Jeremiah

 

Chapter 1

 

1 The word of God, which came to Jeremiah the son of Helkias, of the priests, who dwelt in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin;

 

2 which came as the word of God to him in the days of Josias son of Amos, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign;

 

3 and it came in the days of Joakim son of Josias, king of Judah, until the eleventh year of Sedekias son of Josias, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

 

4 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.

 

6 And I said, O Sovereign Lord, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am too young.

 

7 And the Lord said to me, Do not say, "I am too young," for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and according to all that I command you, you shall speak.

 

8 Do not be afraid before them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.

 

9 And the Lord stretched out his hand toward me and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words into your mouth.

 

10 Behold, I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and to tear down and to destroy, and to rebuild and to plant.

 

11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, A rod of almond wood.

 

12 And the Lord said to me, You have seen well, for I am watching over my words to perform them.

 

13 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, What do you see? And I said, A cauldron heated from beneath, and its face is from the face of the north.

 

14 And the Lord said to me, From the face of the north evils shall be kindled upon all the inhabitants of the land.

 

15 For behold, I am calling together all the kingdoms from the north of the earth, says the Lord, and they shall come, and each shall set his throne at the entrances of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls round about her, and against all the cities of Judah.

 

16 And I will speak to them in judgment concerning all their wickedness, how they forsook me and sacrificed to foreign gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

 

17 And you, gird up your loins and arise and say to them all that I command you. Do not be afraid before them, nor be terrified in their presence, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.

 

18 Behold, I have made you this day like a fortified city and like a strong wall of bronze against all the kings of Judah and its rulers and the people of the land.

 

19 And they shall fight against you, but they shall by no means prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you, said the Lord.

 

Chapter 2

 

2 And he said: Thus says the Lord: I remembered the mercy of your youth and the love of your maturity, when you followed the Holy One of Israel, says the Lord,

 

3 the Holy One of Israel. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his produce; all who ate of him shall be guilty; evils shall come upon them, says the Lord.

 

4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob and every family of the house of Israel.

 

5 Thus says the Lord: What fault did your fathers find in me, that they departed far from me and went after vanities and became vain?

 

6 And they did not say, "Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who guided us in the wilderness, in a boundless and untrodden land, in a waterless and fruitless land, in a land through which no one passed and where no son of man dwelt?"

 

7 And I brought you into Carmel, so that you might eat its fruits and its good things; and you entered and defiled my land, and you made my inheritance an abomination.

 

8 The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?" and those who hold to the law did not know me, and the shepherds acted impiously toward me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after what is unprofitable.

 

9 Therefore I will still contend with you, says the Lord, and with the sons of your sons I will contend.

 

10 For pass over to the islands of the Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and consider carefully, and see whether such things have happened.

 

11 Will nations change their gods? Yet these are not gods. But my people have exchanged their glory for that from which they will not profit.

 

12 The heaven was astonished at this and shuddered exceedingly greatly, says the Lord.

 

13 For my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of the water of life, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water.

 

14 Is Israel a slave, or is he homeborn? Why has he become plunder?

 

15 Lions roared against him and gave forth their voice; they made his land a desert, and his cities were razed so as not to be inhabited.

 

16 And the sons of Memphis and Taphnas knew you and mocked you.

 

17 Has not your forsaking me done these things to you? says the Lord your God.

 

18 And now what have you to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Geon? And what have you to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of rivers?

 

19 Your apostasy will chastise you, and your wickedness will reprove you; know and see that it is bitter to you that you forsook me, says the Lord your God; and I took no pleasure in you, says the Lord your God.

 

20 For of old you broke your yoke, you tore apart your bonds and said, "I will not serve, but I will go upon every high hill and under every shady tree; there I will pour myself out in my fornication."

 

21 But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true; how have you turned to bitterness, O alien vine?

 

22 Even if you wash yourself with lye and multiply soap for yourself, you are stained by your iniquities before me, says the Lord.

 

23 How will you say, "I have not been defiled, and I have not gone after Baal"? Look at your ways in the burial ground and know what you have done. Late in the day her voice wailed;

 

24 she widened her ways over the waters of the desert; in the desires of her soul she was borne by the wind; she was handed over. Who will turn her back? All who seek her will not grow weary; in her humiliation they will find her.

 

25 Turn back your foot from a rough way and your throat from thirst. But she said, "I will be strong"; for she had loved strangers and went after them.

 

26 As is the shame of a thief when he is caught, so shall the sons of Israel be ashamed, they and their kings and their rulers and their priests and their prophets.

 

27 They said to the wood, "You are my father," and to the stone, "You begot me," and they turned their backs to me and not their faces; and in the time of their evils they will say, "Arise and save us."

 

28 And where are your gods that you made for yourself? Will they arise and save you in the time of your affliction? For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah, and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem they sacrificed to Baal.

 

29 Why do you speak to me? You have all acted impiously, and you have all acted lawlessly against me, says the Lord.

 

30 In vain I struck your children; you did not receive correction. A sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion, and you were not afraid.

 

31 Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: Have I become a wilderness to Israel, or a land laid waste? Why has my people said, "We will not be ruled, and we will not come to you anymore"?

 

32 Will a bride forget her adornment, or a virgin her breast-band? But my people have forgotten me for days without number.

 

33 What good will you yet devise in your ways, to seek love? Not so; but you too acted wickedly in defiling your ways.

 

34 And on your hands was found the blood of innocent souls; I did not find them in dug-out places, but upon every oak.

 

35 And you said, "I am innocent; but let his wrath be turned away from me." Behold, I am contending with you, because you say, "I have not sinned."

 

36 Why did you so greatly despise, so as to repeat your ways? And you will be put to shame by Egypt, just as you were put to shame by Assur.

 

37 For from here too you shall go out, with your hands upon your head; for the Lord has rejected your hope, and you will not prosper in it.

 

Chapter 3

 

1 If a man sends away his wife, and she departs from him and becomes another man's, shall she indeed return to him again? Shall not that woman be utterly defiled? And you have played the harlot with many shepherds and would you return to me? says the Lord.

 2 Lift up your eyes straight ahead and see: where have you not been defiled? You sat by the roads for them like a solitary crow, and you have polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickednesses.

 

3 And you kept many shepherds as a stumbling block to yourself; you had a harlot's face, you were shameless toward all.

 

4 Have you not called me as it were a house, and father, and guide of your virginity?

 

5 Will it endure forever, or be preserved to victory? Behold, you have spoken and done these evil things, and you have prevailed.

 

6 And the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king: Have you seen what the dwelling of Israel did to me? They went upon every high mountain and under every leafy tree and played the harlot there.

 

7 And I said, after she had committed all these harlotries: Return to me and she did not return. And faithless Judah saw her faithlessness.

 

8 And I saw that for all the things in which the dwelling of Israel was caught committing adultery, I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce into her hands; and faithless Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot herself also.

 

9 And her harlotry came to nothing, and she committed adultery with the tree and the stone.

 

10 And in all these things faithless Judah did not turn back to me with her whole heart, but falsely.

 

11 And the Lord said to me: Israel has justified his soul more than faithless Judah.

 

12 Go and read these words toward the north, and you shall say: Return to me, O dwelling of Israel, says the Lord, and I will not set my face against you; for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not be angry with you forever.

 

13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you acted impiously against the Lord your God and scattered your ways to strangers under every leafy tree, and did not obey my voice, says the Lord.

 

14 Return, O sons who have revolted, says the Lord, for I will be lord over you, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you into Zion;

 

15 and I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they shall shepherd you, shepherding with knowledge.

 

16 And it shall be, if you multiply and increase upon the land in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say, "The ark of the covenant of the Holy One of Israel"; it shall not come up upon the heart, it shall not be named nor visited, nor shall it be made anymore.

 

17 In those days and at that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to her, and they shall no longer walk after the devices of their evil heart.

 

18 In those days the house of Judah shall come together with the house of Israel, and they shall come together from the land of the north and from all the countries to the land which I gave their fathers as an inheritance.

 

19 And I said, So be it, Lord; for I will set you among children and give you a choice land, an inheritance of God, the Almighty over the nations. And I said, You shall call me Father, and you shall not turn away from me.

 

20 But as a woman deals treacherously with the one who lives with her, so the house of Israel dealt treacherously with me, says the Lord.

 

21 A voice from lips was heard, of weeping and supplication of the sons of Israel, for they did wrong in their ways; they forgot their holy God.

 

22 Return, O returning sons, and I will heal your bruises. Behold, we will be your servants, for you are the Lord our God.

 

23 Truly the hills were a lie, and the power of the mountains; but through the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

 

24 But shame has consumed the labors of our fathers from our youth, their sheep and their calves and their sons and their daughters.

 

25 We lay down in our shame, and our dishonor covered us, because we sinned before our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we did not obey the voice of the Lord our God.

 

Chapter 4

 

1 If Israel returns, says the Lord, he shall return to me; if he removes his abominations from his mouth and stands in reverence before my face,

 

2 and swears, "The Lord lives," with truth and in judgment and in righteousness, then nations shall bless themselves in her, and in him they shall praise God in Jerusalem.

 

3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to those who dwell in Jerusalem: Break up for yourselves fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.

 

4 Be circumcised to your God, and circumcise the hardness of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn, and there be no one to quench it, because of the wickedness of your practices.

 

5 Declare it in Judah, and let it be heard in Jerusalem; say: Signal upon the land with the trumpet, and cry aloud; say: Gather together, and let us enter the fortified cities.

 

6 Take up your things and flee to Zion; hasten, do not stand still, for I am bringing evils from the north, and great destruction.

 

7 A lion has come up from his den; destroying nations, he has set out and gone forth from his place to make the land a desolation, and cities shall be pulled down, so that they be uninhabited.

 

8 For these things gird yourselves with sackcloth, and mourn, and wail, for the wrath of the Lord has not turned away from you.

 

9 And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the rulers; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall marvel.

 

10 And I said: O Sovereign Lord, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, "There shall be peace for you," and behold, the sword has reached to their very soul.

 

11 In that time they shall say to this people and to Jerusalem: A spirit of wandering is in the wilderness; the way of the daughter of my people is not for cleansing nor for holiness.

 

12 A spirit of fullness shall come to me; but now I speak judgments against them.

 

13 Behold, he shall come up like a cloud, and his chariots like a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are in misery!

 

14 Wash your heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long shall the schemes of your travails remain within you?

 

15 For a voice of one announcing shall come from Dan, and distress shall be heard from Mount Ephraim.

 

16 Remind the nations: Behold, they have come; declare in Jerusalem: Bands are coming from a land far off, and they have lifted up their voice against the cities of Judah.

 

17 Like those guarding a field, they have surrounded her, because you neglected me, says the Lord.

 

18 Your ways and your practices have done these things to you; this is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it has reached to your heart.

 

19 My belly, my belly! I am in pain, and the senses of my heart; my soul rages, my heart is torn; I will not be silent, for my soul has heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of war.

 

20 And misery calls upon destruction, for all the land is in misery; suddenly the tent has been ruined, my curtains have been torn apart.

 

21 How long shall I see those fleeing, hearing the sound of trumpets?

 

22 For the leaders of my people did not know me; they are foolish sons and without understanding; they are wise to do evil, but how to do good they have not known.

 

23 I looked upon the earth, and behold, nothing; and to the heaven, and its lights were not there.

 

24 I saw the mountains, and they were trembling, and all the hills in commotion.

 

25 I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the heaven were terrified.

 

26 I saw, and behold, Carmel was desolate, and all the cities were burned with fire before the face of the Lord, and before the face of the anger of his wrath they were destroyed.

 

27 Thus says the Lord: All the land shall be desolate, yet I will not make a full end.

 

28 For these things let the earth mourn, and let the heaven above be darkened; for I have spoken, and I will not repent; I have set out, and I will not turn back from it.

 

29 At the voice of the horseman and of the bent bow, every land has retreated; they have crept into the caves and hidden themselves in the groves, and climbed up upon the rocks; every city is abandoned; no man dwells in them.

 

30 And you, what will you do, if you clothe yourself in scarlet and adorn yourself with golden ornaments, and if you paint your eyes with antimony? Your beautifying is in vain; your lovers have rejected you; they seek your life.

 

31 For I heard a voice as of a woman in labor, your groaning as of one bearing her firstborn, the voice of the daughter of Zion; she shall grow faint and let her hands drop: Woe is me, for my soul faints over the slain!

 

Chapter 5

 

1 Run about in the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and know, and seek in her broad places, whether you can find a man, whether there is one who does justice and seeks faithfulness; and I will be merciful to them, says the Lord.

 

2 "The Lord lives," they say; therefore do they not swear falsely?

 

3 O Lord, your eyes look to faithfulness: you scourged them, and they felt no pain; you consumed them, and they would not receive correction; they made their faces harder than rock, and they would not turn back.

 

4 And I said, Perhaps they are poor; for that reason they are weak, for they have not known the way of the Lord and the judgment of God.

 

5 I will go to the great men and speak to them, for they have known the way of the Lord and the judgment of God; and behold, with one accord they broke the yoke, they burst the bonds.

 

6 Therefore a lion out of the forest has struck them, and a wolf has destroyed them even to their houses, and a leopard has kept watch over their cities: all who go forth from them shall be hunted, for they have multiplied their ungodliness, they have grown strong in their turnings away.

 

7 In which of these things shall I be merciful to you? Your sons have forsaken me and swore by gods that are no gods; and I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery and lodged in the houses of harlots.

 

8 They became horses mad after females; each one neighed after his neighbor's wife.

 

9 Shall I not visit for these things? says the Lord; or shall my soul not take vengeance on such a nation as this?

 

10 Go up upon her battlements and tear them down, but do not make a full end; leave her supports, for they are the Lord's.

 

11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously with me, says the Lord.

 

12 They have lied to their Lord and said, These things are not so; evils shall not come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine.

 

13 Our prophets were as wind, and the word of the Lord was not in them; so shall it be to them.

 

14 Therefore thus says the Lord Almighty: Because you have spoken this word, behold, I have made my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

 

15 Behold, I bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, says the Lord, a nation whose language's voice you shall not understand.

 

16 All are mighty men,

 

17 and they shall devour your harvest and your bread, and they shall devour your sons and your daughters, and they shall devour your sheep and your calves, and they shall devour your vineyards and your fig orchards and your olive groves; and they shall thresh with the sword your fortified cities, in which you have put your trust.

 

18 And it shall come to pass in those days, says the Lord your God, that I will not make a full end of you.

 

19 And it shall come to pass, when you say, Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?  Then you shall say to them, Because you served foreign gods in your own land, so shall you serve foreigners in a land not your own.

 

20 Declare these things to the house of Jacob, and let it be heard in Judah.

 

21 Hear now these things, O foolish and heartless people, who have eyes and do not see, who have ears and do not hear.

 

22 Will you not fear me? says the Lord; or will you not tremble before my presence?  I who set the sand as a boundary for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, and it shall not pass over it; it shall be troubled but shall not prevail, and its waves shall roar, but it shall not pass over it. 2

 

3 But this people has an unhearing and disobedient heart, and they have turned aside and gone away.

 

24 And they did not say in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God, who gives us the early and the latter rain in its season, at the appointed time of the fulfillment of the ordinance of harvest, and has kept it for us.

 

25 Your lawless deeds have turned these things away, and your sins have removed the good things from you.

 

26 For ungodly men have been found among my people, and they set snares to destroy men, and were catching them.

 

27 As a snare set up is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have grown great and become rich.

 

28 And they have transgressed judgment; they did not judge the cause of the orphan, and the cause of the widow they did not judge.

 

29 Shall I not visit for these things? says the Lord; or shall my soul not take vengeance on such a nation as this?

 

30 Astonishment and horrible things have come upon the land.

 

31 The prophets prophesy unjust things, and the priests have applauded with their hands, and my people has loved it so; and what will you do in the time to come?

 

Chapter 6

 

1 Take strength, sons of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal over Baithacharma, for evils have leaned forth from the north, and a great destruction is coming,

 

2 and your height shall be taken away, daughter of Zion.

 

3 Shepherds and their flocks shall come to her, and they shall pitch tents against her round about, and they shall shepherd, each with his own hand.

 

4 Prepare yourselves against her for war; arise, and let us go up against her at noon. Woe to us, for the day has declined, for the shadows of evening fail.

 

5 Arise, and let us go up in the night and destroy her foundations.

 

6 For thus says the Lord: Cut down her trees; pour out a force against Jerusalem. O false city, there is wholly oppression within her.

 

7 As a cistern cools water, so her wickedness cools; ungodliness and misery shall be heard in her, before her face continually. With toil and scourge

 

8 you shall be disciplined, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from you, lest I make you an untrodden land which shall not be inhabited.

 

9 For thus says the Lord: Glean, glean like a vine the remnant of Israel; turn back like the grape-gatherer to his basket.

 

10 To whom shall I speak and testify, and he will hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear; behold, the word of the Lord has become to them a reproach; they will by no means be willing to hear it.

 

11 And I filled up my wrath and held it back, and did not consume them; I will pour it out upon infants outside and upon the assembly of young men together, for man and woman shall be taken, the elder with him full of days;

 

12 and their houses shall be turned over to others, fields and their wives together, for I will stretch out my hand upon those inhabiting this land, says the Lord.

 

13 For from the small among them even to the great, all have committed lawless deeds; from priest even to false prophet, all have done falsehood.

 

14 And they healed the wound of my people, despising it, and saying, Peace, peace; and where is peace?

 

15 They were put to shame, because they failed; and yet not even so were they ashamed as ones being shamed, and they did not know their dishonor. Therefore they shall fall in their fall, and in the time of their visitation they shall perish, said the Lord.

 

16 Thus says the Lord: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and see which is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls. And they said, We will not go.

 

17 I have set watchmen over you: hear the sound of the trumpet. And they said, We will not hear.

 

18 Therefore the nations have heard, and those who shepherd their flocks.

 

19 Hear, O earth: behold, I bring evils upon this people, the fruit of their turning away; for they did not heed my words, and they rejected my law.

 

20 Why do you bring me frankincense from Sheba and cinnamon from a land far off? Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices have not pleased me.

 

21 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I give weakness upon this people, and fathers and sons together shall grow weak in it; neighbor and his fellow shall perish.

 

22 Thus says the Lord: Behold, a people comes from the north, and nations shall be stirred up from the end of the earth;

 

23 they shall wield bow and spear; it is bold and will show no mercy; its voice is like the surging sea; on horses and chariots it shall array itself like fire for war against you, daughter of Zion.

 

24 We heard the report of them; our hands were paralyzed; distress seized us, pangs as of a woman in labor.

 

25 Do not go out into the field, and do not walk in the roads, for the sword of the enemies dwells round about.

 

26 Daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth, sprinkle yourself with ashes; make for yourself the mourning of a beloved one, a piteous lamentation, for suddenly misery shall come upon you.

 

27 I have made you an assayer among tested peoples, and you shall know me when I test their way;

 

28 all are disobedient, walking crookedly, bronze and iron; all are corrupted.

 

29 The bellows has failed from the fire; the lead has failed; in vain the silversmith works silver; their wickedness has not melted away.

 

30 Call them rejected silver, for the Lord has rejected them.

 

Chapter 7

 

2 Hear the word of the Lord, all Judea.

 

3 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your practices, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

 

4 Do not trust in yourselves with lying words, for they will not profit you at all, saying, "The temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord."

 

5 For if you truly amend your ways and your practices, and truly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,

 

6 and do not oppress the stranger and the orphan and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not go after foreign gods to your own harm,

 

7 then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers from everlasting even to everlasting.

 

8 But if you trust in lying words, from which you will gain no profit,

 

9 and you murder and commit adultery and steal and swear falsely and burn incense to Baal and go after foreign gods whom you do not know, so that it goes ill with you,

 

10 and you have come and stood before me in the house upon which my name has been called, and you have said, "We have refrained from doing all these abominations"

 

11 is my house, upon which my name has been called there, a den of robbers in your eyes? And behold, I have seen it, says the Lord.

 

12 For go to my place which was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell formerly, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

 

13 And now, because you have done all these deeds, and I spoke to you and you did not hear me, and I called you and you did not answer,

 

14 I will also do to this house, upon which my name has been called, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, just as I did to Shiloh.

 

15 And I will cast you away from my presence, just as I cast away your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.

 

16 And as for you, do not pray for this people, and do not ask that they be shown mercy, and do not make petition, and do not approach me on their behalf, for I will not hear.

 

17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

 

18 Their sons gather wood, and their fathers kindle fire, and their women knead dough to make cakes for the host of heaven, and they have poured out drink offerings to foreign gods, in order to provoke me to anger.

 

19 Is it me they provoke? says the Lord. Is it not themselves, so that their faces may be put to shame?

 

20 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, my anger and my wrath are being poured out upon this place, and upon the people and upon the cattle and upon every tree of their field and upon all the produce of the land; and it shall burn and shall not be quenched.

 

21 Thus says the Lord: Gather your whole burnt offerings together with your sacrifices and eat flesh.

 

22 For I did not speak to your fathers, nor did I command them, in the day when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifice;

 

23 but this word I commanded them, saying: Hear my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all my ways which I command you, so that it may be well with you.

 

24 But they did not hear me, and their ear did not attend, but they walked in the thoughts of their evil heart, and they went backward and not forward,

 

25 from the day their fathers went out of the land of Egypt even until this day. And I sent to you all my servants the prophets, by day and at dawn I sent them,

 

26 and they did not hear me, and their ear did not attend, and they stiffened their neck more than their fathers.

 

27-28 And you shall say to them this word: This is the nation that did not hear the voice of the Lord, nor accept instruction; faithfulness has perished from their mouth.

 

29 Cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on your lips, for the Lord has rejected and cast off the generation that does these things.

 

30 For the sons of Judah have done evil before me, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house upon which my name has been called, to defile it;

 

31 and they have built the altar of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command them, nor did I conceive it in my heart.

 

32 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when they will no longer say, "The altar of Topheth" and "The valley of the son of Hinnom," but "The valley of the slain," and they will bury in Topheth because there is no room.

 

33 And the dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to drive them away.

 

34 And I will bring to an end from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of those who rejoice and the voice of those who make merry, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the whole land shall become a desolation.

 

Chapter 8

 

1 At that time, says the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of those dwelling in Jerusalem, from their tombs;

 

2 and they shall spread them out before the sun and the moon and before all the stars and before all the host of heaven, which they loved and which they served, and after which they went, and to which they clung, and which they worshipped. They shall not be mourned nor buried, and they shall be for an example upon the face of the earth,

 

3 because they chose death rather than life, even for all the remnant that is left of that generation in every place wherever I shall drive them out.

 

4 For thus says the Lord: Does not he who falls rise again? Or does he who turns away not return?

 

5 Why has this my people turned away with a shameless turning, and been held fast in their own choosing, and refused to return?

 

6 Give ear now and listen: they will not speak thus; there is no man repenting of his wickedness, saying, "What have I done?" The runner has ceased from his course, like a sweating horse in his neighing.

 

7 Even the stork in the heaven knows her season; the turtledove and the swallow, the sparrows of the field, have kept the seasons of their comings; but my people has not known the judgments of the Lord.

 

8 How will you say, "We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us"? In vain has a false pen come to be for the scribes.

 

9 The wise have been put to shame and dismayed and taken, because they rejected the word of the Lord; what wisdom is there in them?

 

10 Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to the inheritors.

 

13 And they shall gather in their fruits, says the Lord; there is no grape on the vines, and there are no figs on the fig trees, and the leaves have fallen.

 

14 Why do we sit still? Gather yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities and be cast away, for God has cast us away and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned before him.

 

15 We assembled for peace, and there was no good; for a time of healing, and behold, alarm.

 

16 From Dan we shall hear the sound of the swiftness of his horses; at the sound of the neighing of the riding of his horses the whole earth was shaken; and he shall come and devour the land and its fullness, the city and those dwelling in it.

 

17 For behold, I am sending among you deadly serpents, which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you

 

18 incurably, with the pain of your despairing heart.

 

19 Behold, the sound of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far off: Is the Lord not in Zion? Or is there no king there? Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with foreign vanities?

 

20 The summer has passed, the harvest is gone by, and we have not been saved.

 

21 Over the ruin of the daughter of my people I have been darkened; pangs have overpowered me in helplessness, as of a woman in labor.

 

22 Is there no balm in Gilead, or is there no physician there? Why has the healing of the daughter of my people not come up?

 

23 Who will give water to my head and to my eyes a fountain of tears, that I may weep for this my people day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people?

 

Chapter 9

 

1 Who would give me in the wilderness a lodging place at the farthest point, that I might leave my people and depart from them? For they all commit adultery, an assembly of treacherous men.

 

2 And they have bent their tongue like a bow; falsehood, and not faithfulness, has prevailed upon the land, for they have gone out from evils to evils, and they have not known me.

 

3 Guard yourselves, each one from his neighbor, and put no trust in their brothers, for every brother will surely trip with the heel, and every friend will walk deceitfully.

 

4 Each will mock his friend; they will not speak truth. Their tongue has learned to speak lies; they have done wrong and have not ceased so as to return.

 

5 Interest upon interest, deceit upon deceit; they refused to know me.

 

6 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will refine them with fire and test them, for I will act because of the wickedness of the daughter of my people.

 

7 Their tongue is a wounding arrow; the words of their mouth are deceitful. He speaks peaceably to his neighbor, but in himself he holds enmity.

 

8 Shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord, or shall my soul not take vengeance on such a people as this?

 

9 Take up lamentation upon the mountains and a dirge upon the paths of the wilderness, for they have failed, because there are no men; they have not heard the sound of existence; from the birds of the sky even to the cattle they have been startled and gone away.

 

10 And I will give Jerusalem over to removal and as a dwelling place of serpents, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, so that they are not inhabited.

 

11 Who is the wise man, and let him understand this, and he to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord has come, let him declare it to you: For what reason has the land perished, been kindled like a wilderness, so that no one passes through it?

 

12 And the Lord said to me: Because they forsook my law which I set before them, and did not listen to my voice,

 

13 but went after the things pleasing to their evil heart and after the idols which their fathers taught them,

 

14 therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed them with hardships and give them water of gall to drink,

 

15 and I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them by it.

 

16 Thus says the Lord: Call the mourning women, and let them come; and send for the skilled women, and let them lift up their voice,

 

17 and let them take up a dirge over you, and let your eyes bring down tears, and let your eyelids flow with water.

 

18 For a voice of wailing has been heard in Zion: How we have suffered! We have been greatly put to shame, for we have forsaken the land and cast away our dwellings.

 

19 Hear now, O women, the word of God, and let your ears receive the words of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and each woman her neighbor a dirge.

 

20 For death has come up through your windows; it has entered your land to destroy the infants from outside and the young men from the streets.

 

21 And the corpses of men shall be for an example upon the face of the plain of your land, and like grass behind the reaper, and there shall be no one to gather.

 

22 Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his riches,

 

23 but let him who boasts boast in this: to understand and know that I am the Lord, who exercises mercy and judgment and righteousness upon the earth, for in these things is my will, says the Lord.

 

24 Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will visit all those circumcised in their foreskin:

 

25 upon Egypt and upon Judea and upon Edom and upon the sons of Ammon and upon the sons of Moab and upon everyone who shaves the hair around his face, those dwelling in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised in flesh, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in their hearts.

 

Chapter 10

 

1 Hear the word of the Lord, which he spoke concerning you, O house of Israel.

 

2 Thus says the Lord: Do not learn according to the ways of the nations, and do not be afraid of the signs of heaven, for they fear them before their faces.

 

3 For the customs of the nations are vain: it is a tree cut out of the forest, the work of a carpenter, and a molten image.

 

4 They are adorned with silver and gold; with hammers and nails they fastened them, and they will not be moved.

 

5 Being lifted, they shall be carried, for they cannot step. Do not fear them, for they can do no evil, and there is no good in them.

 

9 It is beaten silver; they will not walk. Wrought silver will come from Tharsis, gold of Mophaz, and the hand of goldsmiths, all the works of craftsmen; they will clothe them in blue and purple.

 

11 Thus shall you say to them: Let the gods who did not make the heaven and the earth perish from the earth and from beneath this heaven.

 

12 The Lord is he who made the earth by his strength, who set upright the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding he stretched out the heaven,

 

13 and a multitude of water is in heaven, and he brought up clouds from the end of the earth; he made lightnings for rain, and brought forth light out of his storehouses.

 

14 Every man has been made a fool for lack of knowledge; every goldsmith has been put to shame because of his graven images, for they have cast false things; there is no breath in them.

 

15 They are vain, works of mockery; in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

 

16 Such is not the portion of Jacob, for he who formed all things is himself his inheritance; the Lord is his name.

 

17 He has gathered your substance from outside, you who dwell among the chosen.

 

18 For thus says the Lord: Behold, I trip up the inhabitants of this land with affliction, so that your wound may be discovered.

 

19 Woe for your destruction! Your wound is painful. And I said, Truly this is my wound, and it has overtaken me.

 

20 My tent has suffered ruin, it has perished, and all my curtains have been torn apart; my sons and my sheep are no more; there is no longer a place for my tent, a place for my curtains.

 

21 For the shepherds became foolish and did not seek the Lord; therefore the whole pasture had no understanding, and they were scattered.

 

22 A voice of a report, behold, it comes, and a great quaking from the land of the north, to make the cities of Judah a desolation and a resting place for ostriches.

 

23 I know, Lord, that a man's way is not his own, nor shall a man walk and direct his own course.

 

24 Chasten us, Lord, but with judgment and not in wrath, lest you make us few.

 

25 Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not know you, and upon the families that have not called upon your name; for they have devoured Jacob and consumed him, and have laid waste his pasture.

 

Chapter 11

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah, saying:

 

2 Hear the words of this covenant. And you shall speak to the men of Judah and to those who dwell in Jerusalem;

 

3 and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of this covenant,

 

4 which I commanded your fathers in the day when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying: Hear my voice and do all things, whatever I command you, and you shall be to me a people, and I will be to you a God,

 

5 that I may establish my oath, which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. And I answered and said: So be it, Lord.

 

6 And the Lord said to me: Read these words in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and do them.

 

8 But they did not do them.

 

9 And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among those who dwell in Jerusalem;

 

10 they have turned back to the iniquities of their fathers of former times, who would not listen to my words, and behold, they walk after strange gods to serve them, and the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers.

 

11 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing evils upon this people, out of which they shall not be able to escape, and they shall cry out to me, and I will not listen to them.

 

12 And the cities of Judah and those who dwell in Jerusalem shall go and cry out to the gods to whom they burn incense; surely these shall not save them in the time of their evils?

 

13 For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah, and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you set up altars to burn incense to Baal.

 

14 And you, do not pray for this people, and do not plead for them in supplication and prayer, for I will not listen in the time when they call upon me, in the time of their affliction.

 

15 Why has the beloved committed abomination in my house? Shall vows and holy flesh take away from you your wickedness, or by these will you escape?

16 A beautiful olive tree, fair-shaded in appearance, the Lord called your name; at the sound of its pruning a fire was kindled upon it, great is the tribulation upon you; its branches have been made useless.

 

17 And the Lord who planted you has spoken evils against you, because of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, for they did it to themselves, to provoke me to anger by burning incense to Baal.

 

18 Lord, make it known to me, and I shall know; then I saw their practices.

 

19 But I, like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know; against me they devised a wicked device, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread and let us wipe him out from the land of the living, and his name shall be remembered no more.

 

20 O Lord, who judges righteous things, who tests kidneys and hearts, may I see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have revealed my just cause.

 

21 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the men of Anathoth who seek my life, who say: You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord; but if you do, you shall die by our hands.

 

22 Behold, I will visit them: their young men shall die by the sword, and their sons and their daughters shall perish by famine,

 

23 and there shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evils upon those who dwell in Anathoth, in the year of their visitation.

 

Chapter 12

 

1 Righteous are you, O Lord, for I will make my defense to you; nevertheless I will speak judgments to you: Why does the way of the ungodly prosper? All who deal treacherously with treachery have flourished.

 

2 You planted them and they took root; they bore children and produced fruit. You are near to their mouth and far from their inward parts.

 

3 And you, O Lord, know me; you have tested my heart before you. Purify them for the day of their slaughter.

 

4 How long shall the land mourn, and all the grass of the field be dried up because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it? Beasts and birds have been destroyed, because they said, "God will not see our ways."

 

5 Your feet run, and they wear you out; how will you prepare yourself against horses? And in a land of peace you have trusted; how will you act in the roaring of the Jordan?

 

6 For even your brothers and the house of your father—even they have dealt treacherously with you, and they have cried out; from behind you they have gathered together. Do not trust in them, though they speak fair words to you.

 

7 I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance; I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.

 

8 My inheritance has become to me like a lion in a forest; she has lifted her voice against me; therefore I have hated her.

 

9 Is not my inheritance to me a hyena's cave, or a cave round about her? Go, gather all the wild beasts of the field, and let them come to devour her.

 

10 Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have defiled my portion; they have given my desirable portion over to an impassable wilderness.

 

11 It was made a desolation of destruction; because of me the whole land has been utterly desolated, for there is no man who lays it to heart.

 

12 Upon every passage in the wilderness they came in misery, for the sword of the Lord will devour from one end of the land to the other end of the land; there is no peace for any flesh.

 

13 Sow wheat and reap thorns; their allotments will not profit them. Be ashamed of your boasting, of your reproach before the Lord.

 

14 For thus says the Lord concerning all the evil neighbors who touch my inheritance, which I apportioned to my people Israel: Behold, I am tearing them away from their land, and I will cast out Judah from among them.

 

15 And it shall come to pass, after I cast them out, I will return and have mercy on them, and I will settle them, each in his own inheritance and each in his own land.

 

16 And it shall come to pass, if they truly learn the way of my people, to swear by my name, "The Lord lives," just as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people.

 

17 But if they do not return, then I will remove that nation with removal and destruction.

 

Chapter 13

 

1 Thus says the Lord: Go and get for yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your loins, and it shall not pass through water.

 

2 And I got the loincloth according to the word of the Lord and put it around my loins.

 

3 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

4 Take the loincloth that is around your loins, and arise and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in the cleft of the rock.

 

5 And I went and hid it in the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.

 

6 And it happened after many days that the Lord said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates and take from there the loincloth which I commanded you to hide there.

 

7 And I went to the river Euphrates and dug and took the loincloth from the place where I had buried it, and behold, it was ruined, so that it would never be useful for anything.

 

8 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

9 Thus says the Lord: Thus will I destroy the pride of Judah and the pride of Jerusalem,

 

10 this great pride, those who are unwilling to obey my words and who went after foreign gods to serve them and to worship them; and they shall be like this loincloth, which will not be useful for anything.

 

11 For just as the loincloth clings to the loins of a man, so I made the house of Israel and all the house of Judah cling to me, so that they might become for me a people of renown and a boast and a glory; but they did not listen to me.

 

12 And you shall say to this people: Every wineskin shall be filled with wine. And it shall be, if they say to you, Do we not surely know that every wineskin shall be filled with wine?

 

13 then you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am filling the inhabitants of this land, and their kings, the sons of David who sit upon his throne, and the priests and the prophets, and Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.

 

14 And I will scatter them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons together; I will not long for them, says the Lord, and I will not spare nor have pity, so as to keep them from destruction.

 

15 Hear and give ear and do not be lifted up, for the Lord has spoken.

 

16 Give glory to the Lord your God before it grows dark and before your feet stumble upon dark mountains; and you will wait for light, but there will be the shadow of death, and they will be set in darkness.

 

17 But if you do not listen, your soul shall weep in secret because of pride, and your eyes shall bring down tears, because the flock of the Lord has been broken.

 

18 Say to the king and to those in power: Be humbled and sit down, for the crown of your glory has been taken down from your head.

 

19 The cities toward the south have been shut up, and there was no one to open them; Judah has been carried into exile, it has completed a full deportation.

 

20 Lift up your eyes, Jerusalem, and see those coming from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, the sheep of your glory?

 

21 What will you say when they visit you? For you yourself taught them lessons against yourself, for rule; will not pangs seize you like a woman in labor?

 

22 And if you say in your heart, Why have these things befallen me?—because of the multitude of your iniquity your hinder parts have been uncovered, so that your heels are made an example.

 

23 If the Ethiopian will change his skin, and the leopard her spots, then you too will be able to do good, having learned evil.

 

24 And I scattered them like brushwood carried by the wind into the wilderness.

 

25 This is your lot and the portion for your disobedience to me, says the Lord, because you forgot me and put your hope in falsehoods.

 

26 And I too will uncover your hinder parts before your face, and your dishonor shall be seen.

 

27 And your adultery and your neighing and the estrangement of your fornication, upon the hills and in the fields I have seen your abominations. Woe to you, Jerusalem, because you have not been cleansed to follow me; how long yet?

 

Chapter 14

 

1 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.

 

2 Judea mourned, and her gates were emptied and darkened upon the earth, and the cry of Jerusalem went up.

 

3 And her nobles sent their young men for water; they came to the wells and found no water, and they returned with their vessels empty.

 

4 And the works of the land failed, because there was no rain; the farmers were ashamed, they covered their heads.

 

5 And the deer gave birth in the field and abandoned their young, because there was no grass.

 

6 Wild asses stood in the glens; they gasped for wind, their eyes failed, because there was no grass, on account of a people of iniquity.

 

7 Though our sins have risen up against us, O Lord, act for us for your own sake, for our sins are many before you, for we have sinned against you.

 

8 O hope of Israel, Lord, you save in time of evils; why have you become like a sojourner upon the earth, and like a native turning aside to a lodging?

 

9 Will you be like a man asleep, or like a man unable to save? Yet you are among us, Lord, and your name has been called upon us; do not forget us.

 

10 Thus says the Lord to this people: They have loved to move their feet, and they have not refrained, and God has not been pleased with them; now he will remember their iniquities.

 

11 And the Lord said to me: Do not pray for this people for their good.

 

12 For even if they fast, I will not hear their supplication, and if they offer whole burnt offerings and sacrifices, I will not be pleased with them, for by sword and by famine and by death I will make an end of them.

 

13 And I said: O Lord, behold, their prophets prophesy and say: You shall not see the sword, nor shall there be famine among you, for I will give truth and peace upon the land and in this place.

 

14 And the Lord said to me: The prophets prophesy falsehoods in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them, nor did I speak to them; for they prophesy to you false visions and divinations and omens and the devices of their own hearts.

 

15 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy falsehoods in my name, though I did not send them, who say: Sword and famine shall not be upon this land. By a diseased death shall they die, and by famine shall the prophets be consumed;

 

16 and the people to whom they prophesy, they shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem before the sword and the famine, and there shall be no one to bury them, they and their wives and their sons and their daughters; and I will pour out upon them their own evils.

 

17 And you shall say to them this word: Bring down tears upon your eyes day and night, and let them not cease, for the daughter of my people has been broken with a great breaking, and with a very grievous blow.

 

18 If I go out into the plain, behold, those slain by the sword; and if I enter the city, behold, the pain of famine; for priest and prophet have gone to a land which they did not know.

 

19 Have you, in rejecting, rejected Judah, and has your soul departed from Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We waited for peace, and there was no good; for a time of healing, and behold, turmoil.

 

20 We know, O Lord, our sins, the iniquities of our fathers, for we have sinned before you.

 

21 Relent for your name's sake; do not destroy the throne of your glory; remember, do not annul your covenant with us.

 

22 Is there among the idols of the nations one that brings rain? And will the heaven give its abundance? Are you not he? And we will wait for you, for you have made all these things.

 

Chapter 15

 

1 And the Lord said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel stood before my face, my soul is not toward them. Send this people away, and let them go out.

 

2 And it shall be, if they say to you, 'Where shall we go out?' then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: Those who are for death, to death; and those who are for the sword, to the sword; and those who are for famine, to famine; and those who are for captivity, to captivity.

 

3 And I will take vengeance on them with four kinds, says the Lord: the sword for slaughter, and the dogs for tearing apart, and the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky for devouring and for destruction.

 

4 And I will hand them over to distresses among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for all that he did in Jerusalem.

 

5 Who will spare you, Jerusalem? And who will grieve for you? Or who will turn back to ask after your peace?

 

6 You have turned away from me, says the Lord; you will go backward, and I will stretch out my hand and destroy you, and I will no longer relent toward them.

 

7 And I will scatter them in dispersion; in the gates of my people they were bereaved of children; they destroyed my people because of their wickedness.

 

8 Their widows were multiplied beyond the sand of the sea; I brought upon the mother of a young man misery at midday; I cast upon her suddenly trembling and anguish.

 

9 She who bore seven was emptied; her soul fainted; her sun set while it was yet midday; she was put to shame and reproached. Those of them who remain I will give to the sword before their enemies.

 

10 Woe is me, mother, as what sort of man did you bear me? A man contending and disputing with all the earth. I have neither profited anyone, nor has anyone profited me; my strength has failed among those who curse me.

 

11 May it be so, Master, while they prosper, if I did not stand before you in the time of their calamities and in the time of their affliction, for good, against the enemy.

 

12 Will iron be known? Your strength is even a covering of bronze.

 

13 And I will give your treasures for plunder as an exchange, because of all your sins and in all your borders.

 

14 And I will enslave you to your enemies round about, in a land which you did not know; for a fire has been kindled from my wrath; it will burn against you.

 

15 Lord, remember me and visit me, and vindicate me from those who pursue me, not with long forbearance. Know how I have borne reproach for your sake

 

16 from those who set aside your words. Consume them, and your word shall be to me for gladness and the joy of my heart, because your name has been called upon me, O Lord Almighty.

 

17 I did not sit in their assembly as they made merry, but I was in awe before the presence of your hand; I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness.

 

18 Why do those who grieve me prevail over me? My wound is severe; whence shall I be healed? It has become to me like deceitful water that has no faithfulness.

 

19 Therefore thus says the Lord: If you return, then I will restore you, and you shall stand before my face; and if you bring forth what is precious from what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth; and they shall turn back to you, but you shall not turn back to them.

 

20 And I will make you to this people like a strong bronze wall; and they will fight against you, but they shall by no means prevail against you, because I am with you to save you

 

 21 and to deliver you from the hand of the wicked; and I will ransom you from the hand of the pestilent.

 

Chapter 16

 

1 And you shall not take a wife, says the Lord, the God of Israel,

 

2 and no son or daughter shall be born to you in this place.

 

3 For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them and concerning their fathers who begot them in this land:

 

4 They shall die of a grievous death; they shall not be mourned nor buried; they shall be an example on the face of the earth, and for the wild beasts of the earth and for the birds of the sky; they shall fall by the sword and shall be consumed by famine.

 

5 Thus says the Lord: Do not enter into their gathering, and do not go to mourn, and do not lament them, for I have removed my peace from this people.

 

6 They shall not mourn for them, nor shall they make gashes, nor shall they shave themselves,

 

7 and bread shall not be broken in their mourning for consolation over the dead; they shall not give him a cup to drink for consolation over his father and his mother.

 

8 You shall not enter into a house of drinking to sit with them to eat and to drink.

 

9 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am abolishing from this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

 

10 And it shall be, when you report to this people all these words, and they say to you, "Why has the Lord spoken against us all these evils? What is our injustice, and what is our sin which we have sinned before the Lord our God?"

 

11 then you shall say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, says the Lord, and went after foreign gods and served them and worshiped them, and forsook me and did not keep my law,

 

12 and you have acted more wickedly than your fathers and behold, you go each one after the desires of your evil heart, so as not to obey me,

 

13 therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land which you did not know, you and your fathers, and there you shall serve other gods, who will show you no mercy.

 

14 Therefore behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say, "The Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,"

 

15 but, "The Lord lives, who brought up the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where they were driven"; and I will restore them to their land, which I gave to their fathers.

 

16 Behold, I am sending the many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after this I will send the many hunters, and they shall hunt them upon every mountain and upon every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks.

 

17 For my eyes are upon all their ways, and their wrongdoings have not been hidden from before my eyes.

 

18 And I will repay double their injustices and their sins, by which they defiled my land with the carcasses of their abominations and with their lawless deeds by which they trespassed against my inheritance.

 

19 O Lord, my strength and my help and my refuge in the day of evils, to you nations shall come from the end of the earth and shall say: How false were the idols our fathers acquired, and there is no benefit in them.

 

20 Shall a man make gods for himself? And these are not gods.

 

21 Therefore behold, I will show them at this time my hand, and I will make known to them my power, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.

 

Chapter 17

 

5 Cursed is the man who has his hope in man, and who leans the flesh of his arm upon him, and whose heart departs from the Lord.

 

6 And he shall be like the wild tamarisk in the desert; he shall not see when good things come, and he shall dwell in salt marshes and in the desert, in a salty land that is not inhabited.

 

7 And blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his hope.

 

8 And he shall be like a flourishing tree beside waters, and he shall put forth his roots toward moisture; he shall not fear when heat comes, and there shall be upon him shady branches; in a year of drought he shall not fear, and he shall not cease bearing fruit.

 

9 The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is man; and who shall know him?

 

10 I, the Lord, search hearts and test the reins, to give to each according to his ways and according to the fruits of his practices.

 

11 The partridge cried out; she gathered what she did not bring forth: he that makes his wealth not with judgment, in the midst of his days they shall forsake him, and at his end he shall be a fool.

 

12 A throne of glory, exalted, is our sanctuary;

 

13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, let all who forsake you be put to shame; let those who have turned away be written upon the earth, because they have forsaken the fountain of life, the Lord.

 

14 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for you are my boast.

 

15 Behold, they say to me, "Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come."

 

16 But I have not grown weary following after you, and I have not desired the day of man, you know it; the things that come forth through my lips are before your face.

 

17 Do not become to me an estrangement, but spare me in the evil day.

 

18 Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but let me not be put to shame; let them be terrified, but let me not be terrified; bring upon them the evil day; crush them with a double crushing.

 

19 Thus says the Lord: Go and stand in the gates of the sons of your people, through which the kings of Judah enter and through which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem,

 

20 and you shall say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judea, and all Jerusalem, who enter through these gates:

 

21 thus says the Lord: Guard your souls, and do not carry burdens on the day of the sabbaths, and do not go out through the gates of Jerusalem,

 

22 and do not carry burdens out of your houses on the day of the sabbaths, and you shall do no work; sanctify the day of the sabbaths, as I commanded your fathers. And they did not listen, and did not incline their ear,

 

23 and they hardened their neck more than their fathers, so as not to hear me and not to receive instruction.

 

24 And it shall be, if you truly listen to me, says the Lord, so as not to bring in burdens through the gates of this city on the day of the sabbaths, and to sanctify the day of the sabbaths, so as to do no work,

 

25 then there shall enter through the gates of this city kings and rulers sitting on the throne of David, and riding upon their chariots and horses, they and their rulers, men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall be inhabited forever.

 

26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountain, and from the region toward the south, bringing whole burnt offerings and sacrifice and incense and manaa and frankincense, bringing praise into the house of the Lord.

 

27 And it shall be, if you do not listen to me so as to sanctify the day of the sabbaths, so as not to carry burdens and not to enter through the gates of Jerusalem on the day of the sabbaths, then I will kindle a fire in her gates, and it shall devour the streets of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

 

Chapter 18

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah, saying:

 

2 Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there you shall hear my words.

 

3 And I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was doing work on the stones.

 

4 And the vessel which he was making fell apart in his hands, and again he made it into another vessel, as it pleased him to make it.

 

5 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

 

6 Shall I not be able to do to you as this potter does, O house of Israel? Behold, as the clay of the potter, so are you in my hands.

 

7 In the end I shall speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom, to remove them and to destroy them;

 

8 and if that nation turns from all their evils, then I shall repent of the evils which I planned to do to them.

 

9 And in the end I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, that it be rebuilt and planted;

 

10 and if they do evil before me, so as not to hear my voice, then I shall repent of the good things which I said I would do for them.

 

11 And now say to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Behold, I am fashioning evils against you and devising a plan against you. Let each one turn back now from his evil way, and you shall make your practices better.

 

12 And they said: We will be strong, for we will go after our own turnings, and each of us will do the things pleasing to his evil heart.

 

13 Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask now among the nations: Who has heard such dreadful things as the virgin Israel has done exceedingly?

 

14 Shall breasts fail from the rock, or snow from Lebanon? Shall water borne violently by the wind turn aside?

 

15 For my people have forgotten me; they have burned incense in vain, and they shall grow weak in their ways, on everlasting paths, so as to travel roads that have no way for journeying,

 

16 to appoint their land for destruction and an everlasting hissing; all who pass through it shall be astonished and shake their heads.

 

17 Like a scorching wind I shall scatter them before the face of their enemies; I shall show them the day of their destruction.

 

18 And they said: Come, let us devise a plan against Jeremiah, for law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and we will hear all his words.

 

19 Hear me, O Lord, and hear the voice of my plea.

 

20 Shall evil be repaid for good? For they have spoken words against my soul and have hidden their punishment from me. Remember how I stood before your face to speak good things on their behalf, to turn your wrath away from them.

 

21 Therefore give their sons over to famine, and gather them into the hands of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows, and let their men be slain by death, and their young men fallen by the sword in war.

 

22 Let there be a cry in their houses; you shall bring robbers upon them suddenly, for they have undertaken a plan to seize me and have hidden snares for me.

 

23 And you, O Lord, know all their counsel against me unto death. Do not acquit their iniquities, and do not blot out their sins from before your face. Let their weakness be before you; in the time of your wrath deal with them.

 

Chapter 19

 

1 Then the Lord said to me, "Go and acquire a molded earthenware flask, and you shall bring some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests,

 

2 and you shall go out to the burial ground of the sons of their children, which is at the entrance of the gate of Charsith, and read there all the words that I shall speak to you,

 

3 and you shall say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and those entering by these gates. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing evils upon this place, so that both ears of everyone who hears of them will ring,

 

4 because they forsook me and estranged this place and burned incense in it to foreign gods, whom they and their fathers did not know, and the kings of Judah filled this place with innocent blood,

 

5 and they built high places to Baal to burn their sons in fire, things which I did not command nor speak nor intend in my heart.

 

6 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no longer be called Downfall and Burial Ground of the son of Hinnom, but rather Burial Ground of Slaughter.

 

7 And I will slaughter the counsel of Judah and the counsel of Jerusalem in this place, and I will cast them down by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their corpses as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

 

8 And I will appoint this city for annihilation and for hissing; everyone who passes by it will scowl and hiss over all its plague.

 

9 And they shall eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each shall eat the flesh of his neighbor, in the blockade and in the siege with which their enemies will besiege them.

 

10 And you shall shatter the flask before the eyes of the men who go out with you,

 

11 and you shall say: Thus says the Lord: So will I shatter this people and this city, as an earthenware vessel is shattered, which cannot be mended anymore.

 

12 So will I do, says the Lord, to this place and to those who dwell in it, so that this city be made like that which is falling to ruin.

 

13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be like the place of downfall of uncleannesses, in all the houses in which they burned incense on their roofs to all the host of heaven and poured out libations to foreign gods."

 

14 And Jeremiah came from the Downfall, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord and said to all the people:

 

15 "Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its cities and upon its villages all the evils that I have spoken against it, because they stiffened their neck so as not to heed my words."

 

Chapter 20

 

1 And Paschor the son of Emmer, the priest—and he had been appointed leader of the house of the Lord—heard Jeremiah prophesying these words.

 

2 And he struck him and cast him into the dungeon, which was at the gate of the separate house of the upper chamber, which was in the house of the Lord.

 

3 And Paschor brought Jeremiah out of the dungeon, and Jeremiah said to him: The Lord has not called your name Paschor, but rather Exile;

 

4 for thus says the Lord: Behold, I give you over to exile with all your friends, and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it; and you and all Judah I will give into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they shall carry them into exile and cut them down with swords.

 

5 And I will give all the strength of this city and all its labors and all the treasures of the king of Judah into the hands of his enemies, and they shall bring them to Babylon.

 

6 And you and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity, and in Babylon you shall die and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends to whom you prophesied lies.

 

7 You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you prevailed and were strong; I became a laughingstock; every day I have continued being mocked;

 

8 for with my bitter speech I shall laugh; I will call upon faithlessness and misery, because the word of the Lord has become a reproach to me and a derision all my day.

 

9 And I said, I will not name the name of the Lord, and I will speak no more in his name; and it became like a burning fire blazing in my bones, and I am utterly weakened on every side and cannot bear it.

 

10 For I heard the blame of many gathering round about: Conspire, and let us conspire against him, all his friends. Watch his intention, whether he will be deceived, and we shall prevail against him and take our vengeance on him.

 

11 But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; therefore they pursued but could not understand; they were greatly ashamed, because they did not perceive their dishonors, which shall never be forgotten.

 

12 O Lord, who tests righteous things, who understands kidneys and hearts, may I see the vengeance from you upon them, for to you I have revealed my pleas.

 

13 Sing to the Lord, praise him, for he has delivered the soul of the poor man from the hand of evildoers.

 

14 Cursed be the day on which I was born; the day on which my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.

 

15 Cursed be the man who brought the good news to my father, saying, A male child has been born to you, rejoicing.

 

16 Let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew in wrath and did not repent; let him hear a cry in the morning and shouting at midday,

 

17 because he did not kill me in my mother's womb, so that my mother would have become my grave, and her womb one of everlasting conception.

 

18 Why is it that I came forth from the womb to see toils and pains, and my days have been spent in shame?

 

Chapter 21

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Melchiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,

 

2 "Inquire of the Lord on our behalf, for the king of Babylon has come against us; perhaps the Lord will act according to all his wonders, and he will depart from us."

 

3 And Jeremiah said to them, "Thus shall you say to Zedekiah king of Judah:

 

4 Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am turning back the weapons of war with which you fight against the Chaldeans who have shut you in from outside the wall, into the midst of this city;

 

5 and I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a mighty arm, with fury and wrath and great indignation.

 

6 And I will strike all those dwelling in this city, both man and beast, with a great pestilence, and they shall die.

 

7 And after these things, thus says the Lord, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people left in this city from the pestilence and from the famine and from the sword into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives, and they shall cut them down with the edge of the sword; I will not spare them, nor will I have compassion on them.

 

8 And to this people you shall say: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death.

 

9 He who remains in this city shall die by the sword and by famine, but he who goes out to go over to the Chaldeans who have shut you in shall live, and his life shall be to him as spoils, and he shall live.

 

10 For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good; it shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

 

11 O house of the king of Judah, hear the word of the Lord:

 

12 O house of David, thus says the Lord: Judge judgment in the morning, and act rightly, and deliver the one who has been plundered from the hand of him who wrongs him, lest my wrath be kindled like fire and burn, and there be no one to quench it.

 

13 Behold, I am against you who dwell in the valley of Sor, the plain, you who say, 'Who shall terrify us? Or who shall enter into our dwelling place?'

 

14 And I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is around her.

 

Chapter 22

 

1 Thus says the Lord: Go and go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word,

 

2 and you shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah who sits upon the throne of David, you and your house and your people and those who enter by these gates.

 

3 Thus says the Lord: Do judgment and righteousness, and rescue the one who has been plundered from the hand of the one who wrongs him; and do not oppress the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, and do not act impiously, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

 

4 For if you indeed do this word, then kings sitting upon the throne of David shall enter by the gates of this house, mounted on chariots and horses, they and their servants and their people.

 

5 But if you do not do these words, I have sworn by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.

 

6 For thus says the Lord against the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon; surely I will make you a wilderness, cities that shall not be inhabited.

 

7 And I will bring upon you a destroying man with his axe, and they shall cut down your choice cedars and cast them into the fire.

 

8 And nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbor: Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?

 

9 And they shall say: Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped foreign gods and served them.

 

10 Do not weep for the dead, nor lament him; weep bitterly for the one who goes out, for he shall not return again, nor shall he see the land of his fathers.

 

11 For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum son of Josiah, who reigns in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He shall not return there any more,

 

12 but in the place to which I have exiled him, there he shall die, and this land he shall not see again.

 

13 Woe to him who builds his house not with righteousness, and his upper chambers not with justice; who makes his neighbor work for nothing and will not pay him his wages.

 

14 You have built yourself a spacious house, airy upper chambers fitted with windows, paneled with cedar and painted with vermilion.

 

15 Shall you reign, because you vie with Ahaz your father? They shall not eat and they shall not drink. It was better for you to do judgment and good righteousness.

 

16 They did not know; they did not judge the cause of the lowly, nor the cause of the poor. Is not this your not knowing me? says the Lord.

 

17 Behold, your eyes and your heart are not good, but are set on your greed and on innocent blood, to shed it, and on wrongdoing and on murder, to do it.

 

18 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: Woe to this man! They shall not mourn him, saying "Alas, brother," nor shall they weep for him, saying "Alas, lord."

 

19 He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, dragged away and cast beyond the gate of Jerusalem.

 

20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and lift up your voice to Bashan, and cry to the region beyond the sea, for all your lovers have been crushed.

 

21 I spoke to you in your prosperity, and you said, "I will not listen." This has been your way from your youth: you did not listen to my voice.

 

22 The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go out into captivity; for then you shall be put to shame and disgraced by all who love you.

 

23 You who dwell in Lebanon, nesting among the cedars, you shall groan when pangs come upon you, as of one giving birth.

 

24 As I live, says the Lord, even if Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet upon my right hand, from there I would pluck you off,

 

25 and I will hand you over into the hands of those who seek your life, before whose face you are afraid, into the hands of the Chaldeans.

 

26 And I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into a land where you were not born, and there you shall die.

 

27 But to the land for which they long in their souls, they shall not return.

 

28 Jeconiah has been dishonored like a vessel for which there is no use, for he has been cast out and thrown into a land which he did not know.

 

29 O land, land, hear the word of the Lord:

 

30 Write this man down as a man proscribed, for no man of his seed shall grow up to sit upon the throne of David, ruling any more in Judah.

 

Chapter 23

 

1 Woe to the shepherds who scatter and destroy the sheep of my pasture!

 

2 Therefore thus says the Lord against those who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them out and have not attended to them; behold, I will take vengeance upon you according to your evil practices.

 

3 And I will gather in the remnant of my people from all the land where I drove them out, and I will settle them in their pasture, and they shall increase and multiply.

 

4 And I will raise up for them shepherds who will shepherd them, and they shall fear no more nor be terrified, says the Lord.

 

5 Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and shall understand and shall execute judgment and righteousness upon the earth.

 

6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell in confidence, and this is the name by which the Lord shall call him: Josedek.

 

9 Concerning the prophets: my heart is broken within me, all my bones are shaken; I have become like a man who is broken, like a man overcome with wine, because of the Lord and because of the splendor of his glory.

 

10 For because of these things the land mourned, the pastures of the wilderness dried up; and their course has become evil, and their strength is not so.

 

11 For priest and prophet have been defiled, and in my house I have seen their wickedness.

 

12 Therefore let their way become for them a slippery place in gloom, and they shall be tripped up and shall fall in it; for I will bring evils upon them in the year of their visitation, says the Lord.

 

13 And in the prophets of Samaria I have seen lawless deeds: they prophesied by Baal and led astray my people Israel.

 

14 And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen horrible things: committing adultery and walking in lies and strengthening the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns back from his evil way. They have all become to me like Sodom, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.

 

15 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will feed them with pain and give them bitter water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem defilement has gone out to all the land.

 

16 Thus says the Lord Almighty: Do not listen to the words of the prophets, for they make vision vain for themselves; they speak from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord.

 

17 They say to those who reject the word of the Lord, "There shall be peace for you"; and to all who walk after their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, "No evil shall come upon you."

 

18 For who has stood in the council of the Lord and seen his word? Who has given ear and heard?

 

19 Behold, a shaking from the Lord, and wrath goes forth as a convulsion; whirling, it shall come upon the ungodly.

 

20 And the anger of the Lord shall not turn back until he has done it, and until he has established it from the purpose of his heart; at the end of days they shall understand these things.

 

21 I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

 

22 And if they had stood in my council and had listened to my words, then they would have turned my people back from their evil practices.

 

23 I am a God who draws near, says the Lord, and not a God from afar.

 

24 Shall a man hide himself in secret places, and shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.

 

25 I have heard what the prophets say, what they prophesy in my name, lying, saying, "I have dreamed a dream."

 

26 How long shall it be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and in their prophesying the desires of their own heart?

 

27 Who plot to make my people forget my law by their dreams, which they recount each to his neighbor, just as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

 

28 Let the prophet in whom is a dream recount his dream, and let him in whom is my word recount my word in truth. What is the chaff to the wheat? So are my words, says the Lord.

 

29 Are not my words like a blazing fire, says the Lord, and like an axe that cuts rock?

 

30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord God, who steal my words, each from his neighbor.

 

31 Behold, I am against the prophets who put forth prophecies of the tongue and slumber their own slumber.

 

32 Behold, I am against the prophets who prophesy false dreams and recounted them and led my people astray by their lies and by their errors, though I did not send them nor command them, and they shall not profit this people at all.

 

33 And if this people, or a priest, or a prophet, asks you, saying, "What is the burden of the Lord?" then you shall say to them: You are the burden, and I will dash you down, says the Lord.

 

34 And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, "The burden of the Lord," I will take vengeance on that man and on his house.

 

35 For thus shall you say, each to his neighbor and each to his brother: "What has the Lord answered?" and "What has the Lord spoken?"

 

36 And do not name "the burden of the Lord" any more, for the burden shall be to each man his own word.

 

37 And why has the Lord our God spoken?

 

38 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have spoken this word, "The burden of the Lord," although I sent to you saying, You shall not say "The burden of the Lord,"

 

39 therefore, behold, I will take up and dash down you and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers,

 

40 and I will put upon you an everlasting reproach and an everlasting dishonor, which shall not be forgotten.

 

7 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say, "As the Lord lives, who brought up the house of Israel out of the land of Egypt,"

 

8 but, "As the Lord lives, who gathered all the seed of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where he drove them out, and restored them to their own land."

 

Chapter 24

 

1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs lying before the face of the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Joakim, king of Judah, and the rulers and the craftsmen and the prisoners and the rich from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

 

2 The one basket was of very good figs, like the early figs, and the other basket of very bad figs, which cannot be eaten because of their badness.

 

3 And the Lord said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "Figs: the good ones very good, and the bad ones very bad, which cannot be eaten because of their badness."

 

4 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

5 "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge the exiles of Judah, whom I have sent forth from this place into the land of the Chaldeans for good.

 

6 And I will fix my eyes upon them for good, and I will restore them to this land for good, and I will build them up and not tear down, and I will plant them and not pluck up.

 

7 And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be to me a people, and I will be to them a God, for they shall turn back to me with their whole heart.

 

8 And like the bad figs, which cannot be eaten because of their badness—thus says the Lord, so will I hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, and his nobles, and the remnant of Jerusalem, those left in this land, and those dwelling in Egypt.

 

9 And I will give them up to dispersion into all the kingdoms of the earth, and they shall be a reproach and a byword and an object of hatred and a curse in every place where I have driven them.

 

10 And I will send upon them famine and death and the sword, until they perish from the land which I gave to them."

 

Chapter 25

 

1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Joakim son of Josiah, king of Judah,

 

2 which he spoke to all the people of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:

 

3 In the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amos, king of Judah, and until this day, twenty-three years, I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking;

 

4 and I sent to you my servants the prophets, sending them at dawn, and you did not listen and did not incline your ears,

 

5 when I said: Turn back, each one from his evil way and from your evil practices, and you shall dwell in the land which I gave to you and to your fathers from of old and forever.

 

6 Do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, lest you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, so as to bring harm upon you.

 

7 But you did not listen to me.

 

8 Therefore thus says the Lord: Since you did not believe my words,

 

9 behold, I am sending and will take the family from the north, and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all the nations around it, and I will utterly desolate them and make them a devastation and a hissing and an everlasting reproach;

 

10 and I will destroy from among them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the scent of perfume and the light of the lamp.

 

11 And the whole land shall become a devastation, and they shall serve among the nations seventy years.

 

12 And when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish that nation, says the Lord, and I will make them an everlasting desolation;

 

13 and I will bring upon that land all my words which I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book.

 

14 What Jeremiah prophesied against the nations of Elam.

 

15 Thus says the Lord: Let the bow of Elam be broken, the chief of their power.

 

16 And I will bring upon Elam four winds from the four corners of heaven, and I will scatter them by all these winds, and there shall be no nation to which the outcasts of Elam shall not come.

 

17 And I will terrify them before their enemies who seek their life, and I will bring evils upon them according to the wrath of my anger, and I will send my sword after them until I have consumed them.

 

18 And I will set my throne in Elam, and I will send out from there king and nobles.

 

19 And it shall be in the last days that I will restore the captivity of Elam, says the Lord.

 

 20 In the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah this word came concerning Elam.

 

Chapter 26

 

2 Concerning Egypt, against the power of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, who was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck down in the fourth year of Jehoiakim king of Judah.

 

3 Take up weapons and shields, and draw near to battle.

 

4 Harness the horses; mount, you horsemen, and take your stand in your helmets; put forward the spears and put on your breastplates.

 

5 Why is it that they are terrified and retreat backward? Because their mighty ones shall be cut down. They have fled in flight and did not turn back, being surrounded on every side, says the Lord.

 

6 Let not the swift flee, and let not the mighty one escape; toward the north, by the Euphrates, they have grown weak, they have fallen.

 

7 Who is this that will rise up like a river, and like rivers whose waters surge?

 

8 The waters of Egypt shall rise up like a river; and he said, I will rise up and cover the earth and destroy those who dwell in it.

 

9 Mount the horses, prepare the chariots; go forth, you warriors of the Ethiopians and Libyans armed with weapons; and you Lydians, go up, bend the bow.

 

10 And that day belongs to the Lord our God, a day of vengeance, to take vengeance on his enemies; and the sword of the Lord shall devour and be filled and be drunk with their blood, for there is a sacrifice to the Lord Sabaoth from the land of the north, by the river Euphrates.

 

11 Go up, Gilead, and take balm for the virgin daughter of Egypt; in vain have you multiplied your remedies; there is no profit for you.

 

12 The nations have heard your voice, and the earth is filled with your cry, for warrior has grown weak against warrior; both have fallen together.

 

13 The things which the Lord spoke by the hand of Jeremiah, concerning the coming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to smite the land of Egypt.

 

14 Proclaim it in Migdol, and announce it in Memphis; say: Stand fast and prepare, for the sword has devoured your yew tree.

 

15 Why has Apis fled? Your chosen calf did not remain, for the Lord paralyzed him.

 

16 And your multitude grew weak and fell, and each one said to his neighbor: Let us arise and return to our people, to our homeland, from before the Greek sword.

 

17 Call the name of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt Saon-esbi-emoed.

 

18 As I live, says the Lord God, as Tabor is among the mountains and as Carmel is by the sea, so shall he come.

 

19 Make for yourself vessels of exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, for Memphis shall become a desolation, and shall be called Woe, because there are no inhabitants in her.

 

20 Egypt is a heifer adorned; a piece torn off from the north has come upon her.

 

21 And her hired soldiers in her midst are like fatted calves fed within her; for they too have turned back and fled together; they did not stand, for the day of destruction has come upon them, and the time of their vengeance.

 

22 Her sound is like a serpent hissing, for they shall go along in the sand; with axes they shall come against her, like men cutting wood.

 

23 They shall cut down her forest, says the Lord God, for it cannot be estimated, for they multiply beyond the locust, and there is no number to them.

 

24 The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame; she has been delivered into the hands of a people from the north.

 

25 Behold, I will take vengeance on Amon her son, on Pharaoh and on those who trust in him.

 

27 But you, do not fear, my servant Jacob, nor be dismayed, Israel; for behold, I am saving you from afar, and your seed from their captivity; and Jacob shall return and be at rest and sleep, and there shall be no one to trouble him.

 

28 Do not fear, my child Jacob, says the Lord, for I am with you; for I will make an end of every nation among whom I have driven you, but I will not make an end of you; and I will discipline you with judgment, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.

 

Chapter 27

 

1 The word of the Lord, which he spoke against Babylon.

 

2 Proclaim among the nations and make it heard and do not hide it; say: Babylon has been captured, Bel the undaunted has been put to shame, the delicate Marodach has been delivered up.

 

3 For a nation from the north has come up against her; it will make her land a desolation, and there will be no one dwelling in her, from man even to beast.

 

4 In those days and at that time the sons of Israel will come, they and the sons of Judah together; walking and weeping they will go, seeking the Lord their God.

 

5 As far as Zion they will ask the way, for hither they will set their face; and they will come and take refuge with the Lord God, for an everlasting covenant will not be forgotten.

 

6 My people have become lost sheep; their shepherds thrust them out, they led them astray upon the mountains; from mountain to hill they went, they forgot their resting place.

 

7 All who found them devoured them; their enemies said: Let us not spare them, because they sinned against the Lord, the pasture of righteousness, against him who gathered their fathers.

 

8 Remove yourselves from the midst of Babylon and from the land of the Chaldeans, and go forth, and be like serpents before the face of sheep.

 

9 For behold, I am raising up against Babylon gatherings of nations from the land of the north, and they will array themselves against her; from there she will be captured; like the arrow of a skilled warrior it will not return empty.

 

10 And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will be filled.

 

11 Because you rejoiced and boasted while plundering my inheritance, because you skipped like calves in the grass and butted like bulls,

 

12 your mother has been greatly ashamed; the mother for good things is the last of the nations, desolate.

 

13 Because of the wrath of the Lord she will not be inhabited, and she will be wholly a desolation, and everyone passing through Babylon will scowl, and they will hiss at all her wounds.

 

14 Array yourselves against Babylon round about, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, do not spare your arrows.

 

15 Raise the shout against her; her hands have been weakened, her battlements have fallen, and her wall has been torn down; for it is vengeance from God—take vengeance upon her; as she has done, do to her.

 

16 Destroy seed out of Babylon, him who holds a sickle in the time of harvest; from before the face of the Greek sword each will turn back to his people, and each will flee to his own land.

 

17 Israel is a wandering sheep; lions drove him out. The first to devour him was the king of Assur, and this one afterward, the king of Babylon, his bones.

 

18 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I take vengeance upon the king of Babylon and upon his land, as I took vengeance upon the king of Assur.

 

19 And I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he will graze on Carmel and on Mount Ephraim and in Gilead, and his soul will be satisfied.

 

20 In those days and at that time they will seek the iniquity of Israel, and there will be none, and the sins of Judah, and they will not be found, for I will be merciful to those left remaining upon the land, says the Lord.

 

21 Go up against her bitterly and against those who dwell in her; take vengeance, O sword, and destroy, says the Lord, and do according to all that I command you.

 

22 A sound of war and great destruction in the land of the Chaldeans.

 

23 How the hammer of all the earth has been broken and shattered! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

 

24 They will set upon you, and you will be taken, O Babylon, and you will not know it; you were found and seized, because you stood against the Lord.

 

25 The Lord has opened his treasury and brought forth the vessels of his wrath, for there is a work for the Lord God in the land of the Chaldeans,

 

26 because her times have come. Open her storehouses, search her out like a cave, and utterly destroy her; let there be no remnant of her.

 

27 Dry up all her fruits, and let them go down to slaughter. Woe to them, for their day has come, and the time of their vengeance.

 

28 A voice of those fleeing and escaping from the land of Babylon, to announce in Zion the vengeance from the Lord our God.

 

29 Summon many against Babylon, everyone who bends the bow; encamp against her round about; let there be no one of hers escaping; repay her according to her works; according to all that she has done, do to her, for she stood against the Lord, the holy God of Israel.

 

30 Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all her men of war will be cast down, said the Lord.

 

31 Behold, I am against you, the insolent one, says the Lord, for your day has come, and the time of your vengeance.

 

32 And your insolence will grow weak and fall, and there will be no one to raise it up; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.

 

33 Thus says the Lord: The sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have been oppressed together; all who took them captive oppressed them, for they were unwilling to let them go.

 

34 But their redeemer is strong; the Lord Almighty is his name. He will surely plead the cause against his adversaries, so that he may remove the land, and he will provoke those who dwell in Babylon.

 

35 A sword upon the Chaldeans and upon those dwelling in Babylon and upon her nobles and upon her wise men;

 

36 a sword upon her warriors, and they will be weakened;

 

37 a sword upon their horses and upon their chariots; a sword upon their warriors and upon the mixed people in her midst, and they will be like women; a sword upon her treasures, and they will be scattered.

 

38 She trusted in her water, and they will be put to shame, for it is a land of graven images, and in the islands, where they boasted.

 

39 Therefore phantoms will dwell in the islands, and daughters of sirens will dwell in her; she will never be inhabited again forever.

 

40 As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors, said the Lord, no man will dwell there, and no son of man will sojourn there.

 

41 Behold, a people is coming from the north, and a great nation, and many kings will be roused from the end of the earth,

 

42 holding bow and dagger; it is fierce and will show no mercy; their voice will roar like the sea; on horses they will ride, prepared like fire for war against you, O daughter of Babylon.

 

43 The king of Babylon heard the report of them, and his hands were weakened; anguish overpowered him, pangs as of a woman in labor.

 

44 Behold, like a lion he will come up from the Jordan to the place of Aitham, for I will swiftly drive them out from her, and I will set every young man against her. For who is like me? And who will stand against me? And who is this shepherd who will stand before my face?

 

45 Therefore hear the counsel of the Lord, which he has purposed against Babylon, and his devisings, which he has devised against the Chaldeans who dwell there: surely the lambs of their sheep will be destroyed; surely the pasture will be made desolate from them.

 

46 For at the sound of the capture of Babylon the earth will be shaken, and a cry will be heard among the nations.

 

Chapter 28

 

1 Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am raising up against Babylon and against the Chaldeans who dwell there a scorching, destroying wind.

 

2 And I will send out against Babylon insolent men, and they shall treat her insolently and ravage her land. Woe upon Babylon round about in the day of her affliction.

 

3 Against her let him who bends his bow bend it, and let him who has armor put it on; and do not spare her young men, and destroy all her host,

 

4 and the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and those pierced through outside her.

 

5 For Israel and Judah have not been widowed from their God, from the Lord Almighty; for their land was filled with injustice against the holy ones of Israel.

 

6 Flee from the midst of Babylon and let each one save his own life, and do not be cast away in her iniquity, for it is the time of her vengeance from the Lord; he himself repays her a recompense.

 

7 Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, making all the earth drunk; from her wine the nations drank, therefore they were shaken.

 

8 And suddenly Babylon fell and was shattered. Lament for her; take balm for her destruction, if perhaps she may be healed.

 

9 We have treated Babylon, and she was not healed. Let us forsake her and go away, each to his own land, for her judgment has reached to heaven; it has risen up as far as the stars.

 

10 The Lord has brought forth his judgment. Come, and let us proclaim in Zion the works of the Lord our God.

 

11 Prepare the arrows, fill the quivers. The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the king of the Medes, for his wrath is against Babylon, to destroy her utterly, for it is the vengeance of the Lord, it is the vengeance of his people.

 

12 Upon the walls of Babylon lift up a signal, set up quivers, raise up guards, prepare weapons; for the Lord has undertaken and will do what he spoke against those who dwell in Babylon,

 

13 who dwell by many waters and upon the abundance of her treasures. Your end has truly come, into your very inward parts.

 

14 For the Lord has sworn by his arm: I will fill you with men as with locusts, and those who come down shall cry out against you.

 

15 He who made the earth by his strength, who prepared the world by his wisdom, by his understanding he stretched out the heaven;

 

16 at his voice he set the sound of water in the heaven, and brought up clouds from the end of the earth; he made lightnings for rain, and brought forth light out of his treasuries.

 

17 Every man has been made foolish, lacking knowledge; every goldsmith has been put to shame by his carved images, for they have cast lies; there is no breath in them.

 

18 They are vain, works of mockery; in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

 

19 Not such is the portion of Jacob, for he who formed all things is his inheritance; the Lord is his name.

 

20 You scatter for me weapons of war, and I will scatter nations among you and remove kings from you;

 

21 and I will scatter among you horse and its rider, and I will scatter among you chariots and their riders;

 

22 and I will scatter among you young man and maiden, and I will scatter among you man and woman;

 

23 and I will scatter among you shepherd and his flock, and I will scatter among you farmer and his tillage, and I will scatter among you your governors and your generals.

 

24 And I will repay Babylon and all the Chaldeans who dwell there all their evils which they did against Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

 

25 Behold, I am against you, O ruined mountain that ruins all the earth, and I will stretch out my hand against you, and I will roll you down from the rocks, and I will make you like a burnt-out mountain,

 

26 and they shall not take from you a stone for a corner nor a stone for a foundation, for you shall be a desolation forever, says the Lord.

 

27 Lift up a signal upon the earth; sound the trumpet among the nations; consecrate nations against her; give command against her from me to the kingdoms of Ararat and to the Ashkenazites; set up siege-engines against her; bring up horses against her like a multitude of locusts.

 

28 Consecrate nations against her, the king of the Medes and of all the earth, his leaders and all his generals.

 

29 The earth quaked and travailed, because the purpose of the Lord rose up against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation and uninhabited.

 

30 The warrior of Babylon has ceased to fight; they shall sit there in the stronghold; their might is broken; they have become like women; her dwellings are burned; her bars are shattered.

 

31 Runner shall run to meet runner, and messenger to meet messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city is taken;

 

32 from the farthest of his fords they have been seized, and their gathered forces they burned with fire, and his men of war are going out.

 

33 For thus says the Lord: The houses of the king of Babylon shall be threshed like a threshing-floor in its season; yet a little while, and her harvest will come.

 

34 He devoured me, he divided me, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon seized me, a fragile vessel; he swallowed me like a serpent; he filled his belly; from my delights he thrust me out.

 

35 My toils and my miseries be upon Babylon, she who dwells in Zion shall say, and my blood upon the Chaldeans who dwell there, Jerusalem shall say.

 

36 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will judge your adversary and I will avenge your vengeance, and I will make her sea a desert and dry up her spring,

 

37 and Babylon shall become a desolation and shall not be inhabited.

 

38 Together they were roused like lions, and like lions' whelps.

 

39 In their heat I will give them a drink and make them drunk, so that they may be stupefied and sleep an everlasting sleep and never awake, says the Lord.

 

40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids.

 

41 How the boast of all the earth has been taken and hunted down! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

 

42 The sea has come up over Babylon with the roar of its waves, and she has been covered.

 

43 Her cities have become a waterless and untrodden land; not one shall dwell in her, nor shall any son of man lodge in her.

 

44 And I will take vengeance upon Babylon, and I will bring forth from her mouth what she has swallowed, and the nations shall no longer be gathered to her.

 

49 And in Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth.

 

50 You who escape from the land, go and do not stand still; you who are far off, remember the Lord, and let Jerusalem come up upon your heart.

 

51 We were ashamed, because we heard our reproach; dishonor covered our face; foreigners entered our holy places, into the house of the Lord.

 

52 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will take vengeance upon her carved images, and in all her land the slain shall fall.

 

53 For though Babylon should mount up like the heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, from me shall come those who destroy her utterly, says the Lord.

 

54 A voice of crying in Babylon, and great destruction in the land of the Chaldeans,

 

55 for the Lord has utterly destroyed Babylon and has made to perish from her the great voice sounding like many waters; he has given her voice over to destruction.

 

56 For distress has come upon Babylon; her warriors have been captured, their bow is shattered, for God repays them; the Lord repays her the recompense.

 

57And he will make her leaders drunk with drunkenness, and her wise men and her generals, says the King, the Lord Almighty is his name.

 

58 Thus says the Lord: The wall of Babylon was made broad; it shall surely be razed to the ground, and her lofty gates shall be burned with fire; and peoples shall not labor in vain, and nations shall fail in the beginning.

 

59 The word which the Lord commanded Jeremiah the prophet to speak to Saraiah son of Neriah son of Maaseiah, when he went from Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign; and Saraiah was in charge of gifts.

 

60 And Jeremiah wrote all the evils that would come upon Babylon in one book, all these words that are written against Babylon.

 

61 And Jeremiah said to Saraiah: When you come to Babylon, then you shall see and read all these words,

 

62 and you shall say: Lord, Lord, you have spoken against this place, to destroy it utterly and that there be no inhabitants in it, from man to beast, for it shall be a desolation forever.

 

63 And it shall be, when you finish reading this book, you shall bind a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates,

 

64 and you shall say: Thus shall Babylon sink and shall not rise from before the evils which I am bringing upon her.

 

Chapter 29

 

1 Against the Philistines.

 

2 Thus says the Lord: Behold, waters rise up from the north, and they shall become an overflowing torrent, and it shall flood the land and its fullness, the city and those who dwell in it; and the people shall cry out, and all who dwell in the land shall wail.

 

3 At the sound of his charge, at the hooves of his feet, and at the rattling of his chariots, the noise of his wheels, fathers did not turn back for their sons because of the feebleness of their hands,

 

4 in the day that is coming to destroy all the Philistines; and I will annihilate Tyre and Sidon and all the remnant of their allies, for the Lord will utterly destroy the remnant of the islands.

 

5 Baldness has come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cast away, and the remnant of the Anakim. How long will you smite,

 

6 O sword of the Lord? How long will you not be at rest? Return to your sheath; rest and be lifted up.

 

7 How shall it rest? For the Lord has commanded it against Ashkelon and against the coastlands, against the remnant, to be roused.

 

Chapter 30

 

1 Concerning Idumea. Thus says the Lord: There is no longer wisdom in Thaiman; counsel has perished from the prudent; their wisdom has departed,

 

2 their place has been deceived. Dig deep for a dwelling, you who live in Daidan, for he has done grievous things; I brought it upon him in the time when I visited him.

 

3 For grape-gatherers have come to you; they will not leave you a remnant; like thieves in the night they will lay their hand upon you.

 

4 For I have pulled down Esau; I have uncovered their hidden places; they shall not be able to hide. They have perished by the hand of his brother and his neighbor, and there is no one

 

5 to leave behind your orphan, that he may live; but I will live, and widows have trusted in me.

 

6 For thus said the Lord: Those for whom it was not the rule to drink the cup have drunk; and you, shall you go unpunished? You shall by no means go unpunished, for you shall surely drink.

 

7 For I have sworn by myself, says the Lord, that you shall become a wasteland and a reproach and a curse in the midst of her, and all her cities shall be desolate forever.

 

8 I have heard a report from the Lord, and he has sent messengers to the nations: Gather together and come against her; rise up for war.

 

9 I have made you small among the nations, easily despised among men.

 

10 Your sporting has taken you in hand; the boldness of your heart has broken up the clefts of the rocks; it has seized the strength of a lofty hill. For though he set his nest on high like an eagle, from there I will bring you down.

 

11 And Idumea shall become a wasteland; everyone who passes by her shall hiss.

 

12 As Sodom and Gomorrah and her neighbors were overthrown, said the Lord Almighty, no man shall sit there, and no son of man shall dwell there.

 

13 Behold, like a lion he shall come up from the midst of the Jordan to the place of Aitham, for I will quickly drive them from her; and set the young men over her. For who is like me? And who will withstand me? And who is this shepherd who will stand before my face?

 

14 Therefore hear the counsel of the Lord, which he has counseled against Idumea, and his purpose, which he has purposed against the inhabitants of Thaiman: Surely the least of the flock shall be swept away; surely their dwelling shall be made desolate on her account.

 

15 For at the sound of their fall the earth was shaken, and your cry was heard in the sea.

 

16 Behold, like an eagle he shall look and shall stretch out his wings over her strongholds; and the heart of the mighty men of Idumea in that day shall be like the heart of a woman in travail.

 

17 To the sons of Ammon. Thus said the Lord: Are there no sons in Israel, or is there no one among them to inherit? Why has Melchom taken possession of Gad, and why will their people dwell in their cities?

 

18 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will cause a tumult of wars to be heard against Rabbath, and they shall become a wasteland and a destruction, and her altars shall be burned with fire, and Israel shall take possession of his dominion.

 

19 Wail, Esebon, for Gai has perished; cry out, daughters of Rabbath; gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament and mourn for Melchom, for he shall go into exile, his priests and his rulers together.

 

20 Why do you exult in the plains of Enakim, daughter of shamelessness, who trusts in her treasures, who says, Who shall come in against me?

 

21 Behold, I bring terror upon you, said the Lord, from all your surrounding region, and you shall be scattered, each man before his own face, and there shall be no one to gather.

 

23 To Kedar, the queen of the courtyard, whom Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon struck. Thus said the Lord: Arise and go up against Kedar and fill the sons of Kedem.

 

24 They shall take their tents and their sheep; they shall take for themselves their garments and all their vessels and their camels; and summon destruction upon them from all around.

 

25 Flee quickly; dig deep for a dwelling, you who sit in the courtyard, for the king of Babylon has taken counsel against you and has devised a plan against you.

 

26 Arise and go up against a nation at ease, dwelling at rest, who have no doors, no bars, no bolts; they lodge alone.

 

27 And their camels shall become plunder, and the multitude of their cattle destruction; and I will scatter them to every wind, those shorn round about their faces; from every side of them I will bring their rout, said the Lord.

 

28 And the courtyard shall be a haunt of ostriches and a wasteland forever; no man shall sit there, and no son of man shall dwell there.

 

29 To Damascus. Emath and Arphad have been put to shame, for they have heard an evil report; they were amazed, they were enraged; they shall by no means be able to rest.

 

30 Damascus has grown weak; she has turned to flight; trembling has seized her.

 

31 How has she not forsaken my city! They loved a village.

 

32 Therefore young men shall fall in your streets, and all your men of war shall fall, says the Lord;

 

33 and I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the streets of the son of Ader.

 

Chapter 31

 

1 Concerning Moab. Thus said the Lord: Woe upon Nabau, for it has perished; Kariathaim has been taken; Amath has been put to shame and defeated.

 

2 There is no longer any healing for Moab, no boasting in Esebon; they devised evils against her: "We have cut her off from being a nation," and she shall utterly cease; behind you a sword shall walk.

 

3 For there is a voice of people crying out from Oronaim: destruction and great ruin.

 

4 Moab has been shattered; proclaim it to Zogora.

 

5 For Alaoth was filled with weeping; he shall go up weeping on the road of Oronaim; you have heard a cry of destruction.

 

6 Flee and save your lives, and you shall be like a wild donkey in the wilderness.

 

7 Because you trusted in your strongholds, you too shall be captured; and Chamos shall go out into exile, his priests and his rulers together.

 

8 And destruction shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape; and the valley shall perish, and the plain shall be utterly destroyed, as the Lord has said.

 

9 Give signs to Moab, for she shall be kindled with burning, and all her cities shall become impassable; whence shall she have an inhabitant?

 

10 Cursed is he who does the works of the Lord carelessly, withholding his sword from blood.

 

11 Moab has been at rest from childhood, and he trusted in his glory; he was not poured from vessel to vessel and did not go into exile; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent has not failed.

 

12 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will send him tilters, and they shall tilt him, and they shall crush his vessels and cut his horns in pieces.

 

13 And Moab shall be put to shame because of Chamos, just as the house of Israel was put to shame because of Baithel their hope, having trusted in them.

 

14 How will you say, "We are strong, and men strong for war"?

 

15 Moab is destroyed, his city and his choice young men have gone down to slaughter.

 

16 The day of Moab is near to come, and his calamity is very swift.

 

17 Bewail him, all you round about him, all who know his name; say, "How is the glorious staff broken, the rod of majesty?"

 

18 Come down from glory and sit in dampness, you inhabitant of Daibon; be wiped out, for Moab has perished; one has gone up against you, destroying your stronghold.

 

19 Stand on the road and look, you who dwell in Aroer, and ask him who flees and him who escapes, and say, "What has happened?"

 

20 Moab has been put to shame, for it is shattered; wail and cry out; proclaim in Arnon that Moab has perished.

 

21 And judgment is coming upon the land of Misor, upon Chailon and upon Iassa and upon Mophath,

 

22 and upon Daibon and upon Nabau and upon the house of Deblathaim,

 

23 and upon Kariathaim and upon the house of Gamol and upon the house of Maon,

 

24 and upon Karioth and upon Bosor and upon all the cities of Moab, far and near.

 

25 The horn of Moab is broken, and its arm is shattered.

 

26 Make him drunk, for he magnified himself against the Lord; and Moab shall clap with his hand and shall himself also become a laughingstock.

 

27 And was not Israel a laughingstock to you? Was he found among your thefts, that you made war on him?

 

28 The inhabitants of Moab have abandoned the cities and dwelt in rocks; they have become like doves nesting in rocks at the mouth of a pit.

 

29 I have heard the insolence of Moab, he was exceedingly insolent, his insolence and his arrogance, and his heart was lifted up.

 

30 But I know his works: is it not enough for him? Has he not done thus?

 

31 Therefore wail for Moab on every side; cry out against the men of Kiradas of drought.

 

32 As with the weeping of Iazer I will weep for you, O vine of Sebema; your branches crossed the sea; they reached Iazer; upon your fruit, upon your grape-gatherers destruction has fallen.

 

33 Joy and gladness have been swept away from the land of Moab, and though wine was in your presses, in the morning they did not tread, nor in the evening; they made no cry of "aidad."

 

34 From the cry of Esebon as far as Elealē their cities gave forth their voice, from Zogor to Oronaim and Aglath-salisia; for even the water of Nebrim shall become a burnt waste.

 

35 And I will destroy Moab, says the Lord, him who goes up upon the altar and burns incense to his gods.

 

36 Therefore my heart, O Moab, shall hum like pipes; my heart shall hum like a pipe over the men of Kiradas; therefore what he acquired has perished from man.

 

37 They shall shave every head in every place, and every beard shall be shaved, and all hands shall beat themselves, and sackcloth shall be on every loin,

 

38 and on all the housetops of Moab and in her streets; for I have shattered Moab, says the Lord, like a vessel for which there is no use.

 

39 How has he changed! How has Moab turned his back! Moab has been put to shame and has become a laughingstock and an object of rancor to all those around her.

 

40 For thus said the Lord:

 

41 Akkarioth has been taken, and the strongholds have been seized.

 

42 And Moab shall perish from being a multitude, because he magnified himself against the Lord.

 

43 A snare and terror and a pit are upon you, O inhabitant of Moab.

 

44 He who flees from the face of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs up out of the pit shall be caught in the snare; for I will bring these things upon Moab in the year of her visitation.

 

Chapter 32

 

13 All that Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.

 

15 Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: Take this cup of unmixed wine from my hand, and you shall make all the nations to whom I send you drink of it,

 

16 and they shall drink and vomit and go mad before the sword which I am sending among them.

 

17 And I took the cup from the Lord's hand and made the nations drink, to whom the Lord sent me:

 

18 Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and the kings of Judah and its rulers, to make them a desolation and a waste and a hissing;

 

19 and Pharaoh king of Egypt and his servants and his nobles and all his people,

 

20 and all his mingled peoples, and all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon and Gaza and Ekron and the remnant of Azotus

 

21 and Idumea and Moab and the sons of Ammon,

 

22 and all the kings of Tyre and the kings of Sidon and the kings that are beyond the sea,

 

23 and Dedan and Teman and Ros and everyone with hair shorn about his face,

 

24 and all the mingled peoples who lodge in the wilderness,

 

25 and all the kings of Elam and all the kings of the Persians,

 

26 and all the kings from the east wind, those far and those near, each to his brother, and all the kingdoms upon the face of the earth.

 

27 And you shall say to them: Thus said the Lord Almighty: Drink and be drunk and vomit, and you shall fall and not rise before the sword which I am sending among you.

 

28 And it shall be, when they refuse to take the cup from your hand so as to drink, then you shall say: Thus said the Lord: You shall surely drink;

 

29 for in the city upon which my name has been called, I begin to bring harm, and you shall by no means be cleansed with cleansing, for I am calling a sword against those who dwell upon the earth.

 

30 And you shall prophesy against them these words and say: The Lord will give an oracle from on high; from his holy place he will give his voice; he will speak a word against his place, and a "hedad" like those who tread the grapes shall answer; and against those who dwell upon the earth

 

31 destruction has come upon a part of the earth, for the Lord has a case against the nations; he enters into judgment with all flesh, and the ungodly have been given to the sword, says the Lord.

 

32 Thus said the Lord: Behold, evils go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind goes out from the end of the earth.

 

33 And the slain of the Lord shall be, in the day of the Lord, from one part of the earth even to the other part of the earth; they shall not be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth.

 

34 Wail, you shepherds, and cry out; and mourn, you rams of the flock; for your days have been fulfilled for slaughter, and you shall fall like the choice rams.

 

35 And flight shall perish from the shepherds, and safety from the rams of the flock.

 

36 A voice of the cry of the shepherds and a wailing of the sheep and of the rams, for the Lord has destroyed their pastures,

 

37 and the remnants of peace shall cease before the wrath of my anger.

 

38 He has forsaken his lair like a lion, for their land has become a waste before the great sword.

 

Chapter 33

 

1 In the beginning of the reign of King Joakim son of Josiah, this word came from the Lord:

 

2 Thus said the Lord: Stand in the court of the house of the Lord, and you shall declare to all the Judeans and to all who come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words which I have commanded you to declare to them; do not omit a word.

 

3 Perhaps they will listen and turn back, each from his evil way, and I will cease from the evils which I am planning to do to them because of their evil practices.

 

4 And you shall say: Thus said the Lord: If you do not listen to me, to walk in my statutes which I set before you,

 

5 to heed the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send to you early in the morning—and I sent them, and you did not listen to me

 

6 then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse to all the nations of all the earth.

 

7 And the priests and the false prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord.

 

8 And it came to pass, when Jeremiah had finished speaking everything the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the false prophets and all the people seized him, saying, You shall surely die,

 

9 because you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be made desolate of inhabitants. And all the people gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

 

10 And the rulers of Judah heard this word, and they went up from the king's house to the house of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the new gate of the Lord.

 

11 And the priests and the false prophets said to the rulers and to all the people: A judgment of death for this man, because he prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.

 

12 And Jeremiah said to the rulers and to all the people, saying: The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all these words which you have heard.

 

13 And now make your ways and your works better, and listen to the voice of the Lord, and the Lord will cease from the evils which he has spoken against you.

 

14 And behold, I am in your hands; do to me as is fitting and as is best in your eyes.

 

15 But know for certain that if you kill me, you bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and upon those who dwell in it; for in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.

 

16 And the rulers and all the people said to the priests and to the false prophets: There is no judgment of death for this man, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.

 

17 And men of the elders of the land arose and said to all the assembly of the people:

 

18 Micah the Morathite lived in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and he said to all the people of Judah: Thus said the Lord: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a wasteland, and the mountain of the house a wooded grove.

 

19 Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? Was it not because they feared the Lord and entreated the face of the Lord, and the Lord ceased from the evils which he had spoken against them? And we have done great evils against our own souls.

 

20 And there was a man prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim, and he prophesied concerning this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.

 

21 And King Joakim and all the rulers heard all his words and sought to kill him, and Uriah heard of it and went into Egypt.

 

22 And the king sent men into Egypt,

 

23 and they brought him out from there and brought him to the king, and he struck him down with the sword and cast him into the tomb of the sons of his people.

 

24 But the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not delivered into the hands of the people to be put to death.

 

Chapter 34

 

2 Thus said the Lord: Make bonds and yokes, and put them about your neck;

 

3 and you shall send them to the king of Idumea, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the sons of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hands of their messengers who come to meet them at Jerusalem, to Zedekiah king of Judah.

 

4 And you shall command them to say to their masters: Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: Thus shall you say to your masters:

 

5 For I have made the earth by my great strength and by my lofty arm, and I will give it to whomever it seems good in my eyes.

 

6 I have given the earth to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to serve him, and the beasts of the field to labor for him.

 

8 And the nation and the kingdom, all who do not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, with sword and with famine will I visit them, said the Lord, until they be consumed by his hand.

 

9 And you, do not listen to your false prophets, and to those who divine for you, and to those who dream for you, and to your omens and your sorcerers, who say: You shall by no means serve the king of Babylon;

 

10 for they prophesy lies to you, so as to remove you far from your land.

 

11 And the nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, I will leave it upon its land, and it shall serve him and dwell in it.

 

12 And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke according to all these words, saying: Bring your neck under,

 

14 and serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy unjust things to you;

 

15 for I did not send them, says the Lord, and they prophesy in my name unjustly, so as to destroy you, and you shall perish, you and your prophets who prophesy lies to you unjustly.

 

16 To you and to all this people and to the priests I spoke, saying: Thus said the Lord: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, saying: Behold, the vessels of the house of the Lord shall return from Babylon; for they prophesy unjust things to you; I did not send them.

 

18 If they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord is in them, let them meet me;

 

19 for thus said the Lord: Even the remaining vessels,

 

20 which the king of Babylon did not take when he carried Jeconiah away from Jerusalem,

 

22 shall go into Babylon, says the Lord.

 

Chapter 35

 

1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month, that Hananiah son of Azor, the false prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, before the eyes of the priests and all the people, saying,

 

2 Thus said the Lord: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon;

 

3 within two full years I will return to this place the vessels of the house of the Lord,

 

4 and Jeconiah and the exiles of Judah, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

 

5 And Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah before the eyes of all the people and before the eyes of the priests standing in the house of the Lord,

 

6 and Jeremiah said, Truly! May the Lord do so; may he confirm your word which you prophesy, to return the vessels of the house of the Lord and all the exiles from Babylon to this place.

 

7 Nevertheless, hear the word of the Lord, which I speak in your ears and in the ears of all the people:

 

8 The prophets who were before me and before you from of old also prophesied against many a land and against great kingdoms concerning war;

 

9 as for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word comes to pass, they will know the prophet whom the Lord has sent to them in truth.

 

10 And Hananiah, in the eyes of all the people, took the bars from the neck of Jeremiah and broke them.

 

11 And Hananiah spoke before the eyes of all the people, saying, Thus said the Lord: Thus will I break the yoke of the king of Babylon from the necks of all the nations. And Jeremiah went his way.

 

12 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah had broken the bars from his neck, saying,

 

13 Go and speak to Hananiah, saying, Thus said the Lord: You have broken wooden bars, and I will make in their place bars of iron;

 

14 for thus said the Lord: I have put an iron yoke upon the neck of all the nations, to serve the king of Babylon.

 

15 And Jeremiah said to Hananiah, The Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a falsehood;

 

16 therefore thus said the Lord: Behold, I am sending you away from the face of the earth; this very year you shall die.

 

17 And he died in the seventh month.

 

Chapter 36

 

1 And these are the words of the book which Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the false prophets—a letter to Babylon, to the exiles, and to all the people,

 

2 after Jechoniah the king had gone out, and the queen, and the eunuchs, and every free man and prisoner and craftsman from Jerusalem,

 

3 by the hand of Eleasa son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Babylon at Babylon, saying:

 

4 Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the exile which I carried away from Jerusalem:

 

5 Build houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruits,

 

6 and take wives and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, and multiply and do not be diminished.

 

7 And seek the peace of the land to which I have exiled you there, and pray for them to the Lord, for in its peace shall be peace for you.

 

8 For thus said the Lord: Let not the false prophets who are among you persuade you, and let not your diviners persuade you, and do not listen to your dreams which you dream,

 

9 for they prophesy unjust things to you in my name, and I did not send them.

 

10 For thus said the Lord: When seventy years are about to be fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you and I will establish my words upon you, to bring your people back to this place.

 

11 And I will devise concerning you a plan of peace and not evils, to give you these things.

 

12 And pray to me, and I will listen to you;

 

13 and seek me out, and you will find me, because you will seek me with your whole heart,

 

14 and I will appear to you.

 

15 Because you said, The Lord has appointed for us prophets in Babylon:

 

21 thus said the Lord concerning Ahab and concerning Zedekiah: Behold, I give them into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall smite them before your eyes.

 

22 And from them a curse shall be taken up in all the exile of Judah in Babylon, saying: May the Lord do to you as he did to Zedekiah and as to Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in fire,

 

23 because of the lawlessness which they committed in Israel, and they committed adultery with the wives of their fellow citizens, and they spoke a word in my name which I did not command them; and I am witness, says the Lord.

 

24 And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall say:

 

25 I did not send you in my name. And to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest say:

 

26 The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be overseer in the house of the Lord over every man who prophesies and every man who raves, and you shall put him into the prison and into the dungeon.

 

27 And now, why did you together revile Jeremiah of Anathoth, who prophesied to you?

 

28 Was it not for this reason that he sent to you at Babylon, saying: It is far off, build houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit?

 

29 And Zephaniah read the book in the ears of Jeremiah.

 

30 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

 

31 Send to the exile, saying: Thus said the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Since Shemaiah prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and made you trust in unjust things,

 

32 therefore thus said the Lord: Behold, I will visit Shemaiah and his family, and there shall not be a man of theirs in your midst to see the good things which I will do for you; they shall not see them.

 

Chapter 37

 

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:

 

2 Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, saying: Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book.

 

3 For behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will turn back the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, said the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall be masters of it.

 

4 And these are the words which the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:

 

5 Thus said the Lord: You shall hear a sound of fear; there is fear, and there is no peace.

 

6 Ask and see whether a male has given birth, and about the fear in which they will hold their loins and safety; for I have seen every man with his hands upon his loins; faces have been turned, they have become jaundiced.

 

7 For great is that day, and there is none like it; and it is a time of distress for Jacob, and out of it he shall be saved.

 

8 In that day, said the Lord, I will break the yoke from off their neck, and I will burst their bonds, and they shall no longer work for strangers;

 

9 but they shall serve the Lord their God, and I will raise up David their king for them.

 

12 Thus said the Lord: I have raised up destruction; your wound is painful;

 

13 there is none to judge your case; you have been treated to your pain; there is no help for you.

 

14 All your friends have forgotten you; they will not inquire after you; for I have struck you with the blow of an enemy, a harsh chastening; because of all your iniquity your sins have been multiplied.

 

16 Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your enemies, all their flesh shall be eaten; because of the multitude of your iniquities your sins have been multiplied; they have done these things to you; and those who plunder you shall become plunder, and all who despoil you I will give up to be despoiled.

 

17 For I will bring up your healing; from your painful wound I will heal you, says the Lord; for you were called Scattered—she is your prey, for there is no one seeking her.

 

18 Thus said the Lord: Behold, I will turn back the captivity of Jacob and have mercy on his captives; and the city shall be built upon its height, and the temple shall be set in its place according to its ordinance.

 

19 And there shall go forth from them singers and the sound of those making merry; and I will multiply them, and they shall by no means be diminished.

 

20 And their sons shall enter in as before, and their testimonies shall be established before my face; and I will visit those who afflict them.

 

21 And his mighty ones shall be over them, and his ruler shall come forth from himself; and I will gather them, and they shall return to me; for who is this who has set his heart to return to me? says the Lord.

 

23 For the wrath of the Lord has gone forth in fury; wrath has gone forth whirling; it shall come upon the ungodly.

 

24 The fierce wrath of the Lord shall not turn back until he has performed, and until he has established, the purpose of his heart; in the last days you shall know these things.

 

Chapter 38

 

1 At that time, said the Lord, I will be a God to the family of Israel, and they shall be my people.

 

2 Thus said the Lord: I found him warm in the wilderness with those slain by the sword; go, and do not destroy Israel.

 

3 The Lord appeared to him from afar: I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you into compassion.

 

4 I will build you yet again, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel; you shall yet take up your tambourine and go forth with a company of those who make merry.

 

5 Plant vineyards again on the mountains of Samaria; plant, and give praise.

 

6 For it is a day of calling of those who plead on the mountains of Ephraim: Arise, and go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.

 

7 For thus said the Lord to Jacob: Rejoice and shout aloud over the head of the nations; make it heard and give praise; say: The Lord has saved his people, the remnant of Israel.

 

8 Behold, I am bringing them from the north, and I will gather them from the end of the earth at the feast of Passover; and you shall bear a great multitude of children, and they shall return here.

 

9 They went out in weeping, and with consolation I will bring them back, lodging them by channels of waters on a straight road, and they shall by no means go astray on it; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

 

10 Hear the word of the Lord, you nations, and proclaim it to the islands farther off; say: He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as one who feeds his flock.

 

11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob; he has rescued him from the hand of those stronger than he.

 

12 And they shall come and rejoice on the mountain of Zion; and they shall come to the good things of the Lord, to a land of grain and wine and fruits and cattle and sheep, and their soul shall be like a fruitful tree, and they shall hunger no more.

 

13 Then shall virgins rejoice in the assembly of young men, and old men shall rejoice; and I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will make them glad.

 

14 I will magnify and refresh the soul of the priests, the sons of Levi, and my people shall be filled with my good things.

 

15 Thus said the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, of lamentation and weeping and wailing; Rachel, weeping, would not cease over her children, because they are no more.

 

16 Thus said the Lord: Let your voice cease from weeping and your eyes from your tears, for there is a reward for your works, and they shall return from the land of enemies,

 

17 an abiding place for your children.

 

18 I have surely heard Ephraim lamenting: You disciplined me, and I was disciplined; like a calf I was not taught; turn me back, and I shall return, for you are the Lord my God.

 

19 For after my captivity I repented, and after I came to know, I groaned over the days of shame, and I showed you that I bore reproach from my youth.

 

20 Ephraim is a beloved son to me, a darling child; because my words are in him, I will surely remember him; therefore I hastened to him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.

 

21 Set yourself up, O Zion; execute vengeance; set your heart on your shoulders; return by the road you traveled, O virgin Israel; return, mourning, to your cities.

 

22 How long will you turn away, O dishonored daughter? For the Lord has created salvation for a new planting; in salvation men shall go about.

 

23 Thus said the Lord: They shall yet speak this word in the land of Judah and in his cities, when I turn back his captivity: Blessed be the Lord upon his righteous holy mountain

 

24 and those who dwell in the cities of Judah and in all his land, together with the farmer, and he shall go forth with the flock.

 

25 For I have refreshed every thirsty soul, and every hungry soul I have filled.

 

26 Therefore I awoke and looked, and my sleep was sweet to me.

 

27 Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow Israel and Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.

 

28 And it shall be that, as I watched over them to pull down and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord.

 

29 In those days they shall by no means say: The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge;

 

30 but rather each shall die in his own sin, and the teeth of him who eats the sour grape shall be set on edge.

 

31 Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant,

 

32 not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not abide in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.

 

33 For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will surely put my laws into their mind, and I will write them upon their hearts; and I will be a God to them, and they shall be my people.

 

34 And they shall by no means teach, each his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying: Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them; for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.

 

35 If the heaven be raised up on high, says the Lord, and if the floor of the earth be brought down below, even then I will not reject the family of Israel, says the Lord, for all that they have done.

 

36 Thus said the Lord, who gave the sun for the light of day, the moon and the stars for the light of night, and a roar in the sea, so that its waves resounded, the Lord Almighty is his name:

 

37 If these laws cease from before my face, says the Lord, then shall the family of Israel cease to be a nation before my face all their days.

 

38 Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when a city shall be built for the Lord from the tower of Hanameel to the gate of the corner;

 

39 and its measuring line shall go out before them as far as the hills of Gareb, and it shall be encircled round about with choice stones;

 

40 and all the Asaremoth as far as the wadi Kedron, as far as the corner of the horse gate on the east, shall be holy to the Lord; and it shall never again fail, nor shall it be pulled down, forever.

 

Chapter 39

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah in the tenth year of King Zedekiah, this year was the eighteenth of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon

 

2 and the army of the king of Babylon had built siegeworks against Jerusalem, and Jeremiah was being kept in the court of the guard, which is in the house of the king,

 

3 in which King Zedekiah had shut him up, saying, "Why do you prophesy, saying, 'Thus said the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it,

 

4 and Zedekiah shall by no means be saved from the hand of the Chaldeans, for he shall surely be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and his mouth shall speak to his mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes,

 

5 and Zedekiah shall enter into Babylon and shall dwell there'?"

 

6 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

 

7 "Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum, your father's brother, is coming to you, saying, 'Buy for yourself my field that is in Anathoth, for the right belongs to you to take it into possession.'"

 

8 And Hanamel the son of Shallum, my father's brother, came to me into the court of the guard and said to me, "Buy my field that is in the land of Benjamin, in Anathoth, for the right to buy it is yours, and you are the elder." And I knew that it was the word of the Lord,

 

9 and I bought the field of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and I weighed out to him seventeen shekels of silver;

 

10 and I wrote it in a book and sealed it and called witnesses to witness, and I weighed the silver in a balance.

 

11 And I took the book of the purchase, the one sealed and the one that had been read,

 

12 and I gave it to Baruch the son of Neriah, son of Maaseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and before the eyes of those standing by and writing in the book of the purchase, and before the eyes of the Jews who were in the court of the guard.

 

13 And I charged Baruch before their eyes, saying,

 

14 "Thus said the Lord Almighty: Take this book of the purchase and the book that has been read, and you shall put it into an earthen vessel, that it may last many days.

 

15 For thus said the Lord: Fields and houses and vineyards shall yet be bought in this land."

 

16 And I prayed to the Lord after I gave the book of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, saying,

 

17 "O Lord, you made heaven and earth by your great strength and by your high and uplifted arm; nothing at all shall be hidden from you,

 

18 you who show mercy to thousands and repay the sins of fathers into the bosoms of their children after them, the great and mighty God,

 

19 the Lord of great counsel and mighty in works, the great God, the Almighty and Lord of great name; your eyes are upon the ways of the sons of men, to give to each according to his way;

 

20 you who did signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even to this day, both in Israel and among the earth-born, and made for yourself a name as at this day,

 

21 and you brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders and with a mighty hand and with an uplifted arm and with great visions,

 

22 and you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey;

 

23 and they went in and took it, and they did not listen to your voice and did not walk in your ordinances; all that you commanded them they did not do; and you caused all these evils to befall them.

 

24 Behold, a multitude has come to this city to seize it, and the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword and the famine; as you spoke, so it has come to pass.

 

25 And you say to me, 'Buy for yourself a field for silver'; and I wrote a book and sealed it and called witnesses to witness; and the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans."

 

26 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

27 "I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; shall anything be hidden from me?

 

28 Therefore thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: This city shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it,

 

29 and the Chaldeans shall come fighting against this city, and they shall burn this city with fire and shall burn down the houses in which they burned incense on their rooftops to Baal and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to bitterness.

 

30 For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah alone were doing what is evil in my eyes from their youth;

 

31 for this city has been set for my anger and for my wrath from the day they built it even to this day, that I should remove it from before my face,

 

32 because of all the wickednesses of the sons of Israel and Judah, which they did to embitter me, they and their kings and their rulers and their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and those dwelling in Jerusalem

 

33 and they turned to me the back and not the face; and I taught them early, and I taught, but they did not listen so as to receive instruction;

 

34 and they set their abominations in the house upon which my name has been called, in their uncleannesses,

 

35 and they built the altars to Baal that are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and their daughters to King Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come up upon my heart, to do this abomination so as to make Judah sin.

 

36 And now, thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the city of which you say, 'It shall be given into the hands of the king of Babylon by sword and by famine and by banishment':

 

37 Behold, I am gathering them out of every land where I scattered them in my anger and my wrath and great provocation, and I will bring them back to this place and will settle them in confidence,

 

38 and they shall be to me a people, and I will be to them a God.

 

39 And I will give them another way and another heart, to fear me all their days, for good to them and to their children after them.

 

40 And I will make with them an everlasting covenant, which I will by no means turn away from behind them; and I will put my fear into their heart, so that they may not depart from me.

 

41 And I will visit them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness and with all my heart and with all my soul.

 

42 For thus said the Lord: Just as I brought upon this people all these great evils, so will I bring upon them all the good things that I spoke concerning them.

 

43 And fields shall yet be bought in the land of which you say, 'It is untrodden by man and beast, and they have been given into the hands of the Chaldeans.'

 

44 And they shall buy fields for silver, and you shall write a book and seal it and call witnesses to witness, in the land of Benjamin and round about Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah and in the cities of the hill country and in the cities of the Shephelah and in the cities of the Negeb; for I will bring back their exiles."

 

Chapter 40

 

1 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still bound in the court of the prison, saying:

 

2 Thus said the Lord, who makes the earth and forms it so as to establish it, the Lord is his name:

 

3 Cry out to me, and I will answer you, and I will declare to you great and mighty things which you have not known.

 

4 For thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the king of Judah which have been torn down for siege-mounds and bulwarks,

 

5 to fight against the Chaldeans, and to fill it with the corpses of the men whom I struck in my anger and in my wrath, and I turned away my face from them because of all their wickednesses:

 

6 Behold, I am bringing upon it healing of the wound and a cure, and I will make manifest to them how to listen, and I will heal it, and I will make for them peace and faithfulness.

 

7 And I will restore the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel, and I will build them up as before.

 

8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquities by which they sinned against me, and I will by no means remember their sins by which they sinned against me and departed from me.

 

9 And it shall be for gladness and for praise and for greatness to all the people of the earth, who shall hear all the good things which I will do; and they shall fear and be embittered over all the good things and over all the peace which I will make for them.

 

10 Thus said the Lord: There shall yet be heard in this place, of which you say, "It is desolate of men and beasts," in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem, in the places made desolate because there is no man and no beasts,

 

11 the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those saying, "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good, for his mercy is forever"; and they shall bring gifts into the house of the Lord; for I will turn back all the captivity of that land as before, said the Lord.

 

12 Thus said the Lord of hosts: There shall yet be in this place, which is desolate because there is no man and no beast, and in all its cities, dwellings of shepherds bedding down flocks.

 

13 In the cities of the hill country and in the cities of the Sephela and in the cities of the Negeb and in the land of Benjamin and in the places around Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah, flocks shall yet pass under the hand of one who counts them, said the Lord.

 

Chapter 41

 

1The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, while Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the land of his dominion were making war against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah, saying:

 

2Thus said the Lord: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and you shall say to him: Thus said the Lord: This city shall surely be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it and burn it with fire.

 

3And you shall by no means be saved from his hand, but you shall surely be captured and be given into his hands; and your eyes shall see his eyes, and his mouth shall speak with your mouth, and you shall go to Babylon.

 

4But hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah: Thus says the Lord:

 

5You shall die in peace, and as they wept for your fathers who reigned before you, so shall they weep for you also, and they shall lament you, "Alas, lord!"; for I have spoken a word, said the Lord.

 

6And Jeremiah spoke to King Zedekiah all these words in Jerusalem.

 

7And the army of the king of Babylon made war against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah, against Lachish and against Azekah, for these were left among the cities of Judah as fortified cities.

 

8The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with the people, to proclaim a release,

 

9that each should send away his male servant and each his female servant, the Hebrew man and the Hebrew woman, free, so that no man of Judah should be a slave.

 

10And all the nobles turned, and all the people who had entered into the covenant to send away each his male servant and each his female servant,

 

11and they let them go as male and female servants.

 

12And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

 

 

13Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers on the day when I delivered them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying:

 

14When six years are completed, you shall send away your Hebrew brother, who shall be sold to you; and he shall work for you six years, and you shall send him away free. But they did not listen to me, and did not incline their ear.

 

15And today they turned to do what is right before my eyes, to proclaim a release each for his neighbor, and they made a covenant before my face in the house upon which my name has been called.

 

16But you turned back and profaned my name, in that each turned back his male servant and each his female servant, whom you had sent away free in their soul, to be for you male and female servants.

 

17Therefore thus said the Lord: You have not listened to me, to proclaim a release each to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim a release for you, to the sword and to death and to famine; and I will give you for dispersion to all the kingdoms of the earth.

 

18And I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who did not uphold my covenant which they made before my face — the calf which they made, to serve it

 

19the rulers of Judah and the mighty men and the priests and the people,

 

20and I will give them to their enemies, and their carcasses shall be food for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

 

21And Zedekiah king of Judea and their rulers I will give into the hands of their enemies, and the army of the king of Babylon to those who run away from them.

 

22Behold, I give command, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to this land, and they shall make war against it and take it and burn it with fire, and the cities of Judah; and I will make them desolate, without inhabitants.

 

Chapter 42

 

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Joakim king of Judah, saying:

 

2 Go to the house of the Rechabites, and you shall bring them to the house of the Lord, into one of the courts, and you shall give them wine to drink.

 

3 And I brought out Jezoniah son of Jeremin son of Chabasin, and his brothers and his sons, and all the house of the Rechabites,

 

4 and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hananiah son of Godolias, a man of God, which is near the house of the rulers, above the house of Maasaias son of Selom, the keeper of the court,

 

5 and I set before them a jar of wine and cups, and I said, Drink wine.

 

6 And they said, We will by no means drink wine, for Jonadab son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, You shall not drink wine, you and your sons, forever,

 

7 and you shall not build a house, and you shall not sow seed, and you shall have no vineyard, for you shall dwell in tents all your days, so that you may live many days upon the land in which you sojourn.

 

8 And we obeyed the voice of Jonadab our father, so as not to drink wine all our days, we and our wives and our sons and our daughters,

 

9 and so as not to build houses to dwell there; and vineyard and field and seed we had none,

 

10 and we dwelt in tents, and we obeyed and did according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.

 

11 And it came to pass, when Nebuchadnezzar came up against the land, that we said, Come, let us enter into Jerusalem from before the army of the Chaldeans and from before the army of the Assyrians; and we dwelt there.

 

12 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 

13 Thus says the Lord: Go and say to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction, to hear my words?

 

14 The sons of Jonadab son of Rechab have kept the word which he commanded his children, not to drink wine, and they have not drunk; but I spoke to you early, and I spoke, and you did not listen.

 

15 And I sent to you my servants the prophets, saying, Turn every one from his evil way, and make your practices better, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell upon the land which I gave to you and to your fathers; but you did not incline your ears, and you did not listen.

 

16 And the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab have kept the commandment of their father, but this people have not listened to me.

 

17 Therefore thus said the Lord: Behold, I bring upon Judah and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evils which I spoke against them.

 

18 Therefore thus said the Lord: Because the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab have obeyed the commandment of their father, to do as their father commanded them,

 

19 there shall not fail a man of the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab standing before my face all the days of the earth.

 

Chapter 43

 

1 And in the fourth year of Joakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

 

2 Take for yourself a scroll of a book and write on it all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Jerusalem and concerning Judah and concerning all the nations, from the day when I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah king of Judah, even until this day.

 

3 Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evils which I intend to do to them, so that they may turn back from their evil way, and I will be merciful to their iniquities and their sins.

 

4 And Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and he wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book.

 

5 And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying: I am under guard; I am not able to enter the house of the Lord.

 

6 So you shall read from this scroll in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord on a day of fasting, and in the ears of all Judah who come from their cities you shall read to them.

 

7 Perhaps their supplication will fall before the face of the Lord, and they will turn back from their evil way, for great is the wrath and the anger of the Lord which he has spoken against this people.

 

8 And Baruch did according to all that Jeremiah commanded him, to read in the book the words of the Lord in the house of the Lord.

 

9 And it came to pass in the eighth year of King Joakim, in the ninth month, that all the people in Jerusalem and the house of Judah proclaimed a fast before the face of the Lord.

 

10 And Baruch read in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the house of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entrance of the new gate of the house of the Lord, in the ears of all the people. —

 

11 And Micaiah son of Gemariah son of Shaphan heard all the words of the Lord from the book,

 

12 and he went down to the king's house, to the house of the scribe; and behold, all the officials were sitting there: Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah son of Shelemiah, and Elnathan son of Achbor, and Gemariah son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the officials.

 

13 And Micaiah reported to them all the words which he had heard as Baruch read in the ears of the people.

 

14 And all the officials sent to Baruch son of Neriah Jehudi son of Nethaniah son of Shelemiah son of Cushi, saying: The scroll from which you are reading in the ears of the people, take it in your hand and come. And Baruch took the scroll and went down to them.

 

15 And they said to him: Read again in our ears. And Baruch read.

 

16 And it came to pass, when they heard all the words, they took counsel each with his neighbor and said: Let us surely report to the king all these words.

 

17 And they questioned Baruch, saying: Whence did you write all these words?

 

18 And Baruch said: From his mouth Jeremiah declared to me all these words, and I wrote them in a book.

 

19 And they said to Baruch: Go, hide yourself, you and Jeremiah; let no man know where you are.

 

20 And they went in to the king, into the court, and they gave the scroll to be kept in the house of Elishama, and they reported to the king all the words.

 

21 And the king sent Jehudi to take the scroll, and he took it from the house of Elishama; and Jehudi read it in the ears of the king and in the ears of all the officials standing around the king.

 

22 And the king was sitting in the winter house, and a brazier of fire was before him.

 

23 And it came to pass, as Jehudi read three or four columns, he would cut them off with the scribe's knife and throw them into the fire that was on the brazier, until the whole scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the brazier.

 

24 And they did not seek, nor did they tear their garments — the king and his servants who heard all these words.

 

25 But Elnathan and Gedaliah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll.

 

26 And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son and Seraiah son of Azriel to seize Baruch and Jeremiah; but they had hidden themselves.

 

27 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after the king had burned the scroll, all the words which Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying:

 

28 Again take for yourself another scroll and write all the words that were on the scroll which King Joakim burned.

 

29 And you shall say: Thus said the Lord: You burned this scroll, saying: Why did you write on it, saying: The king of Babylon shall surely come in and destroy this land, and man and beast shall vanish from it?

 

30 Therefore thus said the Lord concerning Joakim king of Judah: He shall have no one sitting on the throne of David, and his corpse shall be cast out in the heat of the day and in the frost of the night.

 

31 And I will visit upon him and upon his family and upon his servants, and I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the land of Judah all the evils which I spoke to them, and they did not listen.

 

32 And Baruch took another scroll and wrote on it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Joakim had burned; and there were still added to it many more words like them.

 

Chapter 44

 

1 And Zedekiah son of Josiah reigned in place of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar made king to reign over Judah;

 

2 and neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord, which he spoke by the hand of Jeremiah.

 

3 And King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest to Jeremiah, saying, Pray now for us to the Lord.

 

4 And Jeremiah came and went through the midst of the city, and they had not put him into the house of the prison.

 

5 And the army of Pharaoh came out from Egypt, and the Chaldeans heard the report of them and went up from Jerusalem.

 

6 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

 

7 Thus said the Lord: Thus shall you say to the king of Judah, who sent to you to inquire of me: Behold, the army of Pharaoh that came out to your help—they shall return to the land of Egypt,

 

8 and the Chaldeans themselves shall return and shall fight against this city and shall take it and burn it with fire.

 

9 For thus said the Lord: Do not suppose in your souls, saying, The Chaldeans will surely run off and depart from us; for they shall by no means depart.

 

10 And even if you should strike the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained some, pierced through, each man in his place, these would rise up and burn this city with fire.

 

11 And it came to pass, when the army of the Chaldeans went up from Jerusalem from before the army of Pharaoh,

 

12 Jeremiah went out from Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to buy from there in the midst of the people.

 

13 And he was at the gate of Benjamin, and there was a man there with whom he lodged, Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah, and he seized Jeremiah, saying, You are fleeing to the Chaldeans.

 

14 And he said, It is a lie; I am not fleeing to the Chaldeans. But he did not listen to him, and Irijah seized Jeremiah and brought him to the rulers.

 

15 And the rulers were embittered against Jeremiah, and struck him, and sent him to the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had made it into a house of imprisonment.

 

16 And Jeremiah came into the house of the pit and into the chereth, and he sat there many days.

 

17 And Zedekiah sent and called him, and the king asked him secretly to say whether there was a word from the Lord; and he said, There is: you shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.

 

18 And Jeremiah said to the king, How have I wronged you and your servants and this people, that you put me into a house of imprisonment?

 

19 And where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon shall by no means come against this land?

 

20 And now, my lord king, let my supplication fall before your face; why do you send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I may not die there?

 

21 And the king gave orders, and they put him into the house of the prison, and they gave him one loaf of bread a day from outside where they bake, until the loaves failed from the city; and Jeremiah sat in the court of the prison.

 

Chapter 45

 

1 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah heard the words which Jeremiah spoke to the people, saying,

 

2 Thus said the Lord: He who dwells in this city shall die by the sword and by famine, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be to him as a prize found, and he shall live.

 

3 For thus said the Lord: This city shall surely be delivered into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.

 

4 And they said to the king, Let that man be put to death, for he weakens the hands of the fighting men who remain in the city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking to them according to these words; for this man prophesies no peace to this people, but only evil.

 

5 And the king said, Behold, he is in your hands; for the king could not prevail against them.

 

6 And they cast him into the pit of Malchiah the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, and they let him down into the pit; and in the pit there was no water, but only mire, and he was in the mire.

 

7 And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian heard, he was in the king's house that they had put Jeremiah into the pit; and the king was at the gate of Benjamin.

 

8 And he went out to him and spoke to the king and said,

 

9 You have done evil in what you did, to kill this man by famine, for there is no more bread in the city.

 

10 And the king commanded Ebed-melech, saying, Take with you thirty men from here and bring him up out of the pit, that he may not die.

 

11 And Ebed-melech took the men and went into the underground part of the king's house, and took from there old rags and old ropes and threw them down to Jeremiah into the pit,

 

12 and said, Put these under the ropes. And Jeremiah did so.

 

13 And they drew him up with the ropes and brought him up out of the pit; and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

 

14 And the king sent and called him to himself into the house of Aselisi, which was in the house of the Lord; and the king said to him, I will ask you a question; hide nothing from me.

 

15 And Jeremiah said to the king, If I tell you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I counsel you, you will not listen to me.

 

16 And the king swore to him, saying, As the Lord lives, who made for us this soul, I will not kill you, nor will I give you into the hands of these men.

 

17 And Jeremiah said to him, Thus said the Lord: If you indeed go out to the commanders of the king of Babylon, your life shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you shall live, you and your house.

 

18 But if you do not go out, this city shall be given into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape.

 

19 And the king said to Jeremiah, I am concerned about the Jews who have fled to the Chaldeans, lest they give me into their hands and they mock me.

 

20 And Jeremiah said, They will not hand you over. Listen to the word of the Lord which I speak to you, and it shall be better for you, and your life shall live.

 

21 But if you refuse to go out, this is the word which the Lord showed me:

 

22 Behold, all the women left in the house of the king of Judah were being led out to the princes of the king of Babylon, and they said, Your men of peace have deceived you and prevailed over you; they have made your feet sink in slippery places; they have turned away from you.

 

23 And they shall bring out your wives and your children to the Chaldeans, and you shall not escape, for you shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon, and this city shall be burned.

 

24 And the king said to him, Let no man know of these words, and you shall not die.

 

25 And if the princes hear that I have spoken with you, and they come to you and say to you, Tell us what the king said to you; do not hide it from us, and we will not kill you—and what did the king say to you?

 

26 then you shall say to them, I was presenting my supplication before the eyes of the king, that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.

 

27 And all the princes came to Jeremiah and questioned him, and he told them according to all these words which the king had commanded him; and they fell silent, because the word of the Lord had not been heard.

 

28 And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the time when Jerusalem was taken.

 

Chapter 46

 

1 And it came to pass in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.

 

2 And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the city was broken open.

 

3 And all the leaders of the king of Babylon came in and sat in the middle gate: Nergalsharezer and Samagoth and Nabusachar and Nabusaris and Nagargasnaser Rabamag, and the rest of the leaders of the king of Babylon.

 

14 And they sent and took Jeremiah from the court of the guard and gave him to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; and they brought him out, and he dwelt in the midst of the people.

 

15 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in the court of the guard, saying:

 

16 Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing my words upon this city for evil and not for good.

 

17 And I will save you in that day, and I will by no means give you into the hands of the men of whom you are afraid.

 

18 For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword; and your life shall be to you as a prize, because you trusted in me, says the Lord.

 

Chapter 47

 

1 The word that came from the Lord to Jeremiah afterwards, after Nabuzardan the chief cook, the one from Daman, had sent him away, when he had taken him in fetters in the midst of the exile of Judah, of those who were being led away to Babylon.

 

2 And the chief cook took him and said to him, "The Lord your God spoke these evils against this place,

 

3 and the Lord has done it, because you sinned against him and did not listen to his voice.

 

4 Behold, I have released you from the fetters that were upon your hands; if it seems good in your sight to come with me to Babylon, come, and I will set my eyes upon you;

 

5 but if not, run off and return to Godolias son of Achikam, son of Saphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the land of Judah, and dwell with him in the midst of the people in the land of Judah; go wherever seems entirely good in your eyes to go." And the chief cook gave him gifts and sent him away.

 

6And he came to Godolias at Massepha and sat down in the midst of the people who had been left behind in the land.

 

7 And all the leaders of the force that was in the field heard, they and their men, that the king of Babylon had appointed Godolias over the land, and that he had entrusted to him men and their wives, whom he had not deported to Babylon.

 

8 And there came to Godolias at Massepha Ismael son of Nathanias, and Joanan son of Karee, and Saraias son of Thanaemeth, and the sons of Ophe the Netophathite, and Iezonias son of the Mochathite, they and their men.

 

9 And Godolias swore to them and to their men, saying, "Do not be afraid before the servants of the Chaldeans; dwell in the land and work for the king of Babylon, and it will be better for you;

 

10 and behold, I sit before you at Massepha to stand before the Chaldeans, whoever may come against you; and you, gather wine and fruit, and gather oil, and put them into your vessels, and dwell in the cities which you have taken hold of."

 

11 And all the Judeans who were in the land of Moab, and among the sons of Ammon, and those in Idumea, and those in all the land, heard that the king of Babylon had granted a remnant to Judah and that he had appointed over them Godolias son of Achikam,

 

12 and they came to Godolias into the land of Judah, to Massepha, and gathered wine and very much fruit, and oil.

 

13 And Joanan son of Karee and all the leaders of the force that were in the fields came to Godolias at Massepha

 

14 and said to him, "Do you truly know that Belisa, king of the sons of Ammon, has sent Ismael to you to strike your life?" But Godolias did not believe them.

 

15 And Joanan said to Godolias secretly in Massepha, "Let me go, then, and strike Ismael, and let no one know, lest he strike your life and all Judah who are gathered to you be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish."

 

16 And Godolias said to Joanan, "Do not do this thing, for you are speaking falsehoods about Ismael."

 

Chapter 48

 

1 And it came to pass in the seventh month that Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elasa, of the royal family, came, and ten men with him, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and they ate bread there together.

 

2 And Ishmael rose up, and the ten men who were with him, and they struck down Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land,

 

3 and all the Judeans who were with him at Mizpah and all the Chaldeans who were found there.

 

4 And it came to pass on the second day after he had struck down Gedaliah, and no man knew of it,

 

5 that men came from Shechem and from Salem and from Samaria, eighty men, with their beards shaved and their garments torn, and beating themselves, with grain offerings and frankincense in their hands to bring into the house of the Lord.

 

6 And Ishmael went out to meet them; they were walking along and weeping, and he said to them, "Come in to Gedaliah."

 

7 And it came to pass, when they had come into the midst of the city, that he slaughtered them into the well.

 

8 And ten men were found there, and they said to Ishmael, "Do not kill us, for we have stores in the field, wheat and barley, honey and oil." And he passed them over and did not kill them among their brothers.

 

9 And the well into which Ishmael threw all those whom he had struck down—this is the great well which King Asa made because of Baasha king of Israel; this Ishmael filled with the slain.

 

10 And Ishmael carried off all the people who remained at Mizpah and the daughters of the king, whom the chief cook had entrusted to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, and he went off to the other side, to the sons of Ammon.

 

11 And Johanan son of Kareah heard, and all the commanders of the force who were with him, of all the evils that Ishmael had done,

 

12 and they led out their whole army and went off to fight him, and they found him at the great water in Gibeon.

 

13 And it came to pass, when all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan and the commanders of the force that was with him,

 

14 that they turned back to Johanan.

 

15 And Ishmael escaped with eight men and went off to the sons of Ammon.

 

16 And Johanan and all the commanders of the force who were with him took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael—men mighty in war, and the women and the rest and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibeon

 

17 and they went off and settled at Geruth-Chimham, which is near Bethlehem, in order to go and enter into Egypt

 

18 away from the Chaldeans, for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael had struck down Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had appointed in the land.

 

Chapter 49

 

1 And all the leaders of the force came near, and Johanan, and Azariah son of Maaseiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest,

 

2 to Jeremiah the prophet, and said to him, "Let our plea for mercy now fall before your face, and pray to the Lord your God for these who remain, for we have been left few out of many, as your eyes see;

 

3 and let the Lord your God declare to us the way in which we should walk, and the word that we should do."

 

4 And Jeremiah said to them, "I have heard; behold, I will pray to the Lord our God according to your words; and it shall be that whatever word the Lord answers, I will declare it to you; I will not hide a word from you."

 

5 And they said to Jeremiah, "Let the Lord be among us as a just and faithful witness, if we do not act according to every word which the Lord sends you to us;

 

6 whether good or evil, we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, that it may be better for us, because we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God."

 

7 And it came to pass after ten days that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

 

8 And he called Johanan and the leaders of the force and all the people from the least to the greatest,

 

9 and said to them, "Thus said the Lord:

 

10 If you will indeed remain in this land, I will build you up and will not tear down, and I will plant you and will not uproot; for I have relented concerning the evils which I did to you.

 

11 Do not fear the face of the king of Babylon, whose face you fear; do not fear, says the Lord, for I am with you, to deliver you and to save you from his hand;

 

12 and I will give you mercy and will have mercy on you and will return you to your land.

 

13 But if you say, 'We will not remain in this land,' so as not to listen to the voice of the Lord,

 

14 saying, 'No, we will go into the land of Egypt, and we will not see war, and we will not hear the sound of the trumpet, and we will not hunger for bread, and there we will dwell,'

 

15 therefore hear the word of the Lord: Thus said the Lord: If you set your face toward Egypt and go in to dwell there,

 

16 then it shall be that the sword which you fear will find you in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you take account will overtake you close behind in Egypt, and there you will die.

 

17 And all the men and all the foreigners who have set their face toward the land of Egypt to dwell there shall perish by the sword and by the famine, and there shall be none of them saved from the evils which I am bringing upon them.

 

18 For thus said the Lord: As my wrath dripped upon those dwelling in Jerusalem, so shall my wrath drip upon you when you enter Egypt, and you shall become a desolation and subjects and a curse and a reproach, and you shall no longer see this place

 

19 the things which the Lord spoke concerning you, the remnant of Judah: Do not go into Egypt. And now you shall surely know

 

20 that you have done evil in your souls, sending me and saying, 'Pray for us to the Lord, and according to all that the Lord speaks to you, we will do.'

 

21 And you did not listen to the voice of the Lord, with which he sent me to you.

 

22 And now by the sword and by famine you shall perish in the place where you desire to go in to dwell there."

 

Chapter 50

 

1 And it came to pass, when Jeremiah ceased speaking to the people all the words of the Lord, which the Lord had sent him to speak to them, all these words,

 

2 that Azariah son of Maaseiah and Johanan son of Kareah, and all the men who had spoken to Jeremiah, said, "Lies! The Lord has not sent you to us, saying, 'Do not enter Egypt to dwell there,'

 

3 but Baruch son of Neriah sets you against us, so that you may give us into the hands of the Chaldeans, to put us to death and to carry us away into exile in Babylon."

 

4 And Johanan and all the leaders of the force and all the people did not listen to the voice of the Lord, to dwell in the land of Judah.

 

5 And Johanan and all the leaders of the force took all the remnant of Judah, those who had returned to dwell in the land,

 

6 the mighty men and the women and the infants and the daughters of the king, and the souls whom Nebuzaradan had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah,

 

7 and they entered Egypt, because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord; and they came to Tahpanhes.

 

8 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,

 

9 "Take for yourself large stones and hide them in the entrance, at the gate of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah,

 

10 and you shall say, 'Thus said the Lord: Behold, I am sending and will bring Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will set his throne upon these stones which you have hidden, and he will lift his weapons against them.

 

11 And he will enter and strike the land of Egypt: those destined for death, to death; and those for exile, to exile; and those for the sword, to the sword.

 

12 And he will kindle fire in the houses of their gods and burn them, and he will carry them away into exile, and he will delouse the land of Egypt, as a shepherd delouses his garment, and he will go out in peace.

 

13 And he will shatter the pillars of the City of the Sun that are in On, and their houses he will burn with fire.'"

 

Chapter 51

 

1 The word that came to Jeremiah for all the Jews who dwelt in the land of Egypt, and for those who settled in Migdol and in Tahpanhes and in the land of Pathros, saying:

 

2 Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: You have seen all the evils that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon the cities of Judah, and behold, they are desolate, without inhabitants,

 

3 because of their wickedness, which they committed to provoke me to bitterness, going to burn incense to other gods whom you did not know.

 

4 And I sent to you my servants the prophets, rising early, and I sent, saying: Do not do this defiling thing which I hate.

 

5 But they did not listen to me and did not incline their ear to turn away from their evils, so as not to burn incense to other gods.

 

6 And my anger and my wrath dripped down and were kindled in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem, and they became a desolation and an untrodden waste, as at this day.

 

7 And now thus said the Lord Almighty: Why do you do great evils against your own souls, to cut off from among you man and woman, infant and suckling, from the midst of Judah, so that none of you should be left,

 

8 provoking me to bitterness by the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, into which you have come to dwell there, so that you may be cut off and become a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?

 

9 Have you forgotten the evils of your fathers and the evils of the kings of Judah and the evils of your rulers and the evils of your wives, which they did in the land of Judah and outside Jerusalem?

 

10 And they have not ceased to this day, and they have not held fast to my ordinances, which I gave before the face of their fathers.

 

11 Therefore thus said the Lord: Behold, I set my face

 

12 to destroy all the remnant who are in Egypt, and they shall fall; by sword and by famine they shall perish, from small to great, and they shall become a reproach and a destruction and a curse.

 

13 And I will visit those who settle in the land of Egypt as I visited Jerusalem, with sword and with famine and with death,

 

14 and there shall be no survivor among the remnant of Judah who sojourn in the land of Egypt, to return to the land of Judah, toward which they hope in their souls to return there; they shall not return, except as escaped fugitives.

 

15 And all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods answered Jeremiah, and all the women, a great assembly, and all the people who settled in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, saying:

 

16 As for the word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you,

 

17 for we will surely do every word that goes forth from our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her, just as we did, we and our fathers and our kings and our rulers, in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem; and we were filled with bread and were well off and saw no evils.

 

18 But when we ceased burning incense to the queen of heaven, we were all diminished, and by sword and by famine we perished.

 

19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made cakes for her and poured out drink offerings to her?

 

20 And Jeremiah said to all the people, to the mighty men and to the women and to all the people who had answered him with words, saying:

 

21 Was it not the incense which you burned in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem, you and your fathers and your kings and your rulers and the people of the land, that the Lord remembered, and it came up upon his heart?

 

22 And the Lord could no longer bear it, because of the wickedness of your deeds, because of the abominations which you committed; and your land became a desolation and an untrodden waste and a curse, as at this day,

 

23 because of what you burned in incense and wherein you sinned against the Lord, and did not listen to the voice of the Lord, and did not walk in his ordinances and in his law and in his testimonies; and these evils seized upon you.

 

24 And Jeremiah said to the people and to the women: Hear the word of the Lord;

 

25 thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: You women have spoken with your mouth and fulfilled it with your hands, saying: We will surely perform our vows which we vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her. You have steadfastly kept your vows and have surely performed them.

 

26 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who settle in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, said the Lord, that my name shall no longer be in the mouth of any man of Judah, to say, "The Lord the Lord lives," in all the land of Egypt.

 

27 For behold, I am watching over them to do them harm and not good, and all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt shall perish by sword and by famine until they are consumed.

 

28 And those who escape from the sword shall return to the land of Judah, few in number, and the remnant of Judah, who settled in the land of Egypt to dwell there, shall know whose word shall stand.

 

29 And this shall be the sign for you, that I will visit you for evil;

 

30 thus said the Lord: Behold, I am giving Hophra, king of Egypt, into the hands of his enemy and into the hands of those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah, into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his enemy, who sought his life.

 

31 The word which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in the book from the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:

 

32 Thus said the Lord concerning you, Baruch:

 

33 Because you said, Woe is me, woe is me, for the Lord has added toil upon my pain; I lay down in groanings, I found no rest

 

34 say to him: Thus said the Lord: Behold, what I have built, I tear down, and what I have planted, I pluck up;

 

35 and do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them, for behold, I am bringing evils upon all flesh, says the Lord, but I will give your life as a prize in every place wherever you go.

 

Chapter 52

 

1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Amitaal, daughter of Jeremiah of Lobena.

 

4 And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they entrenched it round about and built around it with squared stones in a circle.

 

5 And the city came into siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah;

 

6 on the ninth of the month the famine grew severe in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.

 

7 And the city was breached, and all the men of war went out by night by the way of the gate between the wall and the outer wall, which was by the king's garden and the Chaldeans were around the city and they went by the road toward Araba.

 

8 And the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king and overtook him on the other side of Jericho, and all his servants were scattered from him.

 

9 And they seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Deblatha, and he spoke with him in judgment.

 

10 And the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he slaughtered all the rulers of Judah at Deblatha.

 

11 And he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in fetters, and the king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put him in the mill house until the day he died.

 

12 And in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, Nabuzardan the chief cook, who stood before the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

 

13 And he burned the house of the Lord and the house of the king and all the houses of the city, and every great house he burned with fire.

 

14 And the army of the Chaldeans that was with the chief cook tore down every wall of Jerusalem round about.

 

16 And the chief cook left the remnant of the people to be vinedressers and farmers.

 

17 And the bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the bronze sea that was in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and they took their bronze and carried it away to Babylon.

 

18 And the rim and the bowls and the flesh-hooks and all the bronze vessels with which they ministered,

 

19 and the sapphoth and the masmaroth and the pouring vessels and the lampstands and the censers and the cups, those that were gold, gold, and those that were silver, silver—the chief cook took.

 

20 And the two pillars and the one sea and the twelve bronze calves beneath the sea, which King Solomon made for the house of the Lord: there was no weighing of their bronze.

 

21 And the pillars: thirty-five cubits was the height of the one pillar, and a cord of twelve cubits encircled it, and its thickness was four fingers all around;

 

22 and upon them was a bronze capital, and the height of the one capital was five cubits in length, and network and pomegranates were upon the capital round about, all of bronze; and likewise for the second pillar, eight pomegranates to the cubit for the twelve cubits.

 

23 And the pomegranates were ninety-six on the one side, and all the pomegranates upon the network round about were one hundred.

 

24 And the chief cook took the first priest and the second priest and the three who guarded the way,

 

25 and one eunuch, who was overseer of the men of war, and seven men of renown who were in the presence of the king, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the forces, who did the enrolling for the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the midst of the city.

 

26 And Nabuzardan the chief cook took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Deblatha,

 

27 and the king of Babylon struck them down at Deblatha in the land of Aimath.

 

31 And it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiakim king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fourth of the month, that Ulaimaradach king of Babylon, in the year in which he became king, lifted up the head of Jehoiakim king of Judah and brought him out of the house in which he was kept.

 

32 And he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

 

33 And he changed his prison garments, and he ate bread continually in his presence all the days that he lived.

 

34 And his allowance was given him continually by the king of Babylon, day by day, until the day he died.