, ¹⁴and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?”

¹⁵Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?”

¹⁶But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, “You shall not do this thing, for you speak falsely of Ishmael.”

¹Now in the seventh month, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal offspring and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they ate bread together in Mizpah. ²Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah arose, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. ³Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean men of war who were found there.

⁴The second day after he had killed Gedaliah, and no man knew it, ⁵men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to Yahweh’s house. ⁶Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went, and as he met them, he said to them, “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.” ⁷It was so, when they came into the middle of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the middle of the pit, he, and the men who were with him. ⁸But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey.”

⁹Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (this was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed.

¹⁰Then Ishmael carried away captive all of the people who were left in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon.

¹¹But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, ¹²then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. ¹³Now when all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, then they were glad. ¹⁴So all the people who Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah turned about and came back, and went to Johanan the son of Kareah. ¹⁵But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon.

¹⁶Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces who were with him took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam—the men of war, with the women, the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibeon. ¹⁷They departed and lived in Geruth Chimham, which is by Bethlehem, to go to enter into Egypt ¹⁸because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land.

¹Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us, ³that Yahweh your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the things that we should do.”

⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to Yahweh your God according to your words; and it will happen that whatever thing Yahweh answers you, I will declare it to you. I will keep nothing back from you.”

⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God sends you to tell us. ⁶Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.”

⁷After ten days, Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, ⁹and said to them, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him, says: ¹⁰‘If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. ¹¹Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don’t be afraid of him,’ says Yahweh, ‘for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.

¹³“‘But if you say, “We will not dwell in this land,” so that you don’t obey Yahweh your God’s voice, ¹⁴saying, “No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there we will dwell;”’ ¹⁵now therefore hear Yahweh’s word, O remnant of Judah! Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there, ¹⁶then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there. ¹⁷So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’ ¹⁸For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’

¹⁹“Yahweh has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, ‘Don’t go into Egypt!’ Know certainly that I have testified to you today. ²⁰For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God says, so declare to us, and we will do it.’ ²¹I have declared it to you today; but you have not obeyed Yahweh your God’s voice in anything for which he has sent me to you.

¹When Jeremiah had finished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God, with which Yahweh their God had sent him to them, even all these words, ²then Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely. Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You shall not go into Egypt to live there;’ ³but Baruch the son of Neriah has turned you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death or carry us away captive to Babylon.”

⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, didn’t obey Yahweh’s voice, to dwell in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the land of Judah— ⁶the men, the women, the children, the king’s daughters, and every person who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. ⁷They came into the land of Egypt, for they didn’t obey Yahweh’s voice; and they came to Tahpanhes.

⁸Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, ⁹“Take great stones in your hand and hide them in mortar in the brick work which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah. ¹⁰Tell them, Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his royal pavilion over them. ¹¹He will come, and will strike the land of Egypt; such as are for death will be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. ¹²I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt. He will burn them, and carry them away captive. He will array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his garment; and he will go out from there in peace. ¹³He will also break the pillars of Beth Shemesh that is in the land of Egypt; and he will burn the houses of the gods of Egypt with fire.’”

¹The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who lived in the land of Egypt, who lived at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Memphis, and in the country of Pathros, saying, ²“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them, ³because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, to serve other gods that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers. ⁴However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, “Oh, don’t do this abominable thing that I hate.” ⁵But they didn’t listen and didn’t incline their ear. They didn’t turn from their wickedness, to stop burning incense to other gods. ⁶Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

⁷“Therefore now Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child out of the middle of Judah, to leave yourselves no one remaining, ⁸in that you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have gone to live, that you may be cut off, and that you may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? ⁹Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers.’

¹¹“Therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all Judah. ¹²I will take the remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach. ¹³For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; ¹⁴so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’”

¹⁵Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, ¹⁶“As for the word that you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name, we will not listen to you. ¹⁷But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. ¹⁸But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

¹⁹The women said, “When we burned incense to the queen of the sky and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands?”

²⁰Then Jeremiah said to all the people—to the men and to the women, even to all the people who had given him an answer, saying, ²¹“The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, didn’t Yahweh remember them, and didn’t it come into his mind?

¹The message that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, ²“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch: ³‘You said, “Woe is me now! For Yahweh has added sorrow to my pain! I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.”’

⁴“You shall tell him, Yahweh says: ‘Behold, that which I have built, I will break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up; and this in the whole land. ⁵Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them; for, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh,’ says Yahweh, ‘but I will let you escape with your life wherever you go.’”

¹Yahweh’s word which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.

²Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

³“Prepare the buckler and shield,

⁴Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen,

⁵Why have I seen it?

⁶“Don’t let the swift flee away,

⁷“Who is this who rises up like the Nile,

⁸Egypt rises up like the Nile,

⁹Go up, you horses!

¹⁰For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies,

¹¹Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt.

¹²The nations have heard of your shame,

¹³The word that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt:

¹⁴“Declare in Egypt,

¹⁵Why are your strong ones swept away?

¹⁶He made many to stumble.

¹⁷They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise;

¹⁸“As I live,” says the King,

¹⁹You daughter who dwells in Egypt,

²⁰“Egypt is a very beautiful heifer;

²¹Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall,

¹Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza.

²Yahweh says:

³At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones,

⁴because of the day that comes to destroy all the Philistines,

⁵Baldness has come on Gaza;

⁶“‘You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you are quiet?

⁷“How can you be quiet,

¹Of Moab. Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says:

²The praise of Moab is no more.

³The sound of a cry from Horonaim,

⁴Moab is destroyed.

⁵For they will go up by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping.

⁶Flee! Save your lives!

⁷For, because you have trusted in your works and in your treasures,

⁸The destroyer will come on every city,

⁹Give wings to Moab,

¹⁰“Cursed is he who does the work of Yahweh negligently;

¹¹“Moab has been at ease from his youth,

¹²Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh,

¹³Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh,

¹⁴“How do you say, ‘We are mighty men,

¹⁵Moab is laid waste,

¹⁶“The calamity of Moab is near to come,

¹⁷All you who are around him, bemoan him;

¹⁸“You daughter who dwells in Dibon,

¹⁹Inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and watch.

²⁰Moab is disappointed;

²¹Judgment has come on the plain country—

¹Of the children of Ammon. Yahweh says:

²Therefore behold, the days come,”

³“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste!

⁴Why do you boast in the valleys,

⁵Behold, I will bring a terror on you,”

⁶“But afterward I will reverse the captivity of the children of Ammon,”

⁷Of Edom, Yahweh of Armies says:

⁸Flee! Turn back!

⁹If grape gatherers came to you,

¹⁰But I have made Esau bare,

¹¹Leave your fatherless children.

¹²For Yahweh says: “Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup will certainly drink; and are you he who will altogether go unpunished? You won’t go unpunished, but you will surely drink. ¹³For I have sworn by myself,” says Yahweh, “that Bozrah will become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse. All its cities will be perpetual wastes.”

¹⁴I have heard news from Yahweh,

¹⁵“For, behold, I have made you small among the nations,

¹⁶As for your terror,

¹⁷“Edom will become an astonishment.

¹⁸As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh,

¹⁹“Behold, he will come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation;

²⁰Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Edom,

²¹The earth trembles at the noise of their fall;

¹The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

²“Declare among the nations and publish,

³For a nation comes up out of the north against her,

⁴“In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh,

⁵They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it,

⁶My people have been lost sheep.

⁷All who found them have devoured them.

⁸“Flee out of the middle of Babylon!

⁹For, behold, I will stir up

¹⁰Chaldea will be a prey.

¹¹“Because you are glad,

¹²your mother will be utterly disappointed.

¹³Because of Yahweh’s wrath she won’t be inhabited,

¹⁴Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around,

¹⁵Shout against her all around.

¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon,

¹⁷“Israel is a hunted sheep.

¹⁸Therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says:

¹⁹I will bring Israel again to his pasture,

²⁰In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh,

²¹“Go up against the land of Merathaim,

¹Yahweh says:

²I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her.

³Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow,

⁴They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,

⁵For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God,

⁶“Flee out of the middle of Babylon!

⁷Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand,

⁸Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed!

⁹“We would have healed Babylon,

¹⁰‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness.

¹¹“Make the arrows sharp!

¹²Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon!

¹³You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures,

¹⁴Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying,

¹⁵“He has made the earth by his power.

¹⁶When he utters his voice,

¹⁷“Every man has become stupid and without knowledge.

¹⁸They are vanity,

¹⁹The portion of Jacob is not like these,

²⁰“You are my battle ax and weapons of war.

²¹With you I will break in pieces

¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign. He reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ²He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ³For through Yahweh’s anger this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence.

⁴In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. ⁵So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

⁶In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁷Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah, ⁸but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁹Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. ¹⁰The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. ¹¹He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

¹²Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem. ¹³He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire. ¹⁴All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around. ¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude. ¹⁶But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers.

¹⁷The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in Yahweh’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in Yahweh’s house in pieces, and carried all of their bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered. ¹⁹The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lamp stands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, as gold, and that which was of silver, as silver.

²⁰They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made for Yahweh’s house. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight. ²¹As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits encircled it; and its thickness was four fingers. It was hollow.