1:1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the
priests
who were in Anathoth
in the land of Benjamin:
1:2 To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah,
the
son of Amon, king of
Judah, in the thirteenth year of his rule.
1:3 And it came again in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of
Josiah, king of
Judah, up to the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the
son of Josiah, king
of Judah; till Jerusalem was taken away in
the fifth month.
1:4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
1:5 Before you were formed in the body of your mother I had
knowledge of you, and
before your birth I made you holy; I have
given you the work of
being a prophet to the nations.
1:6 Then said I, O Lord God! see, I have no power of words,
for
I am a child.
1:7 But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am a child: for
wherever I send you,
you are to go, and whatever I give you
orders to say, you
are to say.
1:8 Have no fear because of them: for I am with you, to keep
you
safe, says the Lord.
1:9 Then the Lord put out his hand, touching my mouth; and
the
Lord said to me, See,
I have put my words in your mouth:
1:10 See, this day I have put you over the nations and over
the
kingdoms, for
uprooting and smashing down, for destruction and
overturning, for
building up and planting.
1:11 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
Jeremiah,
what do you see? And
I said, I see a branch of an almond-tree.
1:12 Then the Lord said to me, You have seen well: for I
keep
watch over my word to
give effect to it.
1:13 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time,
saying,
What do you see? And
I said, I see a boiling pot, and its face
is from the north.
1:14 Then the Lord said to me, Out of the north evil will
come,
bursting out on all
the people of the land.
1:15 For see, I will send for all the families of the
kingdoms
of the north, says
the Lord; and they will come, everyone
placing his high seat
at the way into Jerusalem, and against
its walls on every
side, and against all the towns of Judah.
1:16 And I will give my decision against them on account of
all
their evil-doing;
because they have given me up, burning
perfumes to other
gods and worshipping the works of their
hands.
1:17 So make yourself ready, and go and say to them
everything I
give you orders to
say: do not be overcome by fear of them, or
I will send fear on
you before them.
1:18 For see, this day have I made you a walled town, and an
iron pillar, and
walls of brass, against all the land, against
the kings of Judah,
against its captains, against its priests,
and against the
people of the land.
1:19 They will be fighting against you, but they will not
overcome you: for I
am with you, says the Lord, to give you
salvation.
2:1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
2:2 Go and say in the ears of Jerusalem, The Lord says, I
still
keep the memory of
your kind heart when you were young, and
your love when you
became my bride; how you went after me in
the waste of sand, in
an unplanted land.
2:3 Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his
increase: all who
made attacks on him were judged as
wrongdoers, evil came
on them, says the Lord.
2:4 Give ear to the words of the Lord, O sons of Jacob and
all
the families of
Israel:
2:5 These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your
fathers
seen in me that they
have gone far from me, and, walking after
what is false, have
become false?
2:6 And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up
out
of the land of Egypt;
who was our guide through the waste of
sand, through an
unplanted land full of deep holes, through a
dry land of deep
shade, which no one went through and where no
man was living?
2:7 And I took you into a fertile land, where you were
living on
its fruit and its
wealth; but when you came in, you made my
land unclean, and
made my heritage a disgusting thing.
2:8 The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those
who
were expert in the
law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers
did evil against me,
and the prophets became prophets of the
Baal, going after
things without value.
2:9 For this reason, I will again put forward my cause
against
you, says the Lord,
even against you and against your
children's children.
2:10 For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to
Kedar and give deep
thought to it; and see if there has ever
been such a thing.
2:11 Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though
they are no gods? but
my people have given up their glory in
exchange for what is
of no profit.
2:12 Be full of wonder, O heavens, at this; be overcome with
fear, be completely
waste, says the Lord.
2:13 For my people have done two evils; they have given up
me,
the fountain of
living waters, and have made for themselves
water-holes, cut out
from the rock, broken water-holes, of no
use for storing
water.
2:14 Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from
birth? why has he
been made waste?
2:15 The young lions have made an outcry against him with a
loud
voice: they have made
his land waste; his towns are burned up,
with no one living in
them.
2:16 Even the children of Noph and Tahpanhes have put shame
on
you.
2:17 Has not this come on you because you have given up the
Lord
your God, who was
your guide by the way?
2:18 And now, what have you to do on the way to Egypt, to
get
your drink from the
waters of the Nile? or what have you to do
on the way to
Assyria, to get your drink from the waters of the
River?
2:19 The evil you yourselves have done will be your
punishment,
your errors will be
your judge: be certain then, and see that
it is an evil and a
bitter thing to give up the Lord your God,
and no longer to be
moved by fear of me, says the Lord, the
Lord of armies.
2:20 For in the past, your yoke was broken by your hands and
your cords parted;
and you said, I will not be your servant;
for on every high
hill and under every branching tree, your
behaviour was like
that of a loose woman
2:21 But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine,
in
every way a true
seed: how then have you been changed into the
branching plant of a
strange vine?
2:22 For even if you are washed with soda and take much
soap,
still your evil-doing
is marked before me, says the Lord God.
2:23 How are you able to say, I am not unclean, I have not
gone
after the Baals? see
your way in the valley, be clear about
what you have done:
you are a quick-footed camel twisting her
way in and out;
2:24 An untrained ass, used to the waste land, breathing up
the
wind in her desire;
at her time, who is able to send her away?
all those who are
looking for her will have no need to make
themselves tired; in
her month they will get her.
2:25 Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat
dry
from need of water:
but you said, There is no hope: no, for I
have been a lover of
strange gods, and after them I will go.
2:26 As the thief is shamed when he is taken, so is Israel
shamed; they, their
kings and their rulers, their priests and
their prophets;
2:27 Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone,
You
have given me life:
for their backs have been turned to me, not
their faces: but in
the time of their trouble they will say,
Up! and be our
saviour.
2:28 But where are the gods you have made for yourselves?
let
them come, if they
are able to give you salvation in the time
of your trouble: for
the number of your gods is as the number
of your towns, O
Judah.
2:29 Why will you put forward your cause against me? You
have
all done evil against
me, says the Lord.
2:30 I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no
good
from training: your
sword has been the destruction of your
prophets, like a
death-giving lion.
2:31 O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a
waste
land to Israel? or a
land of dark night? why do my people say,
We have got loose, we
will not come to you again?
2:32 Is it possible for a virgin to put out of her memory
her
ornaments, or a bride
her robes? but my people have put me out
of their memories for
unnumbered days.
2:33 With what care are your ways ordered when you are
looking
for love! so ... your
ways.
2:34 And in the skirts of your robe may be seen the life-blood
of those who have
done no wrong: ...
2:35 And still you said, I have done no wrong; truly, his
wrath
is turned away from
me. See, I will take up the cause against
you, because you say,
I have done no wrong.
2:36 Why do you go about so much for the purpose of changing
your way? you will be
shamed on account of Egypt, as you were
shamed on account of
Assyria.
2:37 Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your
head: for the Lord
has given up those in whom you have put your
faith, and they will
be of no help to you.
3:1 They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from
him
and becomes another
man's, will he go back to her again? will
not that land have
been made unclean? but though you have been
acting like a loose
woman with a number of lovers, will you now
come back to me? says
the Lord.
3:2 Let your eyes be lifted up to the open hilltops, and
see;
where have you not
been taken by your lovers? You have been
seated waiting for
them by the wayside like an Arabian in the
waste land; you have
made the land unclean with your loose ways
and your evil-doing.
3:3 So the showers have been kept back, and there has been
no
spring rain; still
your brow is the brow of a loose woman, you
will not let yourself
be shamed.
3:4 Will you not, from this time, make your prayer to me,
crying, My father,
you are the friend of my early years?
3:5 Will he be angry for ever? will he keep his wrath to the
end? These things you
have said, and have done evil and have
had your way.
3:6 And the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king,
Have
you seen what Israel,
turning away from me, has done? She has
gone up on every high
mountain and under every branching tree,
acting like a loose
woman there.
3:7 And I said, After she has done all these things she will
come back to me; but
she did not. And her false sister Judah
saw it.
3:8 And though she saw that, because Israel, turning away
from
me, had been untrue
to me, I had put her away and given her a
statement in writing
ending the relation between us, still
Judah, her false
sister, had no fear, but went and did the
same.
3:9 So that through all her loose behaviour the land became
unclean, and she was
untrue, giving herself to stones and
trees.
3:10 But for all this, her false sister Judah has not come
back
to me with all her
heart, but with deceit, says the Lord.
3:11 And the Lord said to me, Israel in her turning away is
seen
to be more upright
than false Judah.
3:12 Go, and give out these words to the north, and say,
Come
back, O Israel,
though you have been turned away from me, says
the Lord; my face
will not be against you in wrath: for I am
full of mercy, says
the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.
3:13 Only be conscious of your sin, the evil you have done
against the Lord your
God; you have gone with strange men under
every branching tree,
giving no attention to my voice, says the
Lord.
3:14 Come back, O children who are turned away, says the
Lord;
for I am a husband to
you, and I will take you, one from a town
and two from a
family, and will make you come to Zion;
3:15 And I will give you keepers, pleasing to my heart, who
will
give you your food
with knowledge and wisdom.
3:16 And it will come about, when your numbers are increased
in
the land, in those
days, says the Lord, that they will no
longer say, The ark
of the agreement of the Lord: it will not
come into their
minds, they will not have any memory of it, or
be conscious of the
loss of it, and it will not be made again.
3:17 At that time Jerusalem will be named the seat of the
Lord's
kingdom; and all the
nations will come together to it, to the
name of the Lord, to
Jerusalem: and no longer will their steps
be guided by the
purposes of their evil hearts.
3:18 In those days the family of Judah will go with the
family
of Israel, and they
will come together out of the land of the
north into the land
which I gave for a heritage to your
fathers.
3:19 But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and
give you a desired
land, a heritage of glory among the armies
of the nations? and I
said, You are to say to me, My father;
and not be turned
away from me.
3:20 Truly, as a wife is false to her husband, so have you
been
false to me, O
Israel, says the Lord.
3:21 A voice is sounding on the open hilltops, the weeping
and
the prayers of the
children of Israel; because their way is
twisted, they have
not kept the Lord their God in mind.
3:22 Come back, you children who have been turned away, and
I
will take away your
desire for wandering. See, we have come to
you, for you are the
Lord our God.
3:23 Truly, the hills, and the noise of an army on the
mountains, are a
false hope: truly, in the Lord our God is the
salvation of Israel.
3:24 But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from
our
earliest days; their
flocks and their herds, their sons and
their daughters.
3:25 Let us be stretched on the earth in our downfall,
covering
ourselves with our
shame: for we have been sinners against the
Lord our God, we and
our fathers, from our earliest years even
till this day: and we
have not given ear to the voice of the
Lord our God.
4:1 If you will come back, O Israel, says the Lord, you will
come back to me: and
if you will put away your disgusting ways,
you will not be sent
away from before me.
4:2 And you will take your oath, By the living Lord, in good
faith and wisdom and
righteousness; and the nations will make
use of you as a
blessing, and in you will they take a pride.
4:3 For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and
to
Jerusalem: Get your
unworked land ploughed up, do not put in
your seeds among
thorns.
4:4 Undergo a circumcision of the heart, you men of Judah
and
people of Jerusalem:
or my wrath may come out like fire,
burning so that no
one is able to put it out, because of the
evil of your doings.
4:5 Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say,
Let
the horn be sounded
in the land: crying out in a loud voice,
Come together, and
let us go into the walled towns.
4:6 Put up a flag for a sign to Zion: go in flight so that
you
may be safe, waiting
no longer: for I will send evil from the
north, and a great
destruction.
4:7 A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods,
and
one who makes waste
the nations is on his way; he has gone out
from his place, to
make your land unpeopled, so that your towns
will be made waste,
with no man living in them.
4:8 For this put on haircloth, with weeping and loud crying:
for
the burning wrath of
the Lord is not turned back from us.
4:9 And it will come about in that day, says the Lord, that
the
heart of the king
will be dead in him, and the hearts of the
rulers; and the
priests will be overcome with fear, and the
prophets with wonder.
4:10 Then said I, Ah, Lord God! your words were not true
when
you said to this
people and to Jerusalem, You will have peace;
when the sword has
come even to the soul.
4:11 At that time it will be said to this people and to
Jerusalem, A burning
wind from the open hilltops in the waste
land is blowing on
the daughter of my people, not for
separating or
cleaning the grain;
4:12 A full wind will come for me: and now I will give my
decision against
them.
4:13 See, he will come up like the clouds, and his
war-carriages
like the storm-wind:
his horses are quicker than eagles. Sorrow
is ours, for
destruction has come on us.
4:14 O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that
you
may have salvation.
How long are evil purposes to have a
resting-place in you?
4:15 For a voice is sounding from Dan, giving out evil from
the
hills of Ephraim:
4:16 Make this come to the minds of the nations, make a
statement openly
against Jerusalem, that attackers are coming
from a far country
and their voices will be loud against the
towns of Judah.
4:17 Like keepers of a field they are against her on every
side;
because she has been
fighting against me, says the Lord.
4:18 Your ways and your doings have made these things come
on
you; this is your
sin; truly it is bitter, going deep into your
heart.
4:19 My soul, my soul! I am pained to my inmost heart; my
heart
is troubled in me; I
am not able to be quiet, because the sound
of the horn, the note
of war, has come to my ears.
4:20 News is given of destruction on destruction; all the
land
is made waste:
suddenly my tents, straight away my curtains,
are made waste.
4:21 How long will I go on seeing the flag and hearing the
sound
of the war-horn?
4:22 For my people are foolish, they have no knowledge of
me;
they are evil-minded
children, without sense, all of them: they
are wise in
evil-doing, but have no knowledge of doing good.
4:23 Looking at the earth, I saw that it was waste and
without
form; and to the
heavens, that they had no light.
4:24 Looking at the mountains, I saw them shaking, and all
the
hills were moved
about.
4:25 Looking, I saw that there was no man, and all the birds
of
heaven had gone in
flight.
4:26 Looking, I saw that the fertile field was a waste, and
all
its towns were broken
down before the Lord and before his
burning wrath.
4:27 For this is what the Lord has said: All the land will
become a waste; I
will make destruction complete.
4:28 The earth will be weeping for this, and the heavens on
high
will be black:
because I have said it, and I will not go back
from it; it is my
purpose, and it will not be changed.
4:29 All the land is in flight because of the noise of the
horsemen and the bowmen;
they have taken cover in the woodland
and up on the rocks:
every town has been given up, not a man is
living in them.
4:30 And you, when you are made waste, what will you do?
Though
you are clothed in
red, though you make yourself beautiful with
ornaments of gold,
though you make your eyes wide with paint,
it is for nothing
that you make yourself fair; your lovers have
no more desire for
you, they have designs on your life.
4:31 A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman
in
birth-pains, the pain
of one giving birth to her first child,
the voice of the
daughter of Zion, fighting for breath,
stretching out her
hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my
strength is gone from
me before the takers of life.
5:1 Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see
now,
and get knowledge,
and make a search in her wide places if
there is a man, if
there is one in her who is upright, who
keeps faith; and she
will have my forgiveness.
5:2 And though they say, By the living Lord; truly their oaths
are false.
5:3 O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given
them
punishment, but they
were not troubled; you have sent
destruction on them,
but they did not take your teaching to
heart: they have made
their faces harder than a rock; they
would not come back.
5:4 Then I said, But these are the poor: they are foolish,
for
they have no
knowledge of the way of the Lord or of the
behaviour desired by
their God.
5:5 I will go to the great men and have talk with them; for
they
have knowledge of the
way of the Lord and of the behaviour
desired by their God.
But as for these, their one purpose is a
broken yoke and burst
bands.
5:6 And so a lion from the woods will put them to death, a
wolf
of the waste land
will make them waste, a leopard will keep
watch on their towns,
and everyone who goes out from them will
be food for the
beasts; because of the great number of their
sins and the increase
of their wrongdoing.
5:7 How is it possible for you to have my forgiveness for
this?
your children have
given me up, taking their oaths by those who
are no gods: when I
had given them food in full measure, they
were false to their
wives, taking their pleasure in the houses
of loose women.
5:8 They were full of desire, like horses after a meal of
grain:
everyone went after
his neighbour's wife.
5:9 Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the
Lord:
will not my soul take
payment from such a nation as this?
5:10 Go up against her vines and make waste; let the
destruction
be complete: take
away her branches, for they are not the
Lord's.
5:11 For the people of Israel and the people of Judah have
been
very false to me,
says the Lord.
5:12 They would have nothing to do with the Lord, saying, He
will do nothing, and
no evil will come to us; we will not see
the sword or be short
of food:
5:13 And the prophets will become wind, and the word is not
in
them; so it will be
done to them.
5:14 For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, has said:
Because you have said
this, I will make my words in your mouth
a fire, and this
people wood, and they will be burned up by it.
5:15 See, I will send you a nation from far away, O people
of
Israel, says the
Lord; a strong nation and an old nation, a
nation whose language
is strange to you, so that you may not
get the sense of
their words.
5:16 Their arrows give certain death, they are all men of
war.
5:17 They will take all the produce of your fields, which
would
have been food for
your sons and your daughters: they will take
your flocks and your
herds: they will take all your vines and
your fig-trees: and
with the sword they will make waste your
walled towns in which
you put your faith.
5:18 But even in those days, says the Lord, I will not let
your
destruction be
complete.
5:19 And it will come about, when you say, Why has the Lord
our
God done all these
things to us? that you will say to them, As
you gave me up,
making yourselves servants to strange gods in
your land, so will
you be servants to strange men in a land
which is not yours.
5:20 Say this openly in Jacob and give it out in Judah,
saying,
5:21 Give ear now to this, O foolish people without sense;
who
have eyes but see
nothing, and ears without the power of
hearing:
5:22 Have you no fear of me? says the Lord; will you not be
shaking with fear
before me, who have put the sand as a limit
for the sea, by an
eternal order, so that it may not go past
it? and though it is
ever in motion, it is not able to have its
way; though the sound
of its waves is loud, they are not able
to go past it.
5:23 But the heart of this people is uncontrolled and turned
away from me; they
are broken loose and gone.
5:24 And they do not say in their hearts, Now let us give
worship to our God,
who gives the rain, the winter and the
spring rain, at the
right time; who keeps for us the ordered
weeks of the
grain-cutting.
5:25 Through your evil-doing these things have been turned
away,
and your sins have
kept back good from you.
5:26 For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch,
like men watching for
birds; they put a net and take men in it.
5:27 As the fowl-house is full of birds, so are their houses
full of deceit: for
this reason they have become great and have
got wealth.
5:28 They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in
works of evil: they
give no support to the cause of the child
without a father, so
that they may do well; they do not see
that the poor man
gets his rights.
5:29 Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the
Lord: will not my
soul take payment from such a nation as this?
5:30 A thing of wonder and fear has come about in the land;
5:31 The prophets give false words and the priests give
decisions by their
direction; and my people are glad to have it
so: and what will you
do in the end?
6:1 Go in flight out of Jerusalem, so that you may be safe,
you
children of Benjamin,
and let the horn be sounded in Tekoa, and
the flag be lifted up
on Beth-haccherem: for evil is looking
out from the north,
and a great destruction.
6:2 The fair and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will be
cut
off by my hand.
6:3 Keepers of sheep with their flocks will come to her;
they
will put up their
tents round her; everyone will get food in
his place.
6:4 Make war ready against her; up! let us go up when the
sun is
high. Sorrow is ours!
for the day is turned and the shades of
evening are stretched
out.
6:5 Up! let us go up by night, and send destruction on her
great
houses.
6:6 For this is what the Lord of armies has said: Let trees
be
cut down and an
earthwork be placed against Jerusalem: sorrow
on the false town!
inside her there is nothing but cruel ways.
6:7 As the spring keeps its waters cold, so she keeps her
evil
in her: the sound of
cruel and violent behaviour is in her;
before me at all
times are disease and wounds.
6:8 Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned
away from you, and I
will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.
6:9 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Everything
will be
taken from the rest
of Israel as the last grapes are taken from
the vine; let your
hand be turned to the small branches, like
one pulling off
grapes.
6:10 To whom am I to give word, witnessing so that they may
take
note? see, their ears
are stopped, and they are not able to
give attention: see,
the word of the Lord has been a cause of
shame to them, they
have no delight in it.
6:11 For this reason I am full of the wrath of the Lord, I
am
tired of keeping it
in: may it be let loose on the children in
the street, and on
the band of the young men together: for even
the husband with his
wife will be taken, the old man with him
who is full of days.
6:12 And their houses will be handed over to others, their
fields and their
wives together: for my hand will be stretched
out against the
people of the land, says the Lord.
6:13 For from the least of them even to the greatest,
everyone
is given up to
getting money; from the prophet even to the
priest, everyone is
working deceit.
6:14 And they have made little of the wounds of my people,
saying, Peace, peace;
when there is no peace.
6:15 Let them be put to shame because they have done
disgusting
things. They had no
shame, they were not able to become red
with shame: so they
will come down with those who are falling:
when my punishment
comes on them, they will be made low, says
the Lord.
6:16 This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking
out
on the ways; make
search for the old roads, saying, Where is
the good way? and go
in it that you may have rest for your
souls. But they said,
We will not go in it.
6:17 And I put watchmen over you, saying, Give attention to
the
sound of the horn;
but they said, We will not give attention.
6:18 So then, give ear, you nations, and ...
6:19 Give ear, O earth: see, I will make evil come on this
people, even the
fruit of their thoughts, because they have not
given attention to my
words, and they would have nothing to do
with my law.
6:20 To what purpose does sweet perfume come to me from
Sheba,
and spices from a far
country? your burned offerings give me no
pleasure, your
offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.
6:21 For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will put
stones
in the way of this
people: and the fathers and the sons
together will go
falling over them; the neighbour and his
friend will come to
destruction.
6:22 The Lord has said, See, a people is coming from the
north
country, a great
nation will be put in motion from the inmost
parts of the earth.
6:23 Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and
have
no mercy; their voice
is like the thunder of the sea, and they
go on horses;
everyone in his place like men going to the
fight, against you, O
daughter of Zion.
6:24 The news of it has come to our ears; our hands have
become
feeble: trouble has
come on us and pain, like the pain of a
woman in childbirth.
6:25 Go not out into the field or by the way; for there is
the
sword of the
attacker, and fear on every side.
6:26 O daughter of my people, put on haircloth, rolling
yourself
in the dust: give
yourself to sorrow, as for an only son, with
most bitter cries of
grief; for he who makes waste will come on
us suddenly.
6:27 I have made you a tester among my people, so that you
may
have knowledge of
their way and put it to the test.
6:28 All of them are turned away, going about with false
stories; they are
brass and iron: they are all workers of
deceit.
6:29 The blower is blowing strongly, the lead is burned away
in
the fire: they go on
heating the metal to no purpose, for the
evil-doers are not
taken away.
6:30 They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has
given
them up.
7:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
7:2 Take your place in the doorway of the Lord's house, and
give
out this word there,
and say, Give ear to the word of the Lord,
all you of Judah who
come inside these doors to give worship to
the Lord.
7:3 The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, says, Let your
ways
and your doings be
changed for the better and I will let you go
on living in this
place.
7:4 Put no faith in false words, saying, The Temple of the
Lord,
the Temple of the
Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these.
7:5 For if your ways and your doings are truly changed for
the
better; if you truly
give right decisions between a man and his
neighbour;
7:6 If you are not cruel to the man from a strange country,
and
to the child without
a father, and to the widow, and do not put
the upright to death
in this place, or go after other gods,
causing damage to
yourselves:
7:7 Then I will let you go on living in this place, in the
land
which I gave to your
fathers in the past and for ever.
7:8 See, you put your faith in false words which are of no
profit.
7:9 Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and
be
untrue to your wives,
and take false oaths, and have perfumes
burned to the Baal,
and go after other gods which are strange
to you;
7:10 And come and take your place before me in this house,
which
is named by my name,
and say, We have been made safe; so that
you may do all these
disgusting things?
7:11 Has this house, which is named by my name, become a
hole of
thieves to you? Truly
I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord.
7:12 But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I put
my
name at first, and
see what I did to it because of the
evil-doing of my
people Israel.
7:13 And now, because you have done all these works, says
the
Lord, and I sent my
word to you, getting up early and sending,
but you did not give
ear; and my voice came to you, but you
gave no answer:
7:14 For this reason I will do to the house which is named
by my
name, and in which
you have put your faith, and to the place
which I gave to you
and to your fathers, as I have done to
Shiloh.
7:15 And I will send you away from before my face, as I have
sent away all your
brothers, even all the seed of Ephraim.
7:16 And as for you (Jeremiah), make no prayers for this
people,
send up no cry or
prayer for them, make no request for them to
me: for I will not
give ear.
7:17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of
Judah
and in the streets of
Jerusalem?
7:18 The children go for wood, the fathers get the fire
burning,
the women are working
the paste to make cakes for the queen of
heaven, and drink
offerings are drained out to other gods,
moving me to wrath.
7:19 Are they moving me to wrath? says the Lord; are they
not
moving themselves to
their shame?
7:20 So this is what the Lord God has said: See, my wrath
and my
passion will be let
loose on this place, on man and beast, and
on the trees of the
field, and on the produce of the earth; it
will be burning and
will not be put out.
7:21 These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel: Put your
burned offerings with your offerings of
beasts, and take
flesh for your food.
7:22 For I said nothing to your fathers, and gave them no
orders, on the day
when I took them out of Egypt, about burned
offerings or
offerings of beasts:
7:23 But this was the order I gave them, saying, Give ear to
my
voice, and I will be
your God, and you will be my people: go in
all the way ordered
by me, so that all may be well for you.
7:24 But they took no note and did not give ear, but were
guided
by the thoughts and
the pride of their evil hearts, going back
and not forward.
7:25 From the day when your fathers came out of Egypt till
this
day, I have sent my
servants the prophets to you, getting up
early every day and
sending them:
7:26 But still they took no note and would not give ear, but
they made their necks
stiff, doing worse than their fathers.
7:27 And you are to say all these words to them, but they
will
not give ear to you:
you will send out your voice to them, but
they will give no
answer.
7:28 And you are to say to them, This is the nation which
has
not given ear to the
voice of their God, or taken his teaching
to heart: good faith
is dead and is cut off from their mouths.
7:29 Let your hair be cut off, O Jerusalem, and let it go,
and
let a song of grief
go up on the open hilltops; for the Lord is
turned away from the
generation of his wrath and has given them
up.
7:30 For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my
eyes, says the Lord:
they have put their disgusting images in
the house which is
named by my name, making it unclean.
7:31 And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the
valley of the son of
Hinnom, burning their sons and their
daughters there in
the fire; a thing which was not ordered by
me and never came
into my mind.
7:32 For this cause, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when it
will no longer be
named Topheth, or, The valley of the son of
Hinnom, but, The
valley of Death: for they will put the dead
into the earth in
Topheth till there is no more room.
7:33 And the bodies of this people will be food for the birds
of
heaven and for the
beasts of the earth; and there will be no
one to send them
away.
7:34 And in the towns of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem,
I will put an end to
the laughing voices, the voice of joy and
the voice of the
newly-married man and the voice of the bride:
for the land will
become a waste.
8:1 At that time, says the Lord, they will take 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
the people of
Jerusalem out of their resting-places:
8:2 And they will put them out before the sun and the moon
and
all the stars of
heaven, whose lovers and servants they have
been, after whom they
have gone, to whom they have made
prayers, and to whom
they have given worship: they will not be
put together or
placed in the earth; they will be waste on the
face of the earth.
8:3 And death will be desired more than life by the rest of
this
evil family who are
still living in all the places where I have
sent them away, says
the Lord of armies.
8:4 Further, you are to say to them, This is what the Lord
has
said: Will those who
are falling not be lifted up again? will
he who has gone away
not come back?
8:5 Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever
turning
away? they will not
give up their deceit, they will not come
back.
8:6 I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right:
no
man had regret for
his evil-doing, saying, What have I done?
everyone goes off on
his way like a horse rushing to the fight.
8:7 Truly, the stork in the heavens is conscious of her
fixed
times; the dove and
the swallow and the crane keep to the times
of their coming; but
my people have no knowledge of the law of
the Lord.
8:8 How is it that you say, We are wise and the law of the
Lord
is with us? But see,
the false pen of the scribes has made it
false.
8:9 The wise men are shamed, they are overcome with fear and
taken: see, they have
given up the word of the Lord; and what
use is their wisdom
to them?
8:10 So I will give their wives to others, and their fields
to
those who will take
them for themselves: for everyone, from the
least to the
greatest, is given up to getting money; from the
priest even to the
prophet, everyone is false.
8:11 And they have made little of the wounds of the daughter
of
Zion, saying, Peace,
peace; when there is no peace.
8:12 Let them be put to shame because they have done
disgusting
things. They had no
shame, they were not able to become red
with shame: so they
will come down with those who are falling:
in the time of their
punishment they will be made low, says the
Lord.
8:13 I will put an end to them completely, says the Lord:
there
are no grapes on the
vine and no figs on the fig-tree, and the
leaf is dry.
8:14 Why are we seated doing nothing? come together, and let
us
go to the walled
towns, and let destruction overtake us there,
for the Lord our God
has sent destruction on us, and given us
bitter water for our
drink, because we have done evil against
the Lord.
8:15 We were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a
time
of well-being, but
there is only a great fear.
8:16 The loud breathing of the horses comes to our ears from
Dan: at the sound of
the outcry of his war-horses, all the land
is shaking with fear;
for they have come, and have made a meal
of the land and
everything in it; the town and the people
living in it.
8:17 See, I will send snakes and poison-snakes among you,
against which the
wonder-worker has no power; and they will
give you wounds which
may not be made well, says the Lord.
8:18 Sorrow has come on me! my heart in me is feeble.
8:19 The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes
from a far land: Is
the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in
her? Why have they
made me angry with their images and their
strange gods which
are no gods?
8:20 The grain-cutting is past, the summer is ended, and no
salvation has come to
us.
8:21 For the destruction of the daughter of my people I am
broken: I am dressed
in the clothing of grief; fear has taken
me in its grip.
8:22 Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no
expert
in medical arts? why
then have my people not been made well?
9:1 If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes
fountains
of weeping, so that I
might go on weeping day and night for the
dead of the daughter
of my people!
9:2 If only I had in the waste land a night's resting-place
for
travellers, so that I
might go away, far from my people! for
they are all untrue,
a band of false men.
9:3 Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false
words:
they have become
strong in the land, but not for good faith:
they go on from evil
to evil, and they have no knowledge of me,
says the Lord.
9:4 Let everyone keep watch on his neighbour, and put no
faith
in any brother: for
every brother will certainly be tricking
his brother, and
every neighbour will go about saying evil.
9:5 Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit,
not
saying what is true:
their tongues have been trained to say
false words; they are
twisted, hating to come back.
9:6 There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have
given
up the knowledge of
me, says the Lord.
9:7 So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will make them
soft
in the fire and put
them to the test; this I will do because of
their evil-doing.
9:8 His tongue is an arrow causing death; the words of his
mouth
are deceit: he says
words of peace to his neighbour, but in his
heart he is waiting
secretly for him.
9:9 Am I not to send punishment for these things? says the
Lord:
will not my soul take
payment from such a nation as this?
9:10 Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for
the
mountains; and for
the fields of the waste land send up a song
of grief, because
they are burned up, so that no one goes
through; there is no
sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens
and the beast are in
flight and are gone.
9:11 And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the
living-place of
jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a
waste, with no man
living there.
9:12 Who is the wise man able to see this? who is he to whom
the
word of the Lord has
come, so that he may make it clear? why is
the land given to
destruction and burned up like a waste place,
so that no one goes
through?
9:13 And the Lord said, Because they have given up my law
which
I put before them,
giving no attention to my voice and not
being guided by it;
9:14 But they have been walking in the pride of their
hearts,
going after the Baals,
as their fathers gave them teaching.
9:15 So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, I
will
give them, even this
people, bitter plants for food and bitter
water for drink.
9:16 And I will send them wandering among the nations, among
people strange to
them and to their fathers: and I will send
the sword after them
till I have put an end to them.
9:17 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Take thought
and
send for the weeping
women, so that they may come; and send for
the wise women, so
that they may come:
9:18 Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that
drops
may be flowing from
our eyes till they are streaming with
water.
9:19 For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How
has
destruction come on us?
we are overcome with shame because we
have gone away from
our land; he has sent us out from our
house.
9:20 But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you
women; let your ears
be open to the word of his mouth, training
your daughters to
give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her
neighbour a song of
grief.
9:21 For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way
into our great
houses; cutting off the children in the streets
and the young men in
the wide places.
9:22 The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the
open
fields, and like
grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one
will take them up.
9:23 This is the word of the Lord: Let not the wise man take
pride in his wisdom,
or the strong man in his strength, or the
man of wealth in his
wealth:
9:24 But if any man has pride, let it be in this, that he
has
the wisdom to have
knowledge of me, that I am the Lord, working
mercy, giving true
decisions, and doing righteousness in the
earth: for in these
things I have delight, says the Lord.
9:25 See, the day is coming, says the Lord, when I will send
punishment on all
those who have circumcision in the flesh;
9:26 On Egypt and on Judah and on Edom and on the children
of
Ammon and on Moab and
on all who have the ends of their hair
cut, who are living
in the waste land: for all these nations
and all the people of
Israel are without circumcision in their
hearts.
10:1 Give ear to the word which the Lord says to you, O people
of Israel:
10:2 This is what the Lord has said: Do not go in the way of
the
nations; have no fear
of the signs of heaven, for the nations
go in fear of them.
10:3 For that which is feared by the people is foolish: it
is
the work of the hands
of the workman; for a tree is cut down by
him out of the woods
with his axe.
10:4 They make it beautiful with silver and gold; they make
it
strong with nails and
hammers, so that it may not be moved.
10:5 It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no
voice: it has to be
lifted, for it has no power of walking.
Have no fear of it;
for it has no power of doing evil and it is
not able to do any
good.
10:6 There is no one like you, O Lord; you are great and
your
name is great in
power.
10:7 Who would not have fear of you, O King of the nations?
for
it is your right: for
among all the wise men of the nations,
and in all their
kingdoms, there is no one like you.
10:8 But they are together like beasts and foolish: the
teaching
of false gods is
wood.
10:9 Silver hammered into plates is sent from Tarshish, and
gold
from Uphaz, the work
of the expert workman and of the hands of
the gold-worker; blue
and purple is their clothing, all the
work of expert men.
10:10 But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and
an
eternal king: when he
is angry, the earth is shaking with fear,
and the nations give
way before his wrath.
10:11 This is what you are to say to them: The gods who have
not
made the heavens and
the earth will be cut off from the earth
and from under the
heavens.
10:12 He has made the earth by his power, he has made the
world
strong in its place
by his wisdom, and by his wise design the
heavens have been
stretched out.
10:13 At the sound of his voice there is a massing of waters
in
the heavens, and he
makes the mists go up from the ends of the
earth; he makes the
thunder-flames for the rain, and sends out
the wind from his
store-houses.
10:14 Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge;
every gold-worker is
put to shame by the image he has made: for
his metal image is
deceit, and there is no breath in them.
10:15 They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of
their
punishment,
destruction will overtake them.
10:16 The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker
of
all things is his
heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.
10:17 Get your goods together and go out of the land, O you
who
are shut up in the
walled town.
10:18 For the Lord has said, I will send the people in
flight
like a stone from the
land at this time, troubling them so that
they will be
conscious of it.
10:19 Sorrow is mine for I am wounded! my wound may not be
made
well; and I said,
Cruel is my disease, I may not be free from
it.
10:20 My tent is pulled down and all my cords are broken: my
children have gone
from me, and they are not: no longer is
there anyone to give
help in stretching out my tent and hanging
up my curtains.
10:21 For the keepers of the sheep have become like beasts,
not
looking to the Lord
for directions: so they have not done
wisely and all their
flocks have been put to flight.
10:22 News is going about, see, it is coming, a great
shaking is
coming from the north
country, so that the towns of Judah may
be made waste and
become the living-place of jackals.
10:23 O Lord, I am conscious that a man's way is not in
himself:
man has no power of
guiding his steps.
10:24 O Lord, put me right, but with wise purpose; not in
your
wrath, or you will
make me small.
10:25 Let your wrath be let loose on the nations which have
no
knowledge of you, and
on the families who give no worship to
your name: for they
have made a meal of Jacob, truly they have
made a meal of him
and put an end to him and made his fields a
waste.
11:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
11:2 Give ear to the words of this agreement, and say to the
men
of Judah and to the
people of Jerusalem,
11:3 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Let that man be
cursed who does not
give ear to the words of this agreement,
11:4 To the order which I gave your fathers on the day when
I
took them out of the
land of Egypt, out of the oven of iron,
saying, Give ear to
my voice, and do all the orders I have
given you: so you
will be my people, and I will be your God:
11:5 So that I may give effect to the oath which I made to
your
fathers, to give them
a land flowing with milk and honey as at
this day. And I said
in answer, So be it, O Lord.
11:6 And the Lord said to me, Give out these words in the
towns
of Judah and in the
streets of Jerusalem, saying, Give ear to
the words of this
agreement and do them.
11:7 For I gave certain witness to your fathers on the day
when
I took them up out of
the land of Egypt, and even to this day,
getting up early and
witnessing and saying, Give ear to my
voice.
11:8 But they gave no attention and did not give ear, but
they
went on, every man in
the pride of his evil heart: so I sent on
them all the curses
in this agreement, which I gave them orders
to keep, but they did
not.
11:9 And the Lord said to me, There is an evil design at
work
among the men of
Judah and the people of Jerusalem.
11:10 They are turned back to the sins of their fathers, who
would not give ear to
my words; they have gone after other gods
and become their
servants: the people of Israel and the people
of Judah have not
kept the agreement which I made with their
fathers.
11:11 So the Lord has said, I will send evil on them, which
they
will not be able to
get away from; and they will send up a cry
for help to me, but I
will not give ear to them.
11:12 Then the towns of Judah and the people of Jerusalem
will
go crying for help to
the gods to whom they have been burning
perfumes: but they
will give them no salvation in the time of
their trouble.
11:13 For the number of your gods is as the number of your
towns, O Judah; and
for every street in Jerusalem you have put
up altars to the Baal
for burning perfumes to the Baal.
11:14 And as for you, make no prayers for this people, send
up
no cry or prayer for
them: for I will not give ear to their cry
in the time of their
trouble.
11:15 About Judah. What have you to do in my house? is it
your
thought that oaths
and holy flesh will get you out of your
trouble? will you
make yourself safe in this way?
11:16 You had been named by the Lord, A branching
olive-tree,
fair with beautiful
fruit: with the noise of a great rushing he
has put it on fire
and its branches are broken.
11:17 For the Lord of armies, by whom you were planted, has
given his decision
for evil against you, because of the evil
which the people of
Israel and the people of Judah have done,
In moving me to wrath
by offering perfumes to the Baal.
11:18 And the Lord gave me knowledge of it and I saw it:
then
you made clear to me
their doings.
11:19 But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death;
I
had no thought that
they were designing evil against me,
saying, Come and let
us make trouble his food, cutting him off
from the land of the
living, so that there may be no more
memory of his name.
11:20 But, O Lord of armies, judging in righteousness,
testing
the thoughts and the
heart, let me see your punishment come on
them: for I have put
my cause before you.
11:21 So this is what the Lord of armies has said about the
men
of Anathoth who have
made designs against your life, saying,
You are not to be a
prophet in the name of the Lord, or death
will overtake you by
our hands:
11:22 So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will send
punishment on them:
the young men will be put to the sword;
their sons and their
daughters will come to death through need
of food:
11:23 Not one of them will keep his life, for I will send
evil
on the men of
Anathoth in the year of their punishment.
12:1 You are in the right, O Lord, when I put my cause
before
you: still let me
take up with you the question of your
decisions: why does
the evil-doer do well? why are the workers
of deceit living in
comfort?
12:2 They have been planted by you, they have taken root;
they
go on and give fruit:
you are near in their mouths but far from
their thoughts.
12:3 But you, O Lord, have knowledge of me; you see me,
searching and testing
how my heart is with you: let them be
pulled out like sheep
to be put to death, make them ready for
the day of death.
12:4 How long will the land have grief, and the plants of
all
the land be dry?
because of the sins of the people living in
it, destruction has
overtaken the beasts and the birds; because
they said, God does
not see our ways.
12:5 If running with the fighting-men has made you tired,
how
will you be able to
keep up with horses? and if in a land of
peace you go in
flight, what will become of you in the thick
growth of Jordan?
12:6 For even your brothers, your father's family, even they
have been untrue to
you, crying loudly after you: have no faith
in them, though they
say fair words to you.
12:7 I have given up my house, I have let my heritage go; I
have
given the loved one
of my soul into the hands of her haters.
12:8 My heritage has become like a lion in the woodland to
me;
her voice has been
loud against me; so I have hate for her.
12:9 My heritage is like a brightly coloured bird to me; the
cruel birds are
attacking her on every side: go, get together
all the beasts of the
field, make them come for destruction.
12:10 The keepers of sheep have been the destruction of my
vine-garden, crushing
my heritage under their feet; they have
made my fair heritage
an unplanted waste;
12:11 They have made it waste; it is weeping to me, being
wasted; all the land
is made waste, because no man takes it to
heart.
12:12 Those who make waste have come on all the open
hilltops in
the waste land; for
the sword of the Lord sends destruction
from one end of the
land to the other end of the land: no flesh
has peace.
12:13 Though good grain was planted, they have got in
thorns:
they have given
themselves pain without profit: they will be
shamed on account of
their produce, because of the burning
wrath of the Lord.
12:14 This is what the Lord has said against all my evil
neighbours, who put
their hands on the heritage which I gave my
people Israel: See, I
will have them uprooted from their land,
uprooting the people
of Judah from among them.
12:15 And it will come about that, after they have been
uprooted, I will
again have pity on them; and I will take them
back, every man to
his heritage and every man to his land.
12:16 And it will be that, if they give their minds to
learning
the ways of my
people, using my name in their oaths, By the
living Lord; as they
have been teaching my people to take oaths
by the Baal; then
their place will be made certain among my
people.
12:17 But if they will not give ear, then I will have that
nation uprooted, and
given to destruction, says the Lord.
13:1 This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a
linen band and put it
round you and do not put it in water.
13:2 So, as the Lord said, I got a band for a price and put
it
round my body.
13:3 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time,
saying,
13:4 Take the band which you got for a price, which is round
your body, and go to
Parah and put it in a secret place there
in a hole of the
rock.
13:5 So I went and put it in a secret place by Parah, as the
Lord had said to me.
13:6 Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to
Parah and get the
band which I gave you orders to put there.
13:7 So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the
band
from the place where
I had put it away: and the band was
damaged and of no use
for anything.
13:8 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
13:9 The Lord has said, In this way I will do damage to the
pride of Judah and to
the great pride of Jerusalem.
13:10 These evil people who say they will not give ear to my
words, who go on in
the pride of their hearts and have become
servants and
worshippers of other gods, will become like this
band which is of no
use for anything.
13:11 For as a band goes tightly round a man's body, so I
made
all the people of
Israel and all the people of Judah tightly
united to me; so that
they might be a people for me and a name
and a praise and a
glory: but they would not give ear.
13:12 So you are to say this word to them: This is the word
of
the Lord, the God of
Israel: Every skin bottle will be full of
wine; and they will
say to you, Is it not quite clear to us
that every skin
bottle will be full of wine?
13:13 Then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, I will
make all the people
of this land, even the kings seated on
David's seat, and the
priests and the prophets and all the
people of Jerusalem,
overcome with strong drink.
13:14 I will have them smashed against one another, fathers
and
sons together, says
the Lord: I will have no pity or mercy, I
will have no feeling
for them to keep me from giving them to
destruction.
13:15 Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up:
for
these are the words
of the Lord.
13:16 Give glory to the Lord your God, before he makes it
dark,
and before your feet
are slipping on the dark mountains, and,
while you are looking
for a light, he makes it into deep dark,
into black night.
13:17 But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be
weeping
in secret for your
pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly,
streaming with water,
because the Lord's flock has been taken
away as prisoners.
13:18 Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Make
yourselves
low, be seated on the
earth: for the crown of your glory has
come down from your
heads.
13:19 The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no
one to
make them open: Judah
is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is
taken away as
prisoners.
13:20 Let your eyes be lifted up (O Jerusalem), and see
those
who are coming from
the north. Where is the flock which was
given to you, your
beautiful flock?
13:21 What will you say when he puts over you those whom you
yourself have made
your friends? will not pains take you like a
woman in childbirth?
13:22 And if you say in your heart, Why have these things
come
on me? because of the
number of your sins, your skirts have
been uncovered and
violent punishment overtakes you.
13:23 Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be
changed, or the
markings on the leopard? Then it might be
possible for you to
do good, who have been trained to do evil.
13:24 So I will send them in all directions, as dry grass is
taken away by the
wind of the waste land.
13:25 This is your fate, the part measured out to you by me,
says the Lord,
because you have put me out of your memory and
put your faith in
what is false.
13:26 So I will have your skirts uncovered before your face,
in
order that your shame
may be seen.
13:27 I have seen your disgusting acts, even your false
behaviour and your
cries of desire and your loose ways on the
hills in the field.
Unhappy are you, O Jerusalem, you have no
desire to be made
clean; how long will you be in turning back
to me?
14:1 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no
water.
14:2 Judah is weeping and its doors are dark with sorrow,
and
people are seated on
the earth clothed in black; and the cry of
Jerusalem has gone
up.
14:3 Their great men have sent their servants for water:
they
come to the holes and
there is no water to be seen; they come
back with nothing in
their vessels; they are overcome with
shame and fear,
covering their heads.
14:4 Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there
has
been no rain on the
land, and the farmers are shamed, covering
their heads.
14:5 And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young
one
be uncared for,
because there is no grass.
14:6 And the asses of the field on the open hilltops are
opening
their mouths wide
like jackals to get air; their eyes are
hollow because there
is no grass.
14:7 Though our sins give witness against us, do something,
O
Lord, for the honour
of your name: for again and again we have
been turned away from
you, we have done evil against you.
14:8 O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble,
why
are you like one who
is strange in the land, and like a
traveller putting up
his tent for a night?
14:9 Why are you like a man surprised, like a man of war who
is
not able to give
help? but you, O Lord, are with us, and we are
named by your name;
do not go away from us.
14:10 This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even
so
they have been glad
to go from the right way; they have not
kept their feet from
wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in
them; now he will
keep their wrongdoing in mind and send
punishment for their
sins.
14:11 And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this
people
for their good.
14:12 When they go without food, I will not give ear to
their
cry; when they give
burned offerings and meal offerings, I will
not take pleasure in
them: but I will put an end to them by the
sword and by need of
food and by disease.
14:13 Then I said, Ah, Lord God! see, the prophets say to
them,
You will not see the
sword or be short of food; but I will give
you certain peace in
this place.
14:14 Then the Lord said to me, The prophets say false words
in
my name, and I gave
them no orders, and I said nothing to them:
what they say to you
is a false vision and wonder-working words
without substance,
the deceit of their hearts.
14:15 So this is what the Lord has said about the prophets
who
make use of my name,
though I sent them not, and say, The sword
and need of food will
not be in this land: the sword and need
of food will put an
end to those prophets.
14:16 And the people to whom they are prophets will be
pushed
out dead into the
streets of Jerusalem, because there is no
food, and because of
the sword; and they will have no one to
put their bodies into
the earth, them or their wives or their
sons or their
daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing
on them.
14:17 And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be
streaming with water
night and day, and let it not be stopped;
for the virgin
daughter of my people is wounded with a great
wound, with a very
bitter blow.
14:18 If I go out into the open country, there are those put
to
death by the sword!
and if I go into the town, there are those
who are diseased from
need of food! for the prophet and the
priest go about in
the land and have no knowledge.
14:19 Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul
turned in
disgust from Zion?
why have you given us blows from which there
is no one to make us
well? we were looking for peace, but no
good came; and for a
time of well-being, but there was only a
great fear.
14:20 We are conscious, O Lord, of our sin and of the
wrongdoing
of our fathers: we
have done evil against you.
14:21 Do not be turned from us in disgust, because of your
name;
do not put shame on
the seat of your glory: keep us in mind,
let not your
agreement with us be broken.
14:22 Are any of the false gods of the nations able to make
rain
come? are the heavens
able to give showers? are you not he, O
Lord our God? so we
will go on waiting for you, for you have
done all these
things.
15:1 Then the Lord said to me, Even if Moses and Samuel came
before me, I would
have no desire for this people: send them
away from before me,
and let them go.
15:2 And it will be, when they say to you, Where are we to
go?
then you are to say
to them, The Lord has said, Such as are for
death, to death; and
such as are for the sword, to the sword;
and such as are to be
in need of food, to need of food; and
such as are to be
taken away prisoners, to be taken away.
15:3 And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord:
the
sword causing death,
dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and
the birds of heaven,
and the beasts of the earth to take their
bodies for food and
put an end to them.
15:4 And I will make them a cause of fear to all the
kingdoms of
the earth, because of
Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of
Judah, and what he
did in Jerusalem.
15:5 For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? and who
will
have sorrow for you?
or who will go out of his way to see how
you are?
15:6 You have given me up, says the Lord, you have gone
back: so
my hand is stretched
out against you for your destruction; I am
tired of changing my
purpose.
15:7 And I have sent a cleaning wind on them in the public
places of the land; I
have taken their children from them; I
have given my people
to destruction; they have not been turned
from their ways.
15:8 I have let their widows be increased in number more
than
the sand of the seas:
I have sent against them, against the
mother and the young
men, one who makes waste in the heat of
the day, causing pain
and fears to come on her suddenly.
15:9 The mother of seven is without strength; her spirit is
gone
from her, her sun has
gone down while it is still day: she has
been shamed and
overcome: and the rest of them I will give up
to the sword before
their haters, says the Lord.
15:10 Sorrow is mine, my mother, because you have given
birth to
me, a cause of
fighting and argument in all the earth! I have
not made men my
creditors and I am not in debt to any, but
every one of them is
cursing me.
15:11 ...
15:12 Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from
the
north, and brass?
15:13 I will give your wealth and your stores to your
attackers,
without a price,
because of all your sins, even in every part
of your land.
15:14 They will go away with your haters into a land which
is
strange to you: for
my wrath is on fire with a flame which will
be burning on you.
15:15 O Lord, you have knowledge: keep me in mind and come
to my
help, and give their
right reward to those who are attacking
me; take me not away,
for you are slow to be angry: see how I
have undergone shame
because of you from all those who make
little of your word;
15:16 But to me your word is a joy, making my heart glad;
for I
am named by your
name, O Lord God of armies.
15:17 I did not take my seat among the band of those who are
glad, and I had no
joy; I kept by myself because of your hand;
for you have made me
full of wrath.
15:18 Why is my pain unending and my wound without hope of
being
made well? Sorrow is
mine, for you are to me as a stream
offering false hope
and as waters which are not certain.
15:19 For this cause the Lord has said, If you will come
back,
then I will again let
you take your place before me; and if you
give out what is of
value and not that which has no value, you
will be as my mouth:
let them come back to you, but do not go
back to them.
15:20 And I will make you a strong wall of brass to this
people;
they will be fighting
against you, but they will not overcome
you: for I am with
you to keep you safe, says the Lord.
15:21 I will keep you safe from the hands of the evil-doers,
and
I will give you
salvation from the hands of the cruel ones.
16:1 Then again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
16:2 You are not to take a wife for yourself or have sons or
daughters in this
place.
16:3 For this is what the Lord has said about the sons and
daughters who come to
birth in this place, and about their
mothers who have
given them birth, and about their fathers who
have given life to
them in this land:
16:4 Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will
be
no weeping for them
and their bodies will not be put to rest;
they will be like
waste on the face of the earth: the sword and
need of food will put
an end to them; their dead bodies will be
meat for the birds of
heaven and for the beasts of the earth.
16:5 For this is what the Lord has said: Do not go into the
house of sorrow, do
not go to make weeping or songs of grief
for them: for I have
taken away my peace from this people, says
the Lord, even mercy
and pity.
16:6 Death will overtake great as well as small in the land:
their bodies will not
be put in a resting-place, and no one
will be weeping for
them or wounding themselves or cutting off
their hair for them:
16:7 No one will make a feast for them in sorrow, to give
them
comfort for the dead,
or put to their lips the cup of comfort
on account of their
father or their mother.
16:8 And you are not to go into the house of feasting, or be
seated with them to
take food or drink.
16:9 For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said,
See,
before your eyes and
in your days I will put an end in this
place to the laughing
voices and the voice of joy; to the voice
of the newly-married
man and the voice of the bride.
16:10 And it will be, that when you say all these words to
the
people, then they
will say to you, Why has the Lord done all
this evil against us?
what is our wrongdoing and what is our
sin which we have
done against the Lord our God?
16:11 Then you will say to them, Because your fathers have
given
me up, says the Lord,
and have gone after other gods and become
their servants and
their worshippers, and have given me up and
have not kept my law;
16:12 And you have done worse evil than your fathers; for
see,
every one of you is
guided by the pride of his evil heart, so
as not to give ear to
me:
16:13 For this reason I will send you away out of this land
into
a land which is
strange to you, to you and to your fathers;
there you will be the
servants of other gods day and night, and
you will have no
mercy from me.
16:14 For this cause, see, the days are coming, says the
Lord,
when it will no
longer be said, By the living Lord, who took
the children of
Israel up out of the land of Egypt.
16:15 But, By the living Lord, who took the children of
Israel
up out of the land of
the north, and from all the countries
where he had sent
them: and I will take them back again to
their land which I
gave to their fathers.
16:16 See, I will send for great numbers of fishermen, says
the
Lord, and they will
take them like fish in a net; and after
that, I will send for
numbers of bowmen, and they will go after
them, driving them
from every mountain and from every hill, and
out of the holes of
the rocks.
16:17 For my eyes are on all their ways: there is no cover
for
them from my face,
and their evil-doing is not kept secret from
my eyes.
16:18 And I will give them the reward of their evil-doing
and
their sin twice over;
because they have made my land unclean,
and have made my
heritage full of the bodies of their unholy
and disgusting
things.
16:19 O Lord, my strength and my strong tower, my safe place
in
the day of trouble,
the nations will come to you from the ends
of the earth, and
say, The heritage of our fathers is nothing
but deceit, even
false things in which there is no profit.
16:20 Will a man make for himself gods which are no gods?
16:21 For this reason, truly, I will make them see, this
once I
will give them
knowledge of my hand and my power; and they will
be certain that my
name is the Lord.
17:1 The sin of Judah is recorded with a pen of iron, and
with
the sharp point of a
jewel it is cut on their hearts of stone,
and on the horns of
their altars for a sign to them:
17:2 Their altars and their wood pillars under every
branching
tree, on the high
hills and the mountains in the field.
17:3 I will give your wealth and all your stores to be taken
away in war without a
price, because of your sins in every part
of your land.
17:4 And your hand will have to let go your heritage which I
gave you; and I will
make you a servant to your haters in a
land which is strange
to you: for you have put my wrath on fire
with a flame which
will go on burning for ever.
17:5 This is what the Lord has said: Cursed is the man who
puts
his faith in man, and
makes flesh his arm, and whose heart is
turned away from the
Lord.
17:6 For he will be like the brushwood in the upland, and
will
not see when good
comes; but his living-place will be in the
dry places in the
waste land, in a salt and unpeopled land.
17:7 A blessing is on the man who puts his faith in the
Lord,
and whose hope the
Lord is.
17:8 For he will be like a tree planted by the waters,
pushing
out its roots by the
stream; he will have no fear when the heat
comes, but his leaf
will be green; in a dry year he will have
no care, and will go
on giving fruit.
17:9 The heart is a twisted thing, not to be searched out by
man: who is able to
have knowledge of it?
17:10 I the Lord am the searcher of the heart, the tester of
the
thoughts, so that I
may give to every man the reward of his
ways, in keeping with
the fruit of his doings.
17:11 Like the partridge, getting eggs together but not
producing young, is a
man who gets wealth but not by right;
before half his days
are ended, it will go from him, and at his
end he will be
foolish.
17:12 A seat of glory, placed on high from the first, is our
holy place.
17:13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who give you up will
be
put to shame; those
who go away from you will be cut off from
the earth, because
they have given up the Lord, the fountain of
living waters.
17:14 Make me well, O Lord, and I will be well; be my
saviour,
and I will be safe:
for you are my hope.
17:15 See, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord?
let it
come now.
17:16 As for me, I have not said; Let the day of trouble
come to
them quickly; and I
have not been hoping for the death-giving
day; you have
knowledge of what came from my lips; it was open
before you.
17:17 Be not a cause of fear to me: you are my safe place in
the
day of evil.
17:18 Let them be put to shame who are attacking me, but let
me
not be shamed; let
them be overcome with fear, but let me not
be overcome: send on
them the day of evil, and put them to
destruction twice
over.
17:19 This is what the Lord has said to me: Go and take your
place in the doorway
of Benjamin, where the kings of Judah come
in and by which they
go out, and in all the doorways of
Jerusalem;
17:20 And say to them, Give ear to the word of the Lord, you
kings of Judah, and
all the people of Jerusalem who come in by
these doors:
17:21 This is what the Lord has said: See to yourselves,
that
you take up no weight
on the Sabbath day, or take it in through
the doors of
Jerusalem;
17:22 And take no weight out of your houses on the Sabbath
day,
or do any work, but
keep the Sabbath day holy, as I gave orders
to your fathers;
17:23 But they gave no attention and would not give ear, but
they made their necks
stiff so that they might not give ear and
might not get
teaching.
17:24 And it will be, that if with all care you give ear to
me,
says the Lord, and
take no weight through the doorways of this
town on the Sabbath
day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do
no work in it;
17:25 Then through the doors of this town there will come
kings
and princes, seated
on the seat of David, going in carriages
and on horseback,
they and their princes, and the men of Judah
and the people of
Jerusalem: and this town will keep its place
for ever.
17:26 And they will come from the towns of Judah, and from
the
places round about
Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin,
and from the
lowlands, and from the mountains, and from the
South, with burned
offerings and offerings of beasts and meal
offerings and perfume
and offerings of praise, to the house of
the Lord.
17:27 But if you do not give ear to me, to keep the Sabbath
day
holy, and to let no
weight be lifted and taken through the
doors of Jerusalem on
the Sabbath day: then I will put a fire
in its doorways,
burning up the great houses of Jerusalem, and
it will never be put
out.
18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
18:2 Up! go down to the potter's house, and there I will let
my
words come to your
ears.
18:3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was
doing
his work on the stones.
18:4 And when the vessel, which he was forming out of earth,
got
damaged in the hand
of the potter, he made it again into
another vessel, as it
seemed good to the potter to make it.
18:5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
18:6 O Israel, am I not able to do with you as this potter
does?
says the Lord. See,
like earth in the potter's hand are you in
my hands, O Israel.
18:7 Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a
kingdom, and smashing
it and sending destruction on it;
18:8 If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was
talking
is turned away from
its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them
will be changed.
18:9 And whenever I say anything about building up a nation
or a
kingdom, and planting
it;
18:10 If, in that very minute, it does evil in my eyes,
going
against my orders,
then my good purpose, which I said I would
do for them, will be
changed.
18:11 Now, then, say to the men of Judah and to the people
of
Jerusalem, This is
what the Lord has said: See, I am forming an
evil thing against
you, and designing a design against you: let
every man come back
now from his evil way, and let your ways
and your doings be
changed for the better.
18:12 But they will say, There is no hope: we will go on in
our
designs, and every
one of us will do what he is moved by the
pride of his evil
heart to do.
18:13 So this is what the Lord has said: Make search among
the
nations and see who
has had word of such things; the virgin of
Israel has done a
very shocking thing.
18:14 Will the white snow go away from the top of Sirion?
will
the cold waters
flowing from the mountains become dry?
18:15 For my people have put me out of their memory, burning
perfumes to that
which is nothing; and because of this, I will
put a cause of
falling in their ways, even in the old roads,
and will make them go
on side-roads, in a way not lifted up;
18:16 Making their land a thing of wonder, causing sounds of
surprise for ever;
everyone who goes by will be overcome with
wonder, shaking his
head.
18:17 I will send them in flight, as from an east wind,
before
the attacker; I will
let them see my back and not my face on
the day of their
downfall.
18:18 Then they said, Come, let us make a design against
Jeremiah; for
teaching will never be cut off from the priest,
or wisdom from the
wise, or the word from the prophet. Come,
let us make use of
his words for an attack on him, and let us
give attention with
care to what he says.
18:19 Give thought to me, O Lord, and give ear to the voice
of
those who put forward
a cause against me.
18:20 Is evil to be the reward of good? for they have made a
deep hole for my
soul. Keep in mind how I took my place before
you, to say a good
word for them so that your wrath might be
turned away from
them.
18:21 For this cause, let their children be without food,
and
give them over to the
power of the sword; and let their wives
be without children
and become widows; let their men be
overtaken by death,
and their young men be put to the sword in
the fight.
18:22 Let a cry for help go up from their houses, when you
send
an armed band on them
suddenly: for they have made a hole in
which to take me, and
have put nets for my feet secretly.
18:23 But you, Lord, have knowledge of all the designs which
they have made
against my life; let not their evil-doing be
covered or their sin
be washed away from before your eyes: but
let it be a cause of
falling before you: so do to them in the
time of your wrath.
19:1 This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a
potter's bottle made
of earth, and take with you some of the
responsible men of
the people and of the priests;
19:2 And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the
way
into the door of
broken pots, and there say in a loud voice the
words which I will
give you;
19:3 Say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah
and
people of Jerusalem;
the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has
said, See, I will
send evil on this place which will be bitter
to the ears of anyone
hearing of it.
19:4 Because they have given me up, and made this place a
strange place,
burning perfumes in it to other gods, of whom
they and their
fathers and the kings of Judah had no knowledge;
and they have made
this place full of the blood of those who
have done no wrong;
19:5 And they have put up the high places of the Baal,
burning
their sons in the
fire; a thing which was not ordered by me,
and it was never in
my mind:
19:6 For this cause, see, a time is coming, says the Lord,
when
this place will no
longer be named Topheth, or, The valley of
the son of Hinnom,
but, The valley of Death.
19:7 I will make the purpose of Judah and Jerusalem come to
nothing in this
place; I will have them put to the sword by
their haters, and by
the hands of those who have designs on
their life; and their
dead bodies I will give to be food for
the birds of heaven
and the beasts of the earth.
19:8 And I will make this town a thing of wonder and a cause
of
surprise; everyone
who goes by will be overcome with wonder and
make sounds of
surprise, because of all its troubles.
19:9 I will make them take the flesh of their sons and the
flesh
of their daughters
for food, they will be making a meal of one
another, because of
their bitter need and the cruel grip of
their haters and
those who have made designs against their
life.
19:10 Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes
of
the men who have gone
with you,
19:11 And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has
said:
Even so will this
people and this town be broken by me, as a
potter's bottle is
broken and may not be put together again:
and the bodies of the
dead will be put in the earth in Topheth,
till there is no more
room.
19:12 This is what I will do to this place, says the Lord,
and
to its people, making
this town like Topheth:
19:13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the
kings
of Judah, which they
have made unclean, will be like the place
of Topheth, even all
the houses on whose roofs perfumes have
been burned to all
the army of heaven, and drink offerings
drained out to other
gods.
19:14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had
sent
him to give the
prophet's word; and he took his place in the
open square of the
Lord's house, and said to all the people,
19:15 The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See,
I
will send on this
town and on all her towns all the evil which
I have said; because
they made their necks stiff, so that they
might not give ear to
my words.
20:1 Now it came to the ears of Pashhur, the son of Immer
the
priest, who was chief
in authority in the house of the Lord,
that Jeremiah was
saying these things;
20:2 And Pashhur gave blows to Jeremiah and had his feet
chained
in a framework of
wood in the higher doorway of Benjamin, which
was in the house of
the Lord.
20:3 Then on the day after, Pashhur let Jeremiah loose. Then
Jeremiah said to him,
The Lord has given you the name of
Magor-missabib
(Cause-of-fear-on-every-side), not Pashhur.
20:4 For the Lord has said, See, I will make you a cause of
fear
to yourself and to
all your friends: they will come to their
death by the sword of
their haters, and your eyes will see it:
and I will give all
Judah into the hands of the king of
Babylon, and he will
take them away prisoners into Babylon and
put them to the
sword.
20:5 And more than this, I will give all the wealth of this
town
and all its profits
and all its things of value, even all the
stores of the kings
of Judah will I give into the hands of
their haters, who
will put violent hands on them and take them
away to Babylon.
20:6 And you, Pashhur, and all who are in your house, will
go
away prisoners: you
will come to Babylon, and there your body
will be put to rest,
you and all your friends, to whom you said
false words.
20:7 O Lord, you have been false to me, and I was tricked;
you
are stronger than I,
and have overcome me: I have become a
thing to be laughed
at all the day, everyone makes sport of me.
20:8 For every word I say is a cry for help; I say with a
loud
voice, Violent
behaviour and wasting: because the word of the
Lord is made a shame
to me and a cause of laughing all the day.
20:9 And if I say, I will not keep him in mind, I will not
say
another word in his
name; then it is in my heart like a burning
fire shut up in my
bones, and I am tired of keeping myself in,
I am not able to do
it.
20:10 For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing
(there
is fear on every
side): they say, Come, let us give witness
against him; all my
nearest friends, who are watching for my
fall, say, It may be
that he will be taken by deceit, and we
will get the better
of him and give him punishment.
20:11 But the Lord is with me as a great one, greatly to be
feared: so my
attackers will have a fall, and they will not
overcome me: they
will be greatly shamed, because they have not
done wisely, even
with an unending shame, kept in memory for
ever.
20:12 But, O Lord of armies, testing the upright and seeing
the
thoughts and the
heart, let me see your punishment come on
them; for I have put
my cause before you.
20:13 Make melody to the Lord, give praise to the Lord: for
he
has made the soul of
the poor man free from the hands of the
evil-doers.
20:14 A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no
blessing
on the day when my
mother had me.
20:15 A curse on the man who gave the news to my father,
saying,
You have a male
child; making him very glad.
20:16 May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord
without mercy: let a
cry for help come to his ears in the
morning, and the
sound of war in the middle of the day;
20:17 Because he did not put me to death before my birth
took
place: so my mother's
body would have been my last
resting-place, and
she would have been with child for ever.
20:18 Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and
sorrow, so that my
days might be wasted with shame?
21:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when
King
Zedekiah sent to him
Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, and
Zephaniah, the son of
Maaseiah the priest, saying,
21:2 Will you get directions from the Lord for us; for
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, is making war against us; it
may be that the Lord
will do something for us like all the
wonders he has done,
and make him go away from us.
21:3 Then Jeremiah said to them, This is what you are to say
to
Zedekiah:
21:4 The Lord God of Israel has said, See, I am turning back
the
instruments of war in
your hands, with which you are fighting
against the king of
Babylon and the Chaldaeans, who are outside
the walls and
shutting you in; and I will get them together
inside this town.
21:5 And I myself will be fighting against you with an
outstretched hand and
with a strong arm, even with angry
feeling and passion
and in great wrath.
21:6 And I will send a great disease on the people living in
this town, on man and
on beast, causing their death.
21:7 And after that, says the Lord, I will give up Zedekiah,
king of Judah, and
his servants and his people, even those in
the town who have not
come to their end from the disease and
the sword and from
need of food, into the hands of
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, and into the hands of their
haters, and into the
hands of those desiring their death: he
will put them to the
sword; he will not let anyone get away, he
will have no pity or
mercy.
21:8 And to this people you are to say, The Lord has said,
See,
I put before you the
way of life and the way of death.
21:9 He who keeps in this town will come to his death by the
sword and through
need of food and through disease; but he who
goes out and gives
himself up to the Chaldaeans who are
shutting you in, will
go on living, and will keep his life
safe.
21:10 For my face is turned to this town for evil and not
for
good, says the Lord:
it will be given into the hands of the
king of Babylon, and
he will have it burned with fire.
21:11 About the family of the king of Judah. Give ear to the
word of the Lord;
21:12 O family of David, this is what the Lord has said: Do
what
is right in the
morning, and make free from the hands of the
cruel one him whose
goods have been violently taken away, or my
wrath will go out
like fire, burning so that no one may put it
out, because of the
evil of your doings.
21:13 See, I am against you, you who are living on the rock
of
the valley, says the
Lord; you who say, Who will come down
against us? or who
will get into our houses?
21:14 I will send punishment on you in keeping with the
fruit of
your doings, says the
Lord: and I will put a fire in her
woodlands, burning up
everything round about her.
22:1 This is what the Lord has said: Go down to the house of
the
king of Judah and
there give him this word,
22:2 And say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, O king of
Judah,
seated on the seat of
David, you and your servants and your
people who come in by
these doors.
22:3 This is what the Lord has said: Do what is right,
judging
uprightly, and make
free from the hands of the cruel one him
whose goods have been
violently taken away: do no wrong and be
not violent to the
man from a strange country and the child
without a father and
the widow, and let not those who have done
no wrong be put to
death in this place.
22:4 For if you truly do this, then there will come in
through
the doors of this
house kings seated on the seat of David,
going in carriages
and on horseback, he and his servants and
his people
22:5 But if you do not give ear to these words, I give you
my
oath by myself, says
the Lord, that this house will become a
waste.
22:6 For this is what the Lord has said about the family of
the
king of Judah: You
are Gilead to me, and the top of Lebanon:
but, truly, I will
make you waste, with towns unpeopled.
22:7 And I will make ready those who will send destruction
on
you, everyone armed
for war: by them your best cedar-trees will
be cut down and put
in the fire.
22:8 And nations from all sides will go past this town, and
every man will say to
his neighbour, Why has the Lord done such
things to this great
town?
22:9 And they will say, Because they gave up the agreement
of
the Lord their God,
and became worshippers and servants of
other gods.
22:10 Let there be no weeping for the dead, and make no
songs of
grief for him: but
make bitter weeping for him who has gone
away, for he will
never come back or see again the country of
his birth.
22:11 For this is what the Lord has said about Shallum, the
son
of Josiah, king of
Judah, who became king in place of Josiah
his father, who went
out from this place: He will never come
back there again:
22:12 But death will come to him in the place where they
have
taken him away
prisoner, and he will never see this land again.
22:13 A curse is on him who is building his house by
wrongdoing,
and his rooms by
doing what is not right; who makes use of his
neighbour without
payment, and gives him nothing for his work;
22:14 Who says, I will make a wide house for myself, and
rooms
of great size, and
has windows cut out, and has it roofed with
cedar and painted
with bright red.
22:15 Are you to be a king because you make more use of
cedar
than your father? did
not your father take food and drink and
do right, judging in
righteousness, and then it was well for
him?
22:16 He was judge in the cause of the poor and those in
need;
then it was well. Was
not this to have knowledge of me? says
the Lord.
22:17 But your eyes and your heart are fixed only on profit
for
yourself, on causing
the death of him who has done no wrong,
and on violent and
cruel acts.
22:18 So this is what the Lord has said about Jehoiakim, the
son
of Josiah, king of Judah:
They will make no weeping for him,
saying, Ah my
brother! or, Ah sister! they will make no weeping
for him, saying, Ah
lord! or, Ah his glory!
22:19 They will do to him what they do to the dead body of
an
ass; his body will be
pulled out and placed on the earth
outside the doors of
Jerusalem.
22:20 Go up to Lebanon and give a cry; let your voice be
loud in
Bashan, crying out
from Abarim; for all your lovers have come
to destruction
22:21 My word came to you in the time of your well-being;
but
you said, I will not
give ear. This has been your way from your
earliest years, you
did not give attention to my voice.
22:22 All the keepers of your sheep will be food for the
wind,
and your lovers will
be taken away prisoners: truly, then you
will be shamed and
unhonoured because of all your evil-doing.
22:23 O you who are living in Lebanon, making your
living-place
in the cedars, how
greatly to be pitied will you be when pains
come on you, as on a
woman in childbirth!
22:24 By my life, says the Lord, even if Coniah, the son of
Jehoiakim, king of
Judah, was the ring on my right hand, even
from there I would
have you pulled off;
22:25 And I will give you into the hands of those desiring
your
death, and into the
hands of those whom you are fearing, even
into the hands of
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the
hands of the
Chaldaeans.
22:26 I will send you out, and your mother who gave you
birth,
into another country
not the land of your birth; and there
death will come to
you.
22:27 But to the land on which their soul's desire is fixed,
they will never come
back.
22:28 Is this man Coniah a broken vessel of no value? is he
a
vessel in which there
is no pleasure? why are they violently
sent out, he and his
seed, into a land which is strange to
them?
22:29 O earth, earth, earth, give ear to the word of the
Lord!
22:30 The Lord has said, Let this man be recorded as having
no
children, a man who
will not do well in all his life: for no
man of his seed will
do well, seated on the seat of the kingdom
of David and ruling
again in Judah.
23:1 A curse is on the keepers who are causing the
destruction
and loss of the sheep
of my field, says the Lord.
23:2 So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said
against the keepers
who have the care of my people: You have
let my flock be
broken up, driving them away and not caring for
them; see, I will
send on you the punishment for the evil of
your doings, says the
Lord.
23:3 And I will get the rest of my flock together from all
the
countries where I
have sent them, and will make them come back
again to their
resting-place; and they will have offspring and
be increased.
23:4 And I will put over them keepers who will take care of
them: never again
will they be overcome with fear or be
troubled, and there
will not be the loss of one of them, says
the Lord.
23:5 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
give
to David a true
Branch, and he will be ruling as king, acting
wisely, doing what is
right, and judging uprightly in the land.
23:6 In his days Judah will have salvation and Israel will
be
living without fear:
and this is the name by which he will be
named, The Lord is
our righteousness.
23:7 And so, truly, the days are coming when they will say
no
longer, By the living
Lord, who took the children of Israel up
out of the land of
Egypt;
23:8 But, By the living Lord, who took up the seed of
Israel,
and made them come
out of the north country, and from all the
countries where I had
sent them; and they will be living in the
land which is theirs.
23:9 About the prophets. My heart is broken in me, all my
bones
are shaking; I am
like a man full of strong drink, like a man
overcome by wine;
because of the Lord, and because of his holy
words.
23:10 For the land is full of men who are untrue to their
wives;
because of the curse
the land is full of grief; the green
fields of the waste
land have become dry; and they are quick to
do evil, their
strength is for what is not right.
23:11 For the prophet as well as the priest is unclean; even
in
my house I have seen
their evil-doing, says the Lord.
23:12 For this cause their steps will be slipping on their
way:
they will be forced on
into the dark and have a fall there: for
I will send evil on
them in the year of their punishment, says
the Lord.
23:13 And I have seen ways without sense in the prophets of
Samaria; they became
prophets of the Baal, causing my people
Israel to go wrong.
23:14 And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a
shocking
thing; they are
untrue to their wives, walking in deceit, and
they make strong the
hands of evil-doers, so that a man may not
be turned back from
his evil-doing: they have all become like
Sodom to me, and its
people like Gomorrah.
23:15 So this is what the Lord of armies has said about the
prophets: See, I will
give them a bitter plant for their food,
and bitter water for
their drink: for from the prophets of
Jerusalem unclean
behaviour has gone out into all the land.
23:16 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Do not give
ear
to the words which
the prophets say to you: they give you
teaching of no value:
it is from themselves that their vision
comes, and not out of
the mouth of the Lord.
23:17 They keep on saying to those who have no respect for
the
word of the Lord, You
will have peace; and to everyone who goes
on his way in the
pride of his heart, they say, No evil will
come to you.
23:18 For which of them has knowledge of the secret of the
Lord,
and has seen him, and
given ear to his word? which of them has
taken note of his
word and given attention to it?
23:19 See, the storm-wind of the Lord, even the heat of his
wrath, has gone out,
a rolling storm, bursting on the heads of
the evil-doers.
23:20 The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he
has
done, till he has put
into effect, the purposes of his heart:
in days to come you
will have full knowledge of this.
23:21 I did not send these prophets, but they went running:
I
said nothing to them,
but they gave out the prophet's word.
23:22 But if they had been in my secret, then they would
have
made my people give
ear to my words, turning them from their
evil way, and from
the evil of their doings.
23:23 Am I only a God who is near, says the Lord, and not a
God
at a distance?
23:24 In what secret place may a man take cover without my
seeing him? says the
Lord. Is there any place in heaven or
earth where I am not?
says the Lord.
23:25 My ears have been open to what the prophets have said,
who
say false words in my
name, saying, I have had a dream, I have
had a dream, I have
had a dream,
23:26 Is (my word) in the hearts of the prophets who give
out
false words, even the
prophets of the deceit of their hearts?
23:27 Whose purpose is to take away the memory of my name
from
my people by their
dreams, of which every man is talking to his
neighbour, as their
fathers gave up the memory of my name for
the Baal.
23:28 If a prophet has a dream, let him give out his dream;
and
he who has my word,
let him give out my word in good faith.
What has the dry stem
to do with the grain? says the Lord.
23:29 Is not my word like fire? says the Lord; and like a
hammer, smashing the
rock to bits?
23:30 For this cause I am against the prophets, says the
Lord,
who take my words,
every one from his neighbour.
23:31 See, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who let
their tongues say, He
has said.
23:32 See, I am against the prophets of false dreams, says
the
Lord, who give them
out and make my people go out of the way by
their deceit and
their uncontrolled words: but I did not send
them or give them
orders; and they will be of no profit to this
people, says the
Lord.
23:33 And if this people, or the prophet, or a priest,
questioning you,
says, What word of weight is there from the
Lord? then you are to
say to them, You are the word, for I will
not be troubled with
you any more, says the Lord.
23:34 And as for the prophet and the priest and the people
who
say, A word of weight
from the Lord! I will send punishment on
that man and on his
house.
23:35 But this is what you are to say, every man to his
neighbour and every
man to his brother, What answer has the
Lord given? and, What
has the Lord said?
23:36 And you will no longer put people in mind of the word
of
weight of the Lord:
for every man's word will be a weight on
himself; for the
words of the living God, of the Lord of
armies, our God, have
been twisted by you.
23:37 This is what you are to say to the prophet, What
answer
has the Lord given to
you? and, What has the Lord said?
23:38 But if you say, The word of weight of the Lord; this
is
what the Lord has
said: Because you say, The weight of the
Lord, and I have sent
to you, saying, You are not to say, The
weight of the Lord;
23:39 For this reason, truly, I will put you completely out
of
my memory, and I will
put you, and the town which I gave to you
and to your fathers,
away from before my face:
23:40 And I will give you a name without honour for ever,
and
unending shame which
will never go from the memory of men.
24:1 The Lord gave me a vision, and I saw two baskets full
of
figs put in front of
the Temple of the Lord, after
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, had taken prisoner Jeconiah,
the son of Jehoiakim,
king of Judah, and the chiefs of Judah,
and the expert
workmen and metal-workers from Jerusalem, and
had taken them to
Babylon.
24:2 One basket had very good figs, like the figs which
first
come to growth: and
the other basket had very bad figs, so bad
that they were of no
use for food.
24:3 Then the Lord said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah?
And I
said, Figs; the good
figs are very good, and the bad very bad,
and of no use for
food, they are so bad.
24:4 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
24:5 This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said:
Like
these good figs, so
in my eyes will be the prisoners of Judah,
whom I have sent from
this place into the land of the
Chaldaeans for their
good.
24:6 For I will keep my eyes on them for good, and I will
take
them back again to
this land, building them up and not pulling
them down, planting
them and not uprooting them.
24:7 And I will give them a heart to have knowledge of me,
that
I am the Lord: and
they will be my people, and I will be their
God: for they will
come back to me with all their heart.
24:8 And like the bad figs which are so bad that they are of
no
use for food, so I
will give up Zedekiah, king of Judah, and
his chiefs and the
rest of Jerusalem who are still in this
land, and those who
are in the land of Egypt:
24:9 I will give them up to be a cause of fear and of
trouble
among all the
kingdoms of the earth; to be a name of shame and
common talk and a
cutting word and a curse in all the places
wherever I will send
them wandering.
24:10 And I will send the sword, and need of food, and
disease,
among them till they
are all cut off from the land which I gave
to them and to their
fathers.
25:1 The word which came to Jeremiah about all the people of
Judah in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king
of Judah; this was
the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of
Babylon.
25:2 This word Jeremiah gave out to all the people of Judah
and
to those living in
Jerusalem, saying,
25:3 From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon,
king
of Judah, even till
this day, for twenty-three years, the word
of the Lord has been
coming to me, and I have given it to you,
getting up early and
talking to you; but you have not given
ear.
25:4 And the Lord has sent to you all his servants the
prophets,
getting up early and
sending them; but you have not given
attention and your
ear has not been open to give hearing;
25:5 Saying, Come back now, everyone from his evil way and
from
the evil of your
doings, and keep your place in the land which
the Lord has given to
you and to your fathers, from times long
past even for ever:
25:6 Do not go after other gods to be their servants and to
give
them worship, and do
not make me angry with the work of your
hands, causing evil
to yourselves.
25:7 But you have not given ear to me, says the Lord; so
that
you have made me
angry with the work of your hands, causing
evil to yourselves.
25:8 So this is what the Lord of armies has said: Because
you
have not given ear to
my words,
25:9 See, I will send and take all the families of the
north,
says the Lord, and
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, my servant,
and make them come
against this land, and against its people,
and against all these
nations on every side; and I will give
them up to complete
destruction, and make them a cause of fear
and surprise and a
waste place for ever.
25:10 And more than this, I will take from them the sound of
laughing voices, the
voice of joy, the voice of the
newly-married man,
and the voice of the bride, the sound of the
stones crushing the
grain, and the shining of lights.
25:11 All this land will be a waste and a cause of wonder;
and
these nations will be
the servants of the king of Babylon for
seventy years.
25:12 And it will come about, after seventy years are ended,
that I will send
punishment on the king of Babylon, and on that
nation, says the Lord,
for their evil-doing, and on the land of
the Chaldaeans; and I
will make it a waste for ever.
25:13 And I will make that land undergo everything I have
said
against it, even
everything recorded in this book, which
Jeremiah the prophet
has said against all the nations.
25:14 For a number of nations and great kings will make
servants
of them, even of
them: and I will give them the reward of their
acts, even the reward
of the work of their hands.
25:15 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said
to
me: Take the cup of
the wine of this wrath from my hand, and
make all the nations
to whom I send you take of it.
25:16 And after drinking it, they will go rolling from side
to
side, and be off
their heads, because of the sword which I will
send among them.
25:17 Then I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and gave a
drink
from it to all the
nations to whom the Lord sent me;
25:18 Jerusalem and the towns of Judah and their kings and
their
princes, to make them
a waste place, a cause of fear and
surprise and a curse,
as it is this day;
25:19 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his servants and his
princes
and all his people;
25:20 And all the mixed people and all the kings of the land
of
Uz, and all the kings
of the land of the Philistines, and
Ashkelon and Gaza and
Ekron and the rest of Ashdod;
25:21 Edom and Moab and the children of Ammon,
25:22 And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon,
and
the kings of the
lands across the sea;
25:23 Dedan and Tema and Buz, and all who have the ends of
their
hair cut;
25:24 And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the
mixed people living
in the waste land;
25:25 And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam,
and
all the kings of the
Medes;
25:26 And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with
another; and all the
kingdoms of the world on the face of the
earth.
25:27 And you are to say to them, This is what the Lord of
armies, the God of
Israel, has said: Take of this cup and be
overcome, and let it
come out again from your lips, and from
your fall you will
never be lifted up again, because of the
sword which I will
send among you.
25:28 And it will be, if they will not take of the cup in
your
hand, then you are to
say to them, This is what the Lord of
armies has said: You
will certainly take of it.
25:29 For see, I am starting to send evil on the town which
is
named by my name, and
are you to be without any punishment? You
will not be without
punishment: for I will send a sword on all
people living on the
earth, says the Lord of armies.
25:30 So, as a prophet, give out these words among them, and
say
to them, The voice of
the Lord will be sounding like a lion
from on high; he will
send out his voice from his holy place,
like the loud voice
of a lion, against his flock; he will give
a cry, like those who
are crushing the grapes, against all the
people of the earth.
25:31 A noise will come, even to the end of the earth; for
the
Lord has a cause
against the nations, he will give his decision
against all flesh; as
for the evil-doers, he will give them to
the sword, says the
Lord.
25:32 This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, evil is
going out from nation
to nation, and a great storm will come up
from the inmost parts
of the earth.
25:33 And at that day, the bodies of those whom the Lord has
put
to death will be seen
from one end of the earth even to the
other end of the
earth: there will be no weeping for them,
their bodies will not
be taken up or put to rest in the earth;
they will be like
waste on the face of the land.
25:34 Give cries of grief, you keepers of sheep; give cries
for
help, rolling yourselves
in the dust, you chiefs of the flock:
for the days of your
destruction have fully come, and I will
send you in all
directions, and your fall will be like that of
the males of the
flock.
25:35 There will be no way of flight for the keepers of sheep,
no road for the
chiefs of the flock to get away safely.
25:36 A sound of the cry of the keepers of sheep, and the
bitter
crying of the chiefs
of the flock! for the Lord has made waste
their green fields.
25:37 And there is no sound in the fields of peace, because
of
the burning wrath of
the Lord.
25:38 The lion has come out of his secret place, for the
land
has become a waste
because of the cruel sword, and because of
the heat of his
wrath.
26:1 When Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first
became king, this
word came from the Lord, saying,
26:2 This is what the Lord has said: Take your place in the
open
square of the Lord's
house and say to all the towns of Judah,
who come into the
Lord's house for worship, everything I give
you orders to say to
them: keep back not a word;
26:3 It may be that they will give ear, and that every man
will
be turned from his
evil way, so that my purpose of sending evil
on them because of
the evil of their doings may be changed.
26:4 And you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has
said:
If you do not give
ear to me and go in the way of my law which
I have put before
you,
26:5 And give ear to the words of my servants the prophets
whom
I send to you,
getting up early and sending them, though you
gave no attention;
26:6 Then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make
this
town a curse to all
the nations of the earth.
26:7 And in the hearing of the priests and the prophets and
all
the people, Jeremiah
said these words in the house of the Lord.
26:8 Now, when Jeremiah had come to the end of saying
everything
the Lord had given
him orders to say to all the people, the
priests and the
prophets and all the people took him by force,
saying, Death will
certainly be your fate.
26:9 Why have you said in the name of the Lord, This house
will
be like Shiloh, and
this land a waste with no one living in it?
And all the people
had come together to Jeremiah in the house
of the Lord.
26:10 And the rulers of Judah, hearing of these things, came
up
from the king's house
to the house of the Lord, and took their
seats by the new door
of the Lord's house.
26:11 Then the priests and the prophets said to the rulers
and
to all the people,
The right fate for this man is death; for he
has said words
against this town in your hearing.
26:12 Then Jeremiah said to all the rulers and to all the
people, The Lord has
sent me as his prophet to say against this
house and against
this town all the words which have come to
your ears.
26:13 So now, make a change for the better in your ways and
your
doings, and give ear
to the voice of the Lord your God; then
the Lord will let
himself be turned from the decision he has
made against you for
evil.
26:14 As for me, here I am in your hands: do with me
whatever
seems good and right
in your opinion.
26:15 Only be certain that, if you put me to death, you will
make yourselves and
your town and its people responsible for
the blood of one who
has done no wrong: for truly, the Lord has
sent me to you to say
all these words in your ears.
26:16 Then the rulers and all the people said to the priests
and
the prophets, It is
not right for this man to be put to death:
for he has said words
to us in the name of the Lord our God.
26:17 Then some of the responsible men of the land got up
and
said to all the
meeting of the people,
26:18 Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of
Hezekiah, king of
Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This
is what the Lord of
armies has said: Zion will become like a
ploughed field, and
Jerusalem will become a mass of broken
walls, and the
mountain of the house like the high places of
the woodland.
26:19 Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? did he
not in
the fear of the Lord
make prayer for the grace of the Lord, and
the Lord let himself
be turned from the decision he had made
against them for
evil? By this act we might do great evil
against ourselves.
26:20 And there was another man who was a prophet of the
Lord,
Uriah, the son of
Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against
this town and against
this land all the words which Jeremiah
had said:
26:21 And when his words came to the ears of Jehoiakim the
king
and all his men of
war and his captains, the king would have
put him to death; but
Uriah, hearing of it, was full of fear
and went in flight
into Egypt:
26:22 And Jehoiakim the king sent Elnathan, the son of
Achbor,
and certain men with
him, into Egypt.
26:23 And they took Uriah out of Egypt and came back with him
to
Jehoiakim the king;
who put him to death with the sword, and
had his dead body put
into the resting-place of the bodies of
the common people.
26:24 But Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, gave Jeremiah his
help, so
that he was not given
into the hands of the people to be put to
death.
27:1 When Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first
became king this word
came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
27:2 This is what the Lord has said to me: Make for yourself
bands and yokes and
put them on your neck;
27:3 And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of
Moab,
and to the king of
the children of Ammon, and to the king of
Tyre, and to the king
of Zidon, by their servants who come to
Jerusalem, to
Zedekiah, king of Judah;
27:4 And give them orders to say to their masters, This is
what
the Lord of armies,
the God of Israel, has said: Say to your
masters,
27:5 I have made the earth, and man and beast on the face of
the
earth, by my great
power and by my outstretched arm; and I will
give it to anyone at
my pleasure.
27:6 And now I have given all these lands into the hands of
Nebuchadnezzar, the
king of Babylon, my servant; and I have
given the beasts of
the field to him for his use.
27:7 And all the nations will be servants to him and to his
son
and to his son's son,
till the time comes for his land to be
overcome: and then a
number of nations and great kings will
take it for their
use.
27:8 And it will come about, that if any nation does not
become
a servant to this
same Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and
does not put its neck
under the yoke of the king of Babylon,
then I will send
punishment on that nation, says the Lord, by
the sword and need of
food and by disease, till I have given
them into his hands.
27:9 And you are not to give attention to your prophets or
your
readers of signs or
your dreamers or those who see into the
future or those who
make use of secret arts, who say to you,
You will not become
servants of the king of Babylon:
27:10 For they say false words to you, so that you may be
sent
away far from your
land, and so that you may be forced out by
me and come to
destruction.
27:11 But as for that nation which puts its neck under the
yoke
of the king of
Babylon and becomes his servant, I will let that
nation keep on in its
land, farming it and living in it, says
the Lord.
27:12 And I said all this to Zedekiah, king of Judah,
saying,
Put your necks under
the yoke of the king of Babylon and become
his servants and his
people, so that you may keep your lives.
27:13 Why are you desiring death, you and your people, by
the
sword, and because
food is gone, and by disease, as the Lord
has said of the
nation which does not become the servant of the
king of Babylon?
27:14 And you are not to give ear to the prophets who say to
you, You will not
become servants of the king of Babylon: for
what they say is not
true.
27:15 For I have not sent them, says the Lord, but they are
saying what is false
in my name, so that I might send you out
by force, causing
destruction to come on you and on your
prophets.
27:16 And I said to the priests and to all the people, This
is
what the Lord has
said: Give no attention to the words of your
prophets who say to
you, See, in a very little time now the
vessels of the Lord's
house will come back again from Babylon:
for what they say to
you is false.
27:17 Give no attention to them; become servants of the king
of
Babylon and keep
yourselves from death: why let this town
become a waste?
27:18 But if they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord
is
with them, let them
now make request to the Lord of armies that
the vessels which are
still in the house of the Lord and in the
house of the king of
Judah and at Jerusalem, may not go to
Babylon.
27:19 For this is what the Lord has said about the rest of
the
vessels which are
still in this town,
27:20 Which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take
away,
when he took
Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, a
prisoner from
Jerusalem to Babylon, with all the great men of
Judah and Jerusalem;
27:21 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel,
has said about the
rest of the vessels in the house of the Lord
and in the house of
the king of Judah and at Jerusalem:
27:22 They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they
will be
till the day when I
send their punishment on them, says the
Lord. Then I will
take them up and put them back in their
place.
28:1 And it came about in that year, when Zedekiah first
became
king of Judah, in the
fourth year, in the fifth month, that
Hananiah, the son of
Azzur the prophet, who came from Gibeon,
said to Jeremiah in
the house of the Lord, before the priests
and all the people,
28:2 These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel: By me the
yoke of the king of Babylon has been broken.
28:3 In the space of two years I will send back into this
place
all the vessels of
the Lord's house which Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, took away
from this place to Babylon:
28:4 And I will let Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of
Judah, come back to
this place, with all the prisoners of Judah
who went to Babylon,
says the Lord: for I will have the yoke of
the king of Babylon
broken.
28:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah,
before the priests
and all the people who had come into the
house of the Lord,
28:6 The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do
so:
may the Lord give
effect to the words which you have said, and
let the vessels of
the Lord's house, and all the people who
have been taken away,
come back from Babylon to this place.
28:7 But still, give ear to this word which I am saying to
you
and to all the
people:
28:8 The prophets, who were before me and before you, from
early
times gave word to a
number of countries and great kingdoms
about war and
destruction and disease.
28:9 The prophet whose words are of peace, when his words
come
true, will be seen to
be a prophet whom the Lord has sent.
28:10 Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck
of
the prophet Jeremiah
and it was broken by his hands.
28:11 And before all the people Hananiah said, The Lord has
said, Even so will I
let the yoke of the king of Babylon be
broken off the necks
of all the nations in the space of two
years. Then the
prophet Jeremiah went away.
28:12 Then after the yoke had been broken off the neck of
the
prophet Jeremiah by
Hananiah the prophet, the word of the Lord
came to Jeremiah,
saying,
28:13 Go and say to Hananiah, This is what the Lord has
said:
Yokes of wood have
been broken by you, but in their place I
will make yokes of
iron.
28:14 For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: I
have put a yoke of
iron on the necks of all these nations,
making them servants
to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and
they are to be his
servants: and in addition I have given him
the beasts of the
field.
28:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the
prophet,
Give ear, now,
Hananiah; the Lord has not sent you; but you are
making this people
put their faith in what is false.
28:16 For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will send
you
away from off the
face of the earth: this year death will
overtake you, because
you have said words against the Lord.
28:17 So death came to Hananiah the prophet the same year,
in
the seventh month.
29:1 Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah
the
prophet sent from
Jerusalem to the responsible men among those
who had been taken
away, and to the priests and the prophets
and to all the rest
of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken
away prisoners from
Jerusalem to Babylon;
29:2 (After Jeconiah the king and the queen-mother and the
unsexed servants and
the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem and the
expert workmen and
the metal-workers had gone away from
Jerusalem;)
29:3 By the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and
Gemariah,
the son of Hilkiah,
(whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to
Babylon, to
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,) saying,
29:4 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has
said to all those
whom I have taken away prisoners from
Jerusalem to Babylon:
29:5 Go on building houses and living in them, and planting
gardens and using the
fruit of them;
29:6 Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives
for
your sons, and give
your daughters to husbands, so that they
may have sons and
daughters; and be increased in number there
and do not become
less.
29:7 And be working for the peace of the land to which I
have
had you taken away
prisoners, and make prayer to the Lord for
it: for in its peace
you will have peace.
29:8 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: Do not let
yourselves be tricked by the prophets who are
among you, and the
readers of signs, and give no attention to
their dreams which
they may have;
29:9 For they are saying to you what is false in my name: I
have
not sent them, says
the Lord.
29:10 For this is what the Lord has said: When seventy years
are
ended for Babylon, I
will have pity on you and give effect to
my good purpose for
you, causing you to come back to this
place.
29:11 For I am conscious of my thoughts about you, says the
Lord, thoughts of
peace and not of evil, to give you hope at
the end.
29:12 And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to
me,
and I will give ear
to you.
29:13 And you will be searching for me and I will be there,
when
you have gone after
me with all your heart.
29:14 I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate
will be changed, and
I will get you together from all the
nations and from all
the places where I had sent you away, says
the Lord; and I will
take you back again to the place from
which I sent you away
prisoners.
29:15 For you have said, The Lord has given us prophets in
Babylon.
29:16 For this is what the Lord has said about the king who
is
seated on the seat of
David's kingdom, and about all the people
living in this town,
your countrymen who have not gone out with
you as prisoners;
29:17 This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will
send
on them the sword and
need of food and disease, and will make
them like bad figs,
which are of no use for food, they are so
bad.
29:18 I will go after them, attacking them with the sword
and
with need of food and
with disease, and will make them a cause
of fear to all the
kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a
wonder and a surprise
and a name of shame among all the nations
where I have sent
them:
29:19 Because they have not given ear to my words, says the
Lord, when I sent to
them my servants the prophets, getting up
early and sending
them; but you did not give ear, says the
Lord.
29:20 And now, give ear to the word of the Lord, all you
whom I
have sent away
prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon.
29:21 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said about Ahab, the
son of Kolaiah, and about Zedekiah, the
son of Maaseiah, who
are saying to you what is false in my
name: See, I will
give them up into the hands of
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, and he will put them to death
before your eyes.
29:22 And their fate will be used as a curse by all the
prisoners of Judah who
are in Babylon, who will say, May the
Lord make you like
Zedekiah and like Ahab, who were burned in
the fire by the king
of Babylon;
29:23 Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken
their neighbours'
wives, and in my name have said false words,
which I did not give
them orders to say; and I myself am the
witness, says the
Lord.
29:24 About Shemaiah the Nehelamite.
29:25 Shemaiah the Nehelamite sent a letter in his name to
Zephaniah, the son of
Maaseiah the priest, saying,
29:26 The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the
priest, to be an
overseer in the house of the Lord for every
man who is off his
head and is acting as a prophet, to put such
men in prison and in
chains.
29:27 So why have you made no protest against Jeremiah of
Anathoth, who is
acting as a prophet to you?
29:28 For he has sent to us in Babylon saying, The time will
be
long: go on building
houses and living in them, and planting
gardens and using the
fruit of them.
29:29 And Zephaniah the priest made clear to Jeremiah the
prophet what was said
in the letter, reading it to him.
29:30 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the
prophet,
saying,
29:31 Send to all those who have been taken away, saying,
This
is what the Lord has
said about Shemaiah the Nehelamite:
Because Shemaiah has
been acting as a prophet to you, and I did
not send him, and has
made you put your faith in what is false;
29:32 For this cause the Lord has said, Truly I will send
punishment on Shemaiah
and on his seed; not a man of his family
will have a place
among this people, and he will not see the
good which I am going
to do to my people, says the Lord:
because he has said
words against the Lord.
30:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
30:2 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Put down in a
book
all the words which I
have said to you.
30:3 For see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I
will
let the fate of my
people Israel and Judah be changed, says the
Lord: and I will make
them come back to the land which I gave
to their fathers, so
that they may take it for their heritage.
30:4 And these are the words which the Lord said about
Israel
and about Judah.
30:5 This is what the Lord has said: A voice of shaking fear
has
come to our ears, of
fear and not of peace.
30:6 Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to
have birth-pains: why
do I see every man with his hands
gripping his sides,
as a woman does when the pains of birth are
on her, and all faces
are turned green?
30:7 Ha! for that day is so great that there is no day like
it:
it is the time of
Jacob's trouble: but he will get salvation
from it.
30:8 For it will come about on that day, says the Lord of
armies, that his yoke
will be broken off his neck, and his
bands will be burst;
and men of strange lands will no longer
make use of him as
their servant:
30:9 But they will be servants to the Lord their God and to
David their king,
whom I will give back to them.
30:10 So have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord;
and
do not be troubled, O
Israel: for see, I will make you come
back from far away,
and your seed from the land where they are
prisoners; and Jacob
will come back, and will be quiet and at
peace, and no one
will give him cause for fear.
30:11 For I am with you, says the Lord, to be your saviour:
for
I will put an end to
all the nations where I have sent you
wandering, but I will
not put an end to you completely: though
with wise purpose I
will put right your errors, and will not
let you go quite
without punishment.
30:12 For the Lord has said, Your disease may not be made
well
and your wound is
bitter.
30:13 There is no help for your wound, there is nothing to
make
you well.
30:14 Your lovers have no more thought for you, they go
after
you no longer; for I
have given you the wound of a hater, even
cruel punishment;
30:15 Why are you crying for help because of your wound? for
your pain may never
be taken away: because your evil-doing was
so great and because
your sins were increased, I have done
these things to you.
30:16 For this cause, all those who take you for their food
will
themselves become
your food; and all your attackers, every one
of them, will be
taken prisoners; and those who send
destruction on you
will come to destruction; and all those who
take away your goods
by force will undergo the same themselves.
30:17 For I will make you healthy again and I will make you
well
from your wounds,
says the Lord; because they have given you
the name of an
outlaw, saying, It is Zion cared for by no man.
30:18 The Lord has said, See, I am changing the fate of the
tents of Jacob, and I
will have pity on his houses; the town
will be put up on its
hill, and the great houses will be
living-places again.
30:19 And from them will go out praise and the sound of
laughing: and I will
make them great in number, and they will
not become less; and
I will give them glory, and they will not
be small.
30:20 And their children will be as they were in the old
days,
and the meeting of
the people will have its place before me,
and I will send
punishment on all who are cruel to them.
30:21 And their chief will be of their number; their ruler
will
come from among
themselves; and I will let him be present
before me, so that he
may come near to me: for who may have
strength of heart to
come near me? says the Lord.
30:22 And you will be my people, and I will be your God.
30:23 See, the storm-wind of the Lord, even the heat of his
wrath, has gone out,
a rolling storm, bursting on the heads of
the evil-doers.
30:24 The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he
has
done, till he has put
into effect, the purposes of his heart:
in days to come you
will have full knowledge of this.
31:1 At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all
the
families of Israel,
and they will be my people.
31:2 The Lord has said, Grace came in the waste land to a
people
kept safe from the
sword, even to Israel on the way to his
resting-place.
31:3 From far away he saw the Lord: my love for you is an
eternal love: so with
mercy I have made you come with me.
31:4 I will again make new your buildings, O virgin of
Israel,
and you will take up
your place: again you will take up your
instruments of music,
and go out in the dances of those who are
glad.
31:5 Again will your vine-gardens be planted on the hill of
Samaria: the planters
will be planting and using the fruit.
31:6 For there will be a day when those who get in the
grapes on
the hills of Ephraim
will be crying, Up! let us go up to Zion
to the Lord our God.
31:7 For the Lord has said, Make a glad song for Jacob and
give
a cry on the top of
the mountains: give the news, give praise,
and say, The Lord has
given salvation to his people, even to
the rest of Israel.
31:8 See, I will take them from the north country, and get
them
from the inmost parts
of the earth, and with them the blind and
the feeble-footed,
the woman with child and her who is in
birth-pains together:
a very great army, they will come back
here.
31:9 They will come with weeping, and going before them I
will
be their guide:
guiding them by streams of water in a straight
way where there is no
falling: for I am a father to Israel, and
Ephraim is the first
of my sons.
31:10 Give ear to the word of the Lord, O you nations, and
give
news of it in the
sea-lands far away, and say, He who has sent
Israel wandering will
get him together and will keep him as a
keeper does his
flock.
31:11 For the Lord has given a price for Jacob, and made him
free from the hands
of him who was stronger than he.
31:12 So they will come with songs on the high places,
flowing
together to the good
things of the Lord, to the grain and the
wine and the oil, to
the young ones of the flock and of the
herd: their souls
will be like a watered garden, and they will
have no more sorrow.
31:13 Then the virgin will have joy in the dance, and the
young
men and the old will
be glad: for I will have their weeping
turned into joy, I
will give them comfort and make them glad
after their sorrow.
31:14 I will give the priests their desired fat things, and
my
people will have a
full measure of my good things, says the
Lord.
31:15 So has the Lord said: In Ramah there is a sound of
crying,
weeping and bitter
sorrow; Rachel weeping for her children; she
will not be comforted
for their loss.
31:16 The Lord has said this: Keep your voice from sorrow
and
your eyes from
weeping: for your work will be rewarded, says
the Lord; and they
will come back from the land of their hater.
31:17 And there is hope for the future, says the Lord; and
your
children will come
back to the land which is theirs.
31:18 Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my
ears,
You have given me
training and I have undergone it like a young
cow unused to the
yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you
are the Lord my God.
31:19 Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my
ways;
and after I had got
knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was
put to shame, truly,
I was covered with shame, because I had to
undergo the shame of
my early years.
31:20 Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight?
for
whenever I say things
against him, I still keep him in my
memory: so my heart
is troubled for him; I will certainly have
mercy on him, says
the Lord.
31:21 Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself:
give
attention to the
highway, even the way in which you went: be
turned again, O
virgin of Israel, be turned to these your
towns.
31:22 How long will you go on turning this way and that, O
wandering daughter?
for the Lord has made a new thing on the
earth, a woman
changed into a man.
31:23 So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said,
Again
will these words be
used in the land of Judah and in its towns,
when I have let their
fate be changed: May the blessing of the
Lord be on you, O
resting-place of righteousness, O holy
mountain.
31:24 And Judah and all its towns will be living there
together;
the farmers and those
who go about with flocks.
31:25 For I have given new strength to the tired soul and to
every sorrowing soul
in full measure.
31:26 At this, awaking from my sleep, I saw; and my sleep
was
sweet to me.
31:27 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
have
Israel and Judah
planted with the seed of man and with the seed
of beast.
31:28 And it will come about that, as I have been watching
over
them for the purpose
of uprooting and smashing down and
overturning and
sending destruction and causing trouble; so I
will be watching over
them for the purpose of building up and
planting, says the
Lord.
31:29 In those days they will no longer say, The fathers
have
been tasting bitter
grapes and the children's teeth are put on
edge.
31:30 But everyone will be put to death for the evil which
he
himself has done:
whoever has taken bitter grapes will himself
have his teeth put on
edge.
31:31 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
make
a new agreement with
the people of Israel and with the people
of Judah:
31:32 Not like the agreement which I made with their
fathers, on
the day when I took
them by the hand to be their guide out of
the land of Egypt;
which agreement was broken by them, and I
gave them up, says
the Lord.
31:33 But this is the agreement which I will make with the
people of Israel
after those days, says the Lord; I will put my
law in their inner
parts, writing it in their hearts; and I
will be their God,
and they will be my people.
31:34 And no longer will they be teaching every man his
neighbour and every
man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of
the Lord: for they
will all have knowledge of me, from the
least of them to the
greatest of them, says the Lord: for they
will have my
forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin
will go from my
memory for ever.
31:35 These are the words of the Lord, who has given the sun
for
a light by day,
ordering the moon and stars for a light by
night, who puts the
sea in motion, causing the thunder of its
waves; the Lord of
armies is his name.
31:36 If the order of these things before me is ever broken,
says the Lord, then
will the seed of Israel come to an end as a
nation before me for
ever.
31:37 This is what the Lord has said: If the heavens on high
may
be measured, and the
bases of the earth searched out, then I
will give up the seed
of Israel, because of all they have done,
says the Lord.
31:38 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, for the
building
of the Lord's town,
from the tower of Hananel to the doorway of
the angle.
31:39 And the measuring-line will go out in front of it as
far
as the hill Gareb,
going round to Goah.
31:40 And all the valley of the dead bodies, and all the
field
of death as far as
the stream Kidron, up to the angle of the
horses' doorway to
the east, will be holy to the Lord; it will
not again be uprooted
or overturned for ever.
32:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the
tenth
year of Zedekiah,
king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year
of Nebuchadrezzar.
32:2 Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was round
Jerusalem, shutting
it in: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up
in the place of the
armed watchmen, in the house of the king of
Judah.
32:3 For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had had him shut up,
saying,
Why have you, as a
prophet, been saying, The Lord has said,
See, I will give this
town into the hands of the king of
Babylon, and he will
take it;
32:4 And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not get away from the
hands of the
Chaldaeans, but will certainly be given up into
the hands of the king
of Babylon, and will have talk with him,
mouth to mouth, and
see him, eye to eye.
32:5 And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he
will be
till I have pity on
him, says the Lord: though you are fighting
with the Chaldaeans,
things will not go well for you?
32:6 And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me,
saying,
32:7 See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's
brother,
will come to you and
say, Give the price and get for yourself
my property in
Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest
relation.
32:8 So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me,
as
the Lord had said, to
the place of the armed watchmen, and said
to me, Give the price
and get my property which is in Anathoth
in the land of
Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's
right to the
heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was
clear to me that this
was the word of the Lord.
32:9 So I got for a price the property in Anathoth from
Hanamel,
the son of my
father's brother, and gave him the money,
seventeen shekels of
silver;
32:10 And I put it in writing, stamping it with my stamp,
and I
took witnesses and
put the money into the scales.
32:11 So I took the paper witnessing the business, one copy
rolled up and
stamped, and one copy open:
32:12 And I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the
son
of Mahseiah, before
the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's
brother, and of the
witnesses who had put their names to the
paper, and before all
the Jews who were seated in the place of
the armed watchmen.
32:13 And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying,
32:14 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: Take these
papers, the witness of this business, the one
which is rolled up
and stamped, and the one which is open; and
put them in a vessel
of earth so that they may be kept for a
long time.
32:15 For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said,
There
will again be trading
in houses and fields and vine-gardens in
this land.
32:16 Now after I had given the paper to Baruch, the son of
Neriah, I made my
prayer to the Lord, saying,
32:17 Ah Lord God! see, you have made the heaven and the
earth
by your great power
and by your outstretched arm, and there is
nothing you are not
able to do:
32:18 You have mercy on thousands, and send punishment for
the
evil-doing of the
fathers on their children after them: the
great, the strong
God, the Lord of armies is his name:
32:19 Great in wisdom and strong in act: whose eyes are open
on
all the ways of the
sons of men, giving to everyone the reward
of his ways and the
fruit of his doings:
32:20 You have done signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,
and
even to this day, in
Israel and among other men; and have made
a name for yourself
as at this day;
32:21 And have taken your people Israel out of the land of
Egypt
with signs and with
wonders and with a strong hand and an
outstretched arm,
causing great fear;
32:22 And have given them this land, which you gave your
word to
their fathers to give
them, a land flowing with milk and honey;
32:23 And they came in and took it for their heritage, but
they
did not give ear to
your voice, and were not ruled by your law;
they have done
nothing of all you gave them orders to do: so
you have made all
this evil come on them:
32:24 See, they have made earthworks against the town to
take
it; and the town is
given into the hands of the Chaldaeans who
are fighting against it,
because of the sword and need of food
and disease: and what
you have said has taken place, and truly
you see it.
32:25 And you have said to me, Give the money to get
yourself a
property, and have
the business witnessed; though the town is
given into the hands
of the Chaldaeans.
32:26 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
32:27 See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there
anything so hard that
I am unable to do it?
32:28 So this is what the Lord has said: See, I am giving
this
town into the hands
of the Chaldaeans and into the hands of
Nebuchadrezzar, the
king of Babylon, and he will take it:
32:29 And the Chaldaeans, who are fighting against this
town,
will come and put the
town on fire, burning it together with
the houses, on the
roofs of which perfumes have been burned to
the Baal, and drink
offerings have been drained out to other
gods, moving me to
wrath.
32:30 For the children of Israel and the children of Judah
have
done nothing but evil
in my eyes from their earliest years: the
children of Israel
have only made me angry with the work of
their hands, says the
Lord.
32:31 For this town has been to me a cause of wrath and of
burning passion from
the day of its building till this day, so
that I put it away
from before my face:
32:32 Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and
of
the children of
Judah, which they have done to make me angry,
they and their kings,
their princes, their priests, and their
prophets, and the men
of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.
32:33 And they have been turning their backs and not their
faces
to me: and though I
was their teacher, getting up early and
teaching them, their
ears were not open to teaching.
32:34 But they put their disgusting images into the house
which
is named by my name,
making it unclean.
32:35 And they put up the high places of the Baal in the
valley
of the son of Hinnom,
making their sons and their daughters go
through the fire to
Molech; which I did not give them orders to
do, and it never came
into my mind that they would do this
disgusting thing,
causing Judah to be turned out of the way.
32:36 And now the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of this
town, about which you
say, It is given into the hands of the
king of Babylon by
the sword and by need of food and by
disease:
32:37 See, I will get them together from all the countries
where
I have sent them in
my wrath and in the heat of my passion and
in my bitter feeling;
and I will let them come back into this
place where they may
take their rest safely.
32:38 And they will be my people, and I will be their God:
32:39 And I will give them one heart and one way, so that
they
may go on in the
worship of me for ever, for their good and the
good of their
children after them:
32:40 And I will make an eternal agreement with them, that I
will never give them
up, but ever do them good; and I will put
the fear of me in
their hearts, so that they will not go away
from me.
32:41 And truly, I will take pleasure in doing them good,
and
all my heart and soul
will be given to planting them in this
land in good faith.
32:42 For the Lord has said: As I have made all this great
evil
come on this people,
so I will send on them all the good which
I said about them.
32:43 And there will be trading in fields in this land of
which
you say, It is a
waste, without man or beast; it is given into
the hands of the
Chaldaeans.
32:44 Men will get fields for money, and put the business in
writing, stamping the
papers and having them witnessed, in the
land of Benjamin and
in the country round Jerusalem and in the
towns of Judah and in
the towns of the hill-country and in the
towns of the lowland
and in the towns of the South: for I will
let their fate be changed,
says the Lord.
33:1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second
time,
while he was still
shut up in the place of the armed watchmen,
saying,
33:2 These are the words of the Lord, who is doing it, the
Lord
who is forming it, to
make it certain; the Lord is his name;
33:3 Let your cry come to me, and I will give you an answer,
and
let you see great
things and secret things of which you had no
knowledge.
33:4 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said
about the houses of
this town and the houses of the kings of
Judah, which have
been broken down to make earthworks and ...;
33:5 ... and to make them full of the dead bodies of men
whom I
have put to death in
my wrath and in my passion, and because of
whose evil-doing I
have kept my face covered from this town.
33:6 See, I will make it healthy and well again, I will even
make them well; I
will let them see peace and good faith in
full measure.
33:7 And I will let the fate of Judah and of Israel be changed,
building them up as
at first.
33:8 And I will make them clean from all their sin, with
which
they have been
sinning against me; I will have forgiveness for
all their sins, with
which they have been sinning against me,
and with which they
have done evil against me.
33:9 And this town will be to me for a name of joy, for a
praise
and a glory before
all the nations of the earth, who, hearing
of all the good which
I am doing for them, will be shaking with
fear because of all
the good and the peace which I am doing for
it.
33:10 This is what the Lord has said: There will again be
sounding in this
place, of which you say, It is a waste,
without man and
without beast; even in the towns of Judah and
in the streets of
Jerusalem which are waste and unpeopled,
without man and
without beast,
33:11 Happy sounds, the voice of joy, the voice of the
newly-married man and
the voice of the bride, the voices of
those who say, Give
praise to the Lord of armies, for the Lord
is good, for his
mercy is unchanging for ever: the voices of
those who go with
praise into the house of the Lord. For I will
let the land come
back to its first condition, says the Lord.
33:12 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Again there
will
be in this place,
which is a waste, without man and without
beast, and in all its
towns, a resting-place where the keepers
of sheep will make
their flocks take rest.
33:13 In the towns of the hill-country, in the towns of the
lowland, and in the
towns of the South and in the land of
Benjamin and in the
country round Jerusalem and in the towns of
Judah, the flocks
will again go under the hand of him who is
numbering them, says
the Lord.
33:14 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will
give
effect to the good
word which I have said about the people of
Israel and the people
of Judah.
33:15 In those days and at that time, I will let a Branch of
righteousness come up
for David; and he will be a judge in
righteousness in the
land.
33:16 In those days, Judah will have salvation and Jerusalem
will be safe: and
this is the name which will be given to her:
The Lord is our
righteousness.
33:17 For the Lord has said, David will never be without a
man
to take his place on
the seat of the kingdom of Israel;
33:18 And the priests and the Levites will never be without
a
man to come before
me, offering burned offerings and perfumes
and meal offerings
and offerings of beasts at all times.
33:19 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
33:20 The Lord has said: If it is possible for my agreement
of
the day and the night
to be broken, so that day and night no
longer come at their
fixed times,
33:21 Then my agreement with my servant David may be broken,
so
that he no longer has
a son to take his place on the seat of
the kingdom; and my
agreement with the Levites, the priests, my
servants.
33:22 As it is not possible for the army of heaven to be
numbered, or the sand
of the sea measured, so will I make the
seed of my servant
David, and the Levites my servants.
33:23 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
33:24 Have you taken note of what these people have said,
The
two families, which
the Lord took for himself, he has given up?
This they say,
looking down on my people as being, in their
eyes, no longer a
nation.
33:25 The Lord has said, If I have not made day and night,
and
if the limits of
heaven and earth have not been fixed by me,
33:26 Then I will give up caring for the seed of Jacob and
of
David my servant, so
that I will not take of his seed to be
rulers over the seed
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will
let their fate be
changed and will have mercy on them.
34:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, and all his army, and all the
kingdoms of the earth
which were under his rule, and all the
peoples, were
fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns,
saying,
34:2 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Go and say to
Zedekiah, king of
Judah, This is what the Lord has said: See, I
will give this town
into the hands of the king of Babylon, and
he will have it
burned with fire:
34:3 And you will not get away from him, but will certainly
be
taken and given up
into his hands; and you will see the king of
Babylon, eye to eye,
and he will have talk with you, mouth to
mouth, and you will
go to Babylon.
34:4 But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king
of
Judah; this is what
the Lord has said about you: Death will not
come to you by the
sword:
34:5 You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings
as
they made for your
fathers, the earlier kings before you, will
be made for you; and
they will be weeping for you and saying,
Ah lord! for I have
said the word, says the Lord.
34:6 Then Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to
Zedekiah, king of
Judah, in Jerusalem,
34:7 When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting
against
Jerusalem and against
all the towns of Judah which had not been
taken, against
Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the
last of the walled
towns of Judah.
34:8 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after
King
Zedekiah had made an
agreement with all the people in
Jerusalem, to give
news in public that servants were to be made
free;
34:9 That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and
his
Hebrew servant-girl
go free; so that no one might make use of a
Jew, his countryman,
as a servant:
34:10 And this was done by all the rulers and the people who
had
taken part in the
agreement, and every one let his man-servant
and his servant-girl
go free, not to be used as servants any
longer; they did so,
and let them go.
34:11 But later, they took back again the servants and the
servant-girls whom
they had let go free, and put them again
under the yoke as
servants and servant-girls.
34:12 For this reason the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah
from
the Lord, saying,
34:13 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I made an
agreement
with your fathers on
the day when I took them out of Egypt, out
of the prison-house,
saying,
34:14 At the end of seven years every man is to let go his
countryman who is a
Hebrew, who has become yours for a price
and has been your
servant for six years; you are to let him go
free: but your
fathers gave no attention and did not give ear.
34:15 And now, turning away from evil, you had done what is
right in my eyes,
giving a public undertaking for every man to
make his neighbour
free; and you had made an agreement before
me in the house which
is named by my name:
34:16 But again you have put shame on my name, and you have
taken back, every one
his man-servant and his servant-girl,
whom you had sent
away free, and you have put them under the
yoke again to be your
servants and servant-girls.
34:17 And so the Lord has said, You have not given ear to me
and
undertaken publicly,
every man to let loose his countryman and
his neighbour: see, I
undertake to let loose against you the
sword and disease and
need of food; and I will send you
wandering among all
the kingdoms of the earth.
34:18 And I will give the men who have gone against my
agreement
and have not given
effect to the words of the agreement which
they made before me,
when the ox was cut in two and they went
between the parts of
it,
34:19 The rulers of Judah and the rulers of Jerusalem, the
unsexed servants and
the priests and all the people of the land
who went between the
parts of the ox,
34:20 Even these I will give up into the hands of their
haters
and into the hands of
those who have designs against their
lives: and their dead
bodies will become food for the birds of
heaven and the beasts
of the earth.
34:21 And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his rulers I will
give
into the hands of
their haters and into the hands of those who
have designs against
their lives, and into the hands of the
king of Babylon's
army which has gone away from you.
34:22 See, I will give orders, says the Lord, and make them
come
back to this town;
and they will make war on it and take it and
have it burned with
fire: and I will make the towns of Judah
waste and unpeopled.
35:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, in the
days
of Jehoiakim, the son
of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
35:2 Go into the house of the Rechabites, and have talk with
them, and take them
into the house of the Lord, into one of the
rooms, and give them
wine.
35:3 Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of
Habazziniah, and his
brothers and all his sons and all the
Rechabites;
35:4 And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the
room
of the sons of Hanan,
the son of Igdaliah, the man of God,
which was near the
rulers' room, which was over the room of
Maaseiah, the son of
Shallum, the keeper of the door;
35:5 And I put before the sons of the Rechabites basins full
of
wine and cups, and I
said to them, Take some wine.
35:6 But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the
son
of Rechab our father,
gave us orders, saying, You are to take
no wine, you or your
sons, for ever:
35:7 And you are to make no houses, or put in seed, or get
vine-gardens planted,
or have any: but all your days you are to
go on living in
tents, so that you may have a long life in the
land where you are
living as in a strange country.
35:8 And we have kept the rules of Jonadab, the son of
Rechab
our father, in
everything which he gave us orders to do,
drinking no wine all
our days, we and our wives and our sons
and our daughters;
35:9 Building no houses for ourselves, having no
vine-gardens or
fields or seed:
35:10 But we have been living in tents, and have done
everything
which Jonadab our
father gave us orders to do.
35:11 But when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came up into
the
land, we said, Come,
let us go to Jerusalem, away from the army
of the Chaldaeans and
from the army of the Aramaeans: and so we
are living in
Jerusalem.
35:12 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
35:13 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: Go and say to
the men of Judah and the people of
Jerusalem, Is there
no hope of teaching you to give ear to my
words? says the Lord.
35:14 The orders which Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave to his
sons to take no wine,
are done, and to this day they take no
wine, for they do the
orders of their father: but I have sent
my words to you,
getting up early and sending them, and you
have not given ear to
me.
35:15 And I have sent you all my servants the prophets,
getting
up early and sending
them, saying, Come back, now, every man
from his evil way,
and do better, and go not after other gods
to become their
servants, and you will go on living in the land
which I have given to
you and to your fathers: but your ears
have not been open,
and you have not given attention to me.
35:16 Though the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have done
the
orders of their
father which he gave them, this people has not
given ear to me:
35:17 For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, the God
of
Israel, has said,
See, I will send on Judah and on all the
people of Jerusalem
all the evil which I said I would do to
them: because I sent
my words to them, but they did not give
ear; crying out to
them, but they gave no answer.
35:18 But to the Rechabites Jeremiah said, This is what the
Lord
of armies, the God of
Israel, has said: Because you have done
the orders of Jonadab
your father, and have kept his rules, and
done everything as he
gave you orders to do it;
35:19 For this reason the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said, Jonadab, the
son of Rechab, will never be without a man
to take his place
before me.
36:1 Now it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the
son
of Josiah, king of
Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from
the Lord, saying,
36:2 Take a book and put down in it all the words I have
said to
you against Israel
and against Judah and against all the
nations, from the day
when my word came to you in the days of
Josiah till this day.
36:3 It may be that the people of Judah, hearing of all the
evil
which it is my
purpose to do to them, will be turned, every man
from his evil ways;
so that they may have my forgiveness for
their evil-doing and
their sin.
36:4 Then Jeremiah sent for Baruch, the son of Neriah; and
Baruch took down from
the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of
the Lord which he had
said to him, writing them in a book.
36:5 And Jeremiah gave orders to Baruch, saying, I am shut
up,
and am not able to go
into the house of the Lord:
36:6 So you are to go, reading there from the book, which
you
have taken down from
my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the
hearing of the people
in the Lord's house, on a day when they
go without food, and
in the hearing of all the men of Judah who
have come out from
their towns.
36:7 It may be that their prayer for grace will go up to the
Lord, and that every
man will be turned from his evil ways: for
great is the wrath
and the passion made clear by the Lord
against this people.
36:8 And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did as Jeremiah the
prophet
gave him orders to
do, reading from the book the words of the
Lord in the Lord's
house.
36:9 Now it came about in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the
son
of Josiah, king of
Judah, in the ninth month, that it was given
out publicly that all
the people in Jerusalem, and all the
people who came from
the towns of Judah to Jerusalem, were to
keep from food before
the Lord.
36:10 Then Baruch gave a public reading of the words of
Jeremiah
from the book, in the
house of the Lord, in the room of
Gemariah, the son of
Shaphan the scribe, in the higher square,
as one goes in by the
new doorway of the Lord's house, in the
hearing of all the
people.
36:11 And Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan,
after hearing all the
words of the Lord from the book,
36:12 Went down to the king's house, to the scribe's room:
and
all the rulers were
seated there, Elishama the scribe and
Delaiah, the son of
Shemaiah, and Elnathan, the son of Achbor,
and Gemariah, the son
of Shaphan, and Zedekiah, the son of
Hananiah, and all the
rulers.
36:13 Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words
which
had come to his ears
when Baruch was reading the book to the
people.
36:14 So all the rulers sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah,
the
son of Shelemiah, the
son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in
your hand the book
from which you have been reading to the
people and come. So
Baruch, the son of Neriah, took the book in
his hand and came
down to them.
36:15 Then they said to him, Be seated now, and give us a
reading from it. So
Baruch did so, reading it to them.
36:16 Now it came about that, after hearing all the words,
they
said to one another
in fear, We will certainly give the king an
account of all these
words.
36:17 And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did
you
put all these words
down in writing from his mouth?
36:18 Then Baruch, answering, said, He said all these things
to
me by word of mouth,
and I put them down with ink in the book.
36:19 Then the rulers said to Baruch, Go and put yourself in
a
safe place, you and
Jeremiah, and let no man have knowledge of
where you are.
36:20 Then they went into the open square to the king; but
the
book they put away in
the room of Elishama the scribe; and they
gave the king an
account of all the words.
36:21 So the king sent Jehudi to get the book, and he took
it
from the room of
Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi gave a reading
of it in the hearing
of the king and all the rulers who were by
the king's side.
36:22 Now the king was seated in the winter house, and a
fire
was burning in the
fireplace in front of him.
36:23 And it came about that whenever Jehudi, in his
reading,
had got through three
or four divisions, the king, cutting them
with his penknife,
put them into the fire, till all the book
was burned up in the
fire which was burning in the fireplace.
36:24 But they had no fear and gave no signs of grief, not
the
king or any of his
servants, after hearing all these words.
36:25 And Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made a
strong
request to the king
not to let the book be burned, but he would
not give ear to them.
36:26 And the king gave orders to Jerahmeel, the king's son,
and
Seraiah, the son of
Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel,
to take Baruch the
scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the
Lord kept them safe.
36:27 Then after the book, in which Baruch had put down the
words of Jeremiah,
had been burned by the king, the word of the
Lord came to
Jeremiah, saying,
36:28 Take another book and put down in it all the words
which
were in the first
book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, put
into the fire.
36:29 And about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you are to say,
This
is what the Lord has
said: You have put this book into the
fire, saying, Why
have you put in it that the king of Babylon
will certainly come,
causing the destruction of this land and
putting an end to
every man and beast in it?
36:30 For this reason the Lord has said of Jehoiakim, king
of
Judah, He will have
no son to take his place on the seat of
David: his dead body
will be put out to undergo the heat of the
day and the cold of
the night.
36:31 And I will send punishment on him and on his seed and
on
his servants for
their evil-doing; I will send on them and on
the people of
Jerusalem and the men of Judah, all the evil
which I said against
them, but they did not give ear.
36:32 Then Jeremiah took another book, and gave it to Baruch
the
scribe, the son of
Neriah, who put down in it, from the mouth
of Jeremiah, all the
words of the book which had been burned in
the fire by
Jehoiakim, king of Judah: and in addition a number
of other words of the
same sort.
37:1 And Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, became king in place
of
Coniah, the son of
Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar, king of
Babylon, made king in
the land of Judah.
37:2 But he and his servants and the people of the land did
not
give ear to the words
of the Lord which he said by Jeremiah the
prophet.
37:3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal, the son of
Shelemiah,
and Zephaniah, the
son of Maaseiah the priest, to the prophet
Jeremiah, saying,
Make prayer now to the Lord our God for us.
37:4 (Now Jeremiah was going about among the people, for
they
had not put him in
prison.
37:5 And Pharaoh's army had come out from Egypt: and the
Chaldaeans, who were
attacking Jerusalem, hearing news of them,
went away from
Jerusalem.)
37:6 Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah,
saying,
37:7 The Lord, the God of Israel, has said: This is what you
are
to say to the king of
Judah who sent you to get directions from
me: See, Pharaoh's
army, which has come out to your help, will
go back to Egypt, to
their land.
37:8 And the Chaldaeans will come back again and make war
against this town and
they will take it and put it on fire.
37:9 The Lord has said, Have no false hopes, saying to
yourselves, The
Chaldaeans will go away from us: for they will
not go away.
37:10 For even if you had overcome all the army of the
Chaldaeans fighting
against you, and there were only wounded
men among them, still
they would get up, every man in his tent,
and put this town on
fire.
37:11 And it came about that when the Chaldaean army outside
Jerusalem had gone
away for fear of Pharaoh's army,
37:12 Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of
Benjamin, with the
purpose of taking up his heritage there
among the people.
37:13 But when he was at the Benjamin door, a captain of the
watch named Irijah,
the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah,
who was stationed
there, put his hand on Jeremiah the prophet,
saying, You are going
to give yourself up to the Chaldaeans.
37:14 Then Jeremiah said, That is not true; I am not going
to
the Chaldaeans. But
he would not give ear to him: so Irijah
made him prisoner and
took him to the rulers.
37:15 And the rulers were angry with Jeremiah, and gave him
blows and put him in
prison in the house of Jonathan the
scribe: for they had
made that the prison.
37:16 So Jeremiah came into the hole of the prison, under
the
arches, and was there
for a long time.
37:17 Then King Zedekiah sent and got him out: and the king,
questioning him
secretly in his house, said, Is there any word
from the Lord? And
Jeremiah said, There is. Then he said, You
will be given up into
the hands of the king of Babylon.
37:18 Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What has been my
sin
against you or
against your servants or against this people,
that you have put me
in prison?
37:19 Where now are your prophets who said to you, The king
of
Babylon will not come
against you and against this land?
37:20 And now be pleased to give ear, O my lord the king;
let my
prayer for help come
before you, and do not make me go back to
the house of Jonathan
the scribe, for fear that I may come to
my death there.
37:21 Then by the order of Zedekiah the king, Jeremiah was
put
into the place of the
armed watchmen, and they gave him every
day a cake of bread
from the street of the bread-makers, till
all the bread in the
town was used up. So Jeremiah was kept in
the place of the
armed watchmen.
38:1 Now it came to the ears of Shephatiah, the son of
Mattan,
and Gedaliah, the son
of Pashhur, and Jucal, the son of
Shelemiah, and
Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, that Jeremiah had
said to all the
people,
38:2 These are the words of the Lord: Whoever goes on living
in
this town will come
to his death by the sword or through need
of food or by
disease: but whoever goes out to the Chaldaeans
will keep his life
out of the power of the attackers and be
safe.
38:3 The Lord has said, This town will certainly be given
into
the hands of the army
of the king of Babylon, and he will take
it.
38:4 Then the rulers said to the king, Let this man be put
to
death, because he is
putting fear into the hearts of the men of
war who are still in
the town, and into the hearts of the
people, by saying
such things to them: this man is not working
for the well-being of
the people, but for their damage.
38:5 Then Zedekiah the king said, See, he is in your hands:
for
the king was not able
to do anything against them.
38:6 So they took Jeremiah and put him into the water-hole
of
Malchiah, the king's
son, in the place of the armed watchmen:
and they let Jeremiah
down with cords. And in the hole there
was no water, but wet
earth: and Jeremiah went down into the
wet earth.
38:7 Now it came to the ears of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian,
an
unsexed servant in
the king's house, that they had put Jeremiah
into the water-hole;
the king at that time being seated in the
doorway of Benjamin:
38:8 And Ebed-melech went out from the king's house and said
to
the king,
38:9 My lord the king, these men have done evil in all they
have
done to Jeremiah the
prophet, whom they have put into the
water-hole; and he
will come to his death in the place where he
is through need of
food: for there is no more bread in the
town.
38:10 Then the king gave orders to Ebed-melech the
Ethiopian,
saying, Take with you
three men from here and get Jeremiah out
of the water-hole
before death overtakes him.
38:11 So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went into the
house of the king, to
the place where the clothing was kept,
and got from there
old clothing and bits of old cloth, and let
them down by cords
into the water-hole where Jeremiah was.
38:12 And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put
these
bits of old cloth
under your arms under the cords. And Jeremiah
did so.
38:13 So pulling Jeremiah up with the cords they got him out
of
the water-hole: and
Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed
watchmen.
38:14 Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and
took
him into the rulers'
doorway in the house of the Lord: and the
king said to
Jeremiah, I have a question to put to you; keep
nothing back from me.
38:15 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, If I give you the
answer
to your question,
will you not certainly put me to death? and
if I make a
suggestion to you, you will not give it a hearing.
38:16 So King Zedekiah gave his oath to Jeremiah secretly,
saying, By the living
Lord, who gave us our life, I will not
put you to death, or
give you up to these men who are desiring
to take your life.
38:17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, These are the words of
the
Lord, the God of
armies, the God of Israel: If you go out to
the king of Babylon's
captains, then you will have life, and
the town will not be
burned with fire, and you and your family
will be kept from
death:
38:18 But if you do not go out to the king of Babylon's
captains, then this
town will be given into the hands of the
Chaldaeans and they
will put it on fire, and you will not get
away from them.
38:19 And King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, I am troubled on
account of the Jews
who have gone over to the Chaldaeans, for
fear that they may
give me up to them and they will put me to
shame.
38:20 But Jeremiah said, They will not give you up: be
guided
now by the word of
the Lord as I have given it to you, and it
will be well for you,
and you will keep your life.
38:21 But if you do not go out, this is what the Lord has
made
clear to me:
38:22 See, all the rest of the women in the house of the
king of
Judah will be taken
out to the king of Babylon's captains, and
these women will say,
Your nearest friends have been false to
you and have got the
better of you: they have made your feet go
deep into the wet
earth, and they are turned away back from
you.
38:23 And they will take all your wives and your children
out to
the Chaldaeans: and
you will not get away out of their hands,
but will be taken by
the hands of the king of Babylon: and this
town will be burned
with fire.
38:24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, Let no man have
knowledge
of these words, and
you will not be put to death.
38:25 But if it comes to the ears of the rulers that I have
been
talking with you, and
they come and say to you, Give us word
now of what you have
said to the king and what the king said to
you, keeping nothing
back and we will not put you to death;
38:26 Then you are to say to them, I made my request to the
king, that he would
not send me back to my death in Jonathan's
house.
38:27 Then all the rulers came to Jeremiah, questioning him:
and
he gave them an
answer in the words the king had given him
orders to say. So
they said nothing more to him; for the thing
was not made public.
38:28 So Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed
watchmen
till the day when
Jerusalem was taken.
39:1 And it came about, that when Jerusalem was taken, (in
the
ninth year of
Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month,
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, with all his army, came
against Jerusalem,
shutting it in on every side;
39:2 In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month,
on
the ninth day of the
month, the town was broken into:)
39:3 All the captains of the king of Babylon came in and
took
their places in the
middle doorway of the town,
Nergal-shar-ezer,
ruler of Sin-magir, the Rabmag, and
Nebushazban, the
Rab-saris, and all the captains of the king of
Babylon.
39:4 And when Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all the men of
war
saw it, they went in
flight from the town by night, by the way
of the king's garden,
through the doorway between the two
walls: and they went
out by the Arabah.
39:5 But the Chaldaean army went after them and overtook
Zedekiah in the
lowlands of Jericho: and they made him a
prisoner and took him
up to Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, to
Riblah in the land of
Hamath, to be judged by him.
39:6 Then the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to
death
before his eyes in
Riblah: and the king of Babylon put to death
all the great men of
Judah.
39:7 And more than this, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and had
him
put in chains to take
him away to Babylon.
39:8 And the Chaldaeans put the king's house on fire, as
well as
the houses of the
people, and had the walls of Jerusalem broken
down.
39:9 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took
away
to Babylon as
prisoners, all the rest of the workmen who were
still in the town, as
well as those who had given themselves up
to him, and all the
rest of the people.
39:10 But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the
poorest of the
people, who had nothing whatever, go on living
in the land of Judah,
and gave them vine-gardens and fields at
the same time.
39:11 Now Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, gave orders about
Jeremiah to
Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, saying,
39:12 Take him and keep an eye on him and see that no evil
comes
to him; but do with
him whatever he says to you.
39:13 So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, sent
Nebushazban, the
Rab-saris, and Nergal-shar-ezer, the Rabmag,
and all the chief
captains of the king of Babylon,
39:14 And they sent and took Jeremiah out of the place of
the
watchmen, and gave
him into the care of Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, to take him to his house: so he was
living among the
people.
39:15 Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was
shut up in the place
of the armed watchmen, saying,
39:16 Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, This is what
the
Lord of armies, the
God of Israel, has said: See, my words will
come true for this
town, for evil and not for good: they will
come about before
your eyes on that day.
39:17 But I will keep you safe on that day, says the Lord:
you
will not be given
into the hands of the men you are fearing.
39:18 For I will certainly let you go free, and you will not
be
put to the sword, but
your life will be given to you out of the
hands of your
attackers: because you have put your faith in me,
says the Lord.
40:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after
Nebuzaradan, the
captain of the armed men, had let him go from
Ramah, when he had
taken him; for he had been put in chains,
among all the
prisoners of Jerusalem and Judah who were taken
away prisoners to
Babylon.
40:2 And the captain of the armed men took Jeremiah and said
to
him, The Lord your
God gave word of the evil which was to come
on this place:
40:3 *** and the Lord has made it come, and has done as he
said;
because of your sin
against the Lord in not giving ear to his
voice; and that is
why this thing has come on you.
40:4 Now see, this day I am freeing you from the chains
which
are on your hands. If
it seems good to you to come with me to
Babylon, then come,
and I will keep an eye on you; but if it
does not seem good to
you to come with me to Babylon, then do
not come: see, all
the land is before you; if it seems good and
right to you to go on
living in the land,
40:5 Then go back to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, whom the
king of Babylon has made ruler over the towns
of Judah, and make
your living-place with him among the people;
or go wherever it
seems right to you to go. So the captain of
the armed men gave
him food and some money and let him go.
40:6 So Jeremiah went to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, in
Mizpah,
and was living with
him among the people who were still in the
land.
40:7 Now when it came to the ears of all the captains of the
forces who were in
the field, and their men, that the king of
Babylon had made
Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, ruler in the
land, and had put
under his care the men and women and
children, all the
poorest of the land, those who had not been
taken away to
Babylon;
40:8 Then they came to Gedaliah in Mizpah, even Ishmael, the
son
of Nethaniah, and
Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Seraiah, the
son of Tanhumeth, and
the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and
Jezaniah, the son of
the Maacathite, they and their men.
40:9 And Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan,
took
an oath to them and
their men, saying, Have no fear of the
servants of the
Chaldaeans: go on living in the land, and
become the servants
of the king of Babylon, and all will be
well.
40:10 As for me, I will be living in Mizpah as your
representative before
the Chaldaeans who come to us: but you
are to get in your
wine and summer fruits and oil and put them
in your vessels, and
make living-places for yourselves in the
towns which you have
taken.
40:11 In the same way, when all the Jews who were in Moab
and
among the children of
Ammon and in Edom and in all the
countries, had news
that the king of Babylon had let Judah keep
some of its people
and that he had put over them Gedaliah, the
son of Ahikam, the
son of Shaphan;
40:12 Then all the Jews came back from all the places to
which
they had gone in
flight, and came to the land of Judah, to
Gedaliah, to Mizpah,
and got in a great store of wine and
summer fruit.
40:13 Now Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains
of
the forces which were
in the field, came to Gedaliah in Mizpah,
40:14 And said to him, Has it come to your knowledge that
Baalis, the king of
the children of Ammon, has sent Ishmael,
the son of Nethaniah,
to take your life? But Gedaliah, the son
of Ahikam, put no
faith in what they said.
40:15 Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, said to Gedaliah in
Mizpah secretly, Let
me now go and put Ishmael, the son of
Nethaniah, to death
without anyone's knowledge: why let him
take your life so
that all the Jews who have come together to
you may be sent in
flight, and the rest of the men of Judah
come to an end?
40:16 But Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, said to Johanan, the
son
of Kareah, You are
not to do this: for what you say about
Ishmael is false.
41:1 Now it came about in the seventh month that Ishmael,
the
son of Nethaniah, the
son of Elishama, of the king's seed,
having with him ten
men, came to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam,
in Mizpah; and they
had a meal together in Mizpah.
41:2 Then Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men who
were with him, got
up, and attacking Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, with the sword, put to death him
whom the king of
Babylon had made ruler over the land.
41:3 And Ishmael put to death all the Jews who were with
him,
even with Gedaliah,
at Mizpah, and the Chaldaean men of war.
41:4 Now on the second day after he had put Gedaliah to
death,
when no one had
knowledge of it,
41:5 Some people came from Shechem, from Shiloh and Samaria,
eighty men, with the
hair of their faces cut off and their
clothing out of
order, and with cuts on their bodies, and in
their hands meal
offerings and perfumes which they were taking
to the house of the
Lord.
41:6 And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, went out from Mizpah
with the purpose of
meeting them, weeping on his way: and it
came about that when
he was face to face with them he said,
Come to Gedaliah, the
son of Ahikam.
41:7 And when they came inside the town, Ishmael, the son of
Nethaniah, and the
men who were with him, put them to death and
put their bodies into
a deep hole.
41:8 But there were ten men among them who said to Ishmael,
Do
not put us to death,
for we have secret stores, in the country,
of grain and oil and
honey. So he did not put them to death
with their
countrymen.
41:9 Now the hole into which Ishmael had put the dead bodies
of
the men whom he had
put to death, was the great hole which Asa
the king had made for
fear of Baasha, king of Israel: and
Ishmael, the son of
Nethaniah, made it full of the bodies of
those who had been
put to death.
41:10 Then Ishmael took away as prisoners all the rest of
the
people who were in
Mizpah, the king's daughters and all the
people still in
Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the
armed men, had put
under the care of Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam: Ishmael, the
son of Nethaniah, took them away prisoners
with the purpose of
going over to the children of Ammon.
41:11 But when Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the
captains
of the armed forces
who were with him, had news of all the evil
which Ishmael, the
son of Nethaniah, had done,
41:12 They took their men and went out to make war on
Ishmael,
the son of Nethaniah,
and they came face to face with him by
the great waters in
Gibeon.
41:13 Now when all the people who were with Ishmael saw
Johanan,
the son of Kareah,
and all the captains of the forces with him,
then they were glad.
41:14 And all the people whom Ishmael had taken away
prisoners
from Mizpah, turning
round, came back and went to Johanan, the
son of Kareah.
41:15 But Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, got away from
Johanan,
with eight men, and
went to the children of Ammon.
41:16 Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains
of
the forces who were
with him, took all the rest of the people
whom Ishmael, the son
of Nethaniah, had made prisoners, after
he had put to death
Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the people
from Mizpah, that is,
the men of war and the women and the
children and the
unsexed servants, whom he had taken back with
him from Gibeon:
41:17 And they went and were living in the resting-place of
Chimham, which is
near Beth-lehem on the way into Egypt,
41:18 Because of the Chaldaeans: for they were in fear of
them
because Ishmael, the
son of Nethaniah, had put to death
Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had made
ruler over the land.
42:1 Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan, the
son
of Kareah, and
Jezaniah, the son of Hoshaiah, and all the
people from the least
to the greatest, came near,
42:2 And said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let our request come
before you, and make
prayer for us to the Lord your God, even
for this small band
of us; for we are only a small band out of
what was a great
number, as your eyes may see:
42:3 That the Lord your God may make clear to us the way in
which we are to go
and what we are to do.
42:4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have given
ear to
you; see, I will make
prayer to the Lord your God, as you have
said; and it will be
that, whatever the Lord may say in answer
to you, I will give
you word of it, keeping nothing back.
42:5 Then they said to Jeremiah, May the Lord be a true
witness
against us in good
faith, if we do not do everything which the
Lord your God sends
you to say to us.
42:6 If it is good or if it is evil, we will be guided by
the
voice of the Lord our
God, to whom we are sending you; so that
it may be well for us
when we give ear to the voice of the Lord
our God.
42:7 And it came about that after ten days the word of the
Lord
came to Jeremiah.
42:8 And he sent for Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the
captains of the
forces who were still with him, and all the
people, from the
least to the greatest,
42:9 And said to them, These are the words of the Lord, the
God
of Israel, to whom
you sent me to put your request before him:
42:10 If you still go on living in the land, then I will go
on
building you up and
not pulling you down, planting you and not
uprooting you: for my
purpose of doing evil to you has been
changed.
42:11 Have no fear of the king of Babylon, of whom you are
now
in fear; have no fear
of him, says the Lord: for I am with you
to keep you safe and
to give you salvation from his hands.
42:12 And I will have mercy on you, so that he may have
mercy on
you and let you go
back to your land.
42:13 But if you say, We have no desire to go on living in
this
land; and do not give
ear to the voice of the Lord your God,
42:14 Saying, No, but we will go into the land of Egypt,
where
we will not see war,
or be hearing the sound of the horn, or be
in need of food;
there we will make our living-place;
42:15 Then give ear now to the word of the Lord, O you last
of
Judah: the Lord of
armies, the God of Israel, has said, If your
minds are fixed on
going into Egypt and stopping there;
42:16 Then it will come about that the sword, which is the
cause
of your fear, will
overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and
need of food, which
you are fearing, will go after you there in
Egypt; and there
death will come to you.
42:17 Such will be the fate of all the men whose minds are
fixed
on going into Egypt
and stopping there; they will come to their
end by the sword, by
being short of food, and by disease: not
one of them will keep
his life or get away from the evil which
I will send on them.
42:18 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel,
has said: As my wrath
and passion have been let loose on the
people of Jerusalem,
so will my passion be let loose on you
when you go into
Egypt: and you will become an oath and a cause
of wonder and a curse
and a name of shame; and you will never
see this place again.
42:19 The Lord has said about you, O last of Judah, Go not
into
Egypt: be certain that
I have given witness to you this day.
42:20 For you have been acting with deceit in your hearts;
for
you sent me to the
Lord your God, saying, Make prayer for us to
the Lord our God, and
give us word of everything he may say,
and we will do it.
42:21 And this day I have made it clear to you, and you have
not
given ear to the
voice of the Lord your God in anything for
which he has sent me
to you.
42:22 And now be certain that you will come to your end by
the
sword and by being
short of food and by disease, in the place
to which you are
pleased to go for a living-place.
43:1 And it came about that when Jeremiah had come to the
end of
giving all the people
the words of the Lord their God, which
the Lord their God
had sent him to say to them, even all these
words,
43:2 Then Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan, the son
of
Kareah, and all the
men of pride, said to Jeremiah, You have
said what is false:
the Lord our God has not sent you to say,
You are not to go
into the land of Egypt and make your
living-place there:
43:3 But Baruch, the son of Neriah, is moving you against
us, to
give us up into the
hands of the Chaldaeans so that they may
put us to death, and
take us away prisoners into Babylon.
43:4 So Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of
the
forces, and all the
people, did not give ear to the order of
the Lord that they
were to go on living in the land of Judah.
43:5 But Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of
the
forces took all the
rest of Judah who had come back into the
land of Judah from
all the nations where they had been forced
to go;
43:6 The men and the women and the children and the king's
daughters, and every
person whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of
the armed men, had
put under the care of Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet and
Baruch, the son of
Neriah;
43:7 And they came into the land of Egypt; for they did not
give
ear to the voice of
the Lord: and they came to Tahpanhes.
43:8 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in
Tahpanhes,
saying,
43:9 Take in your hand some great stones, and put them in a
safe
place in the paste in
the brickwork which is at the way into
Pharaoh's house in
Tahpanhes, before the eyes of the men of
Judah;
43:10 And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies, the
God
of Israel, has said:
See, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar,
the king of Babylon,
my servant, and he will put the seat of
his kingdom on these
stones which have been put in a safe place
here by you; and his
tent will be stretched over them.
43:11 And he will come and overcome the land of Egypt; those
who
are for death will be
put to death, those who are to be
prisoners will be
made prisoners, and those who are for the
sword will be given
to the sword.
43:12 And he will put a fire in the houses of the gods of
Egypt;
and they will be
burned by him: and he will make Egypt clean as
a keeper of sheep
makes clean his clothing; and he will go out
from there in peace.
43:13 And the stone pillars of Beth-shemesh in the land of
Egypt
will be broken by
him, and the houses of the gods of Egypt
burned with fire.
44:1 The word which came to Jeremiah about all the Jews who
were
living in the land of
Egypt, in Migdol and at Tahpanhes and at
Noph and in the
country of Pathros, saying,
44:2 The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: You
have
seen all the evil
which I have sent on Jerusalem and on all the
towns of Judah; and
now, this day they are waste and unpeopled;
44:3 Because of the evil which they have done, moving me to
wrath by burning
perfumes in worship to other gods, who were
not their gods or
yours or the gods of their fathers.
44:4 And I sent all my servants the prophets to you, getting
up
early and sending
them, saying, Do not do this disgusting thing
which is hated by me.
44:5 But they gave no attention, and their ears were not
open so
that they might be
turned from their evil-doing and from
burning perfume to
other gods.
44:6 Because of this, my passion and my wrath were let
loose,
burning in the towns
of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem;
and they are waste
and unpeopled as at this day.
44:7 So now, the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said, Why are you
doing this great evil against yourselves,
causing every man and
woman, little child and baby at the
breast among you in
Judah to be cut off till not one is still
living;
44:8 Moving me to wrath with the work of your hands, burning
perfumes to other
gods in the land of Egypt, where you have
gone to make a place
for yourselves, so that you may become a
curse and a name of
shame among all the nations of the earth?
44:9 Have you no memory of the evil-doing of your fathers,
and
the evil-doing of the
kings of Judah, and the evil-doing of
their wives, and the
evil which you yourselves have done, and
the evil which your
wives have done, in the land of Judah and
in the streets of
Jerusalem?
44:10 Even to this day their hearts are not broken, and they
have no fear, and
have not gone in the way of my law or of my
rules which I gave to
you and to your fathers.
44:11 So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: See, my face
will be turned against you for evil, for the
cutting off of all
Judah;
44:12 And I will take the last of Judah, whose minds are
fixed
on going into the
land of Egypt and stopping there, and they
will all come to
their end, falling in the land of Egypt by the
sword and by being
short of food and by disease; death will
overtake them, from
the least to the greatest, death by the
sword and by need of
food: they will become an oath and a cause
of wonder and a curse
and a name of shame.
44:13 For I will send punishment on those who are living in
the
land of Egypt, as I
have sent punishment on Jerusalem, by the
sword and by need of
food and by disease:
44:14 So that not one of the rest of Judah, who have gone
into
the land of Egypt and
are living there, will get away or keep
his life, to come
back to the land of Judah where they are
hoping to come back
and be living again: for not one will come
back, but only those
who are able to get away.
44:15 Then all the men who had knowledge that their wives
were
burning perfumes to
other gods, and all the women who were
present, a great
meeting, answering Jeremiah, said,
44:16 As for the word which you have said to us in the name
of
the Lord, we will not
give ear to you.
44:17 But we will certainly do every word which has gone out
of
our mouths, burning
perfumes to the queen of heaven and
draining out drink
offerings to her as we did, we and our
fathers and our kings
and our rulers, in the towns of Judah and
in the streets of
Jerusalem: for then we had food enough and
did well and saw no
evil.
44:18 But from the time when we gave up burning perfumes to
the
queen of heaven and
draining out drink offerings to her, we
have been in need of
all things, and have been wasted by the
sword and by need of
food.
44:19 And the women said, When we were burning perfumes to
the
queen of heaven and
draining out drink offerings to her, did we
make cakes in her
image and give her our drink offerings
without the knowledge
of our husbands?
44:20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and
women
and all the people
who had given him that answer,
44:21 The perfumes which you have been burning in the towns
of
Judah and in the
streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers and
your kings and your
rulers and the people of the land, had the
Lord no memory of
them, and did he not keep them in mind?
44:22 And the Lord was no longer able to put up with the
evil of
your doings and the
disgusting things you did; and because of
this your land has
become a waste and a cause of wonder and a
curse, with no one
living in it, as at this day.
44:23 Because you have been burning perfumes, and sinning
against the Lord, and
have not given ear to the voice of the
Lord, or gone in the
way of his law or his rules or his orders;
for this reason this
evil has come on you, as it is today.
44:24 Further, Jeremiah said to all the people and all the
women, Give ear to
the word of the Lord, all those of Judah who
are living in Egypt:
44:25 This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: You women have
said with your mouths, and with your hands
you have done what
you said, We will certainly give effect to
the oaths we have
made, to have perfumes burned to the queen of
heaven and drink
offerings drained out to her: then give effect
to your oaths and do
them.
44:26 And now give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of
Judah
who are living in the
land of Egypt: Truly, I have taken an
oath by my great
name, says the Lord, that my name is no longer
to be named in the
mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of
Egypt, saying, By the
life of the Lord God.
44:27 See, I am watching over them for evil and not for
good:
all the men of Judah
who are in the land of Egypt will be
wasted by the sword
and by need of food till there is an end of
them.
44:28 And those who get away safe from the sword will come
back
from the land of
Egypt to the land of Judah, a very small
number; and all the
rest of Judah, who have gone into the land
of Egypt and are
living there, will see whose word has effect,
mine or theirs.
44:29 And this will be the sign to you, says the Lord, that
I
will give you
punishment in this place, so that you may see
that my words will
certainly have effect against you for evil:
44:30 The Lord has said, See, I will give up Pharaoh Hophra,
king of Egypt, into
the hands of those who are fighting against
him and desiring to
take his life, as I gave Zedekiah, king of
Judah, into the hands
of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, his
hater, who had
designs against his life.
45:1 The words which Jeremiah the prophet said to Baruch,
the
son of Neriah, when
he put these words down in a book from the
mouth of Jeremiah, in
the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of
Josiah, king of
Judah; he said,
45:2 This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of
you,
O Baruch:
45:3 You said, Sorrow is mine! for the Lord has given me
sorrow
in addition to my
pain; I am tired with the sound of my sorrow,
and I get no rest.
45:4 This is what you are to say to him: The Lord has said,
Truly, the building
which I put up will be broken down, and
that which was
planted by me will be uprooted, and this through
all the land;
45:5 And as for you, are you looking for great things for
yourself? Have no
desire for them: for truly I will send evil
on all flesh, says
the Lord: but your life I will keep safe
from attack wherever
you go.
46:1 The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet
about the nations.
46:2 Of Egypt: about the army of Pharaoh-neco, king of
Egypt,
which was by the
river Euphrates in Carchemish, which
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, overcame in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, the son of
Josiah, king of Judah.
46:3 Get out the breastplate and body-cover, and come
together
to the fight.
46:4 Make the horses ready, and get up, you horsemen, and
take
your places with your
head-dresses; make the spears sharp and
put on the
breastplates.
46:5 What have I seen? they are overcome with fear and
turned
back; their men of
war are broken and have gone in flight, not
looking back: fear is
on every side, says the Lord.
46:6 Let not the quick-footed go in flight, or the man of
war
get away; on the
north, by the river Euphrates, they are
slipping and falling.
46:7 Who is this coming up like the Nile, whose waters are
lifting their heads
like the rivers?
46:8 Egypt is coming up like the Nile, and his waters are
lifting their heads
like the rivers, and he says, I will go up,
covering the earth; I
will send destruction on the town and its
people.
46:9 Go up, you horses; go rushing on, you carriages of war;
go
out, you men of war:
Cush and Put, gripping the body-cover, and
the Ludim, with bent
bows.
46:10 But that day is the day of the Lord, the Lord of armies,
a
day of punishment
when he will take payment from his haters:
and the sword will
have all its desire, drinking their blood in
full measure: for
there is an offering to the Lord, the Lord of
armies, in the north
country by the river Euphrates.
46:11 Go up to Gilead and take sweet oil, O virgin daughter
of
Egypt: there is no
help in all your medical arts; nothing will
make you well.
46:12 Your shame has come to the ears of the nations, and
the
earth is full of your
cry: for the strong man is falling
against the strong,
they have come down together.
46:13 The word which the Lord said to Jeremiah the prophet,
of
how Nebuchadrezzar,
king of Babylon, would come and make war on
the land of Egypt.
46:14 Give the news in Migdol, make it public in Noph: say,
Take
up your positions and
make yourselves ready; for on every side
of you the sword has
made destruction.
46:15 Why has Apis, your strong one, gone in flight? he was
not
able to keep his
place, because the Lord was forcing him down
with strength.
46:16 ... are stopped in their going, they are falling; and
they
say one to another,
Let us get up and go back to our people, to
the land of our
birth, away from the cruel sword.
46:17 Give a name to Pharaoh, king of Egypt: A noise who has
let
the time go by.
46:18 By my life, says the King, whose name is the Lord of
armies, truly, like
Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel
by the sea, so will
he come.
46:19 O daughter living in Egypt, make ready the vessels of
a
prisoner: for Noph
will become a waste, it will be burned up
and become unpeopled.
46:20 Egypt is a fair young cow; but a biting insect has
come on
her out of the north.
46:21 And those who were her fighters for payment are like
fat
oxen; for they are
turned back, they have gone in flight
together, they do not
keep their place: for the day of their
fate has come on
them, the time of their punishment.
46:22 She makes a sound like the hiss of a snake when they
come
on with strength;
they go against her with axes, like
wood-cutters.
46:23 They will be cutting down her woods, for they may not
be
searched out; because
they are like locusts, more than may be
numbered.
46:24 The daughter of Egypt will be put to shame; she will
be
given up into the
hands of the people of the north.
46:25 The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See,
I
will send punishment
on Amon of No and on Pharaoh and on those
who put their faith
in him;
46:26 And I will give them up into the hands of those who
will
take their lives, and
into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of
Babylon, and into the
hands of his servants: and later, it will
be peopled as in the
past, says the Lord.
46:27 But have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, and do not be
troubled, O Israel:
for see, I will make you come back from far
away, and your seed
from the land where they are prisoners; and
Jacob will come back,
and will be quiet and in peace, and no
one will give him
cause for fear.
46:28 Have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; for
I am
with you: for I will
put an end to all the nations where I have
sent you, but I will
not put an end to you completely: though
with wise purpose I
will put right your errors, and will not
let you go quite
without punishment.
47:1 The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet
about the
Philistines, before Pharaoh's attack on Gaza.
47:2 This is what the Lord has said: See, waters are coming
up
out of the north, and
will become an overflowing stream,
overflowing the land
and everything in it, the town and those
who are living in it;
and men will give a cry, and all the
people of the land
will be crying out in pain.
47:3 At the noise of the stamping of the feet of his
war-horses,
at the rushing of his
carriages and the thunder of his wheels,
fathers will give no
thought to their children, because their
hands are feeble;
47:4 Because of the day which is coming with destruction on
all
the Philistines,
cutting off from Tyre and Zidon the last of
their helpers: for
the Lord will send destruction on the
Philistines, the rest
of the sea-land of Caphtor.
47:5 The hair is cut off from the head of Gaza; Ashkelon has
come to nothing; the
last of the Anakim are deeply wounding
themselves.
47:6 O sword of the Lord, how long will you have no rest?
put
yourself back into
your cover; be at peace, be quiet.
47:7 How is it possible for it to be quiet, seeing that the
Lord
has given it orders?
against Ashkelon and against the sea-land
he has given it directions.
48:1 Of Moab. The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has
said:
Sorrow on Nebo, for
it has been made waste; Kiriathaim has been
put to shame and is
taken: the strong place is put to shame and
broken down.
48:2 The praise of Moab has come to an end; as for Heshbon,
evil
has been designed
against her; come, let us put an end to her
as a nation. But your
mouth will be shut, O Madmen; the sword
will go after you.
48:3 There is the sound of crying from Horonaim, wasting and
great destruction;
48:4 Moab is broken; her cry has gone out to Zoar.
48:5 For by the slope of Luhith they will go up, weeping all
the
way; for on the way
down to Horonaim the cry of destruction has
come to their ears.
48:6 Go in flight, get away with your lives, and let your faces
be turned to Aroer in
the Arabah.
48:7 For because you have put your faith in your strong
places,
you, even you, will
be taken: and Chemosh will go out as a
prisoner, his priests
and his rulers together.
48:8 And the attacker will come against every town, not one
will
be safe; and the
valley will be made waste, and destruction
will come to the
lowland, as the Lord has said.
48:9 Put up a pillar for Moab, for she will come to a
complete
end: and her towns
will become a waste, without anyone living
in them.
48:10 Let him be cursed who does the Lord's work
half-heartedly;
let him be cursed who
keeps back his sword from blood.
48:11 From his earliest days, Moab has been living in
comfort;
like wine long stored
he has not been drained from vessel to
vessel, he has never
gone away as a prisoner: so his taste is
still in him, his
smell is unchanged.
48:12 So truly, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I
will
send to him men who
will have him turned over till there is no
more wine in his
vessels, and his wine-skins will be completely
broken.
48:13 And Moab will be shamed on account of Chemosh, as the
children of Israel
were shamed on account of Beth-el their
hope.
48:14 How say you, We are men of war and strong fighters?
48:15 He who makes Moab waste has gone up against her; and
the
best of her young men
have gone down to their death, says the
King, whose name is
the Lord of armies.
48:16 The fate of Moab is near, and trouble is coming on him
very quickly.
48:17 All you who are round about him, give signs of grief
for
him, and all you who
have knowledge of his name, say, How is
the strong rod
broken, even the beautiful branch!
48:18 Come down from your glory, O people of Dibon, and take
your seat in the
place of the waste; for the attacker of Moab
has gone up against
you, sending destruction on your strong
places.
48:19 O daughter of Aroer, take your station by the way, on
the
watch: questioning
him who is in flight, and her who has got
away safe, say, What
has been done?
48:20 Moab has been put to shame, she is broken: make loud
sounds of grief,
crying out for help; give the news in Arnon,
that Moab has been
made waste.
48:21 And punishment has come on the lowlands; on Holon and
Jahzah, and on
Mephaath,
48:22 And on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth-diblathaim,
48:23 And on Kiriathaim, and on Beth-gamul, and on
Beth-meon,
48:24 And on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the towns of
the
land of Moab, far and
near.
48:25 The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken,
says
the Lord.
48:26 Make him full of wine, for his heart has been lifted
up
against the Lord: and
Moab will be rolling in the food he was
not able to keep
down, and everyone will be making sport of
him.
48:27 For did you not make sport of Israel? was he taken
among
thieves? for whenever
you were talking about him, you were
shaking your head
over him.
48:28 O people of Moab, go away from the towns and take
cover in
the rock; be like the
dove of the Arabah, which makes her
living-place in
holes.
48:29 We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it
is;
how he is lifted up
in pride; and his great opinion of himself,
and that his heart is
lifted up.
48:30 I have knowledge of his wrath, says the Lord, that it
is
nothing; his
high-sounding words have done nothing.
48:31 For this cause I will give cries of grief for Moab,
crying
out for Moab, even
for all of it; I will be sorrowing for the
men of Kir-heres.
48:32 My weeping for you, O vine of Sibmah, will be more
than
the weeping of Jazer:
your branches have gone over the sea,
stretching even to
Jazer: destruction has come down on your
summer fruits and
your cut grapes.
48:33 All joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the
fertile
field and for the
land of Moab; I have made the wine come to an
end from the crushing
vessels: no longer will the grapes be
crushed with the
sound of glad voices.
48:34 The cry of Heshbon comes even to Elealeh; to Jahaz
their
voice is sounding;
from Zoar even to Horonaim and to
Eglath-shelishiyah:
for the waters of Nimrim will become dry.
48:35 And I will put an end in Moab, says the Lord, to him
who
is making offerings
in the high place and burning perfumes to
his gods.
48:36 So my heart is sounding for Moab like the sound of
pipes,
and my heart is
sounding like pipes for the men of Kir-heres:
for the wealth he has
got for himself has come to an end.
48:37 For everywhere the hair of the head and the hair of
the
face is cut off: on
every hand there are wounds, and haircloth
on every body.
48:38 On all the house-tops of Moab and in its streets there
is
weeping everywhere;
for Moab has been broken like a vessel in
which there is no
pleasure, says the Lord.
48:39 How is it broken down! how is Moab's back turned in
shame!
so Moab will be a
cause of sport and of fear to everyone round
about him.
48:40 For the Lord has said, See, he will come like an eagle
in
flight, stretching
out his wings against Moab.
48:41 Kerioth is taken, and the strong places have been
forced,
and the hearts of
Moab's men of war in that day will be like
the heart of a woman
in birth-pains.
48:42 And Moab will come to an end as a people, because he
has
been lifting himself
up against the Lord.
48:43 Fear and death and the net have come on you, O people
of
Moab, says the Lord.
48:44 He who goes in flight from the fear will be overtaken
by
death; and he who
gets free from death will be taken in the
net: for I will make
this come on Moab, even the year of their
punishment, says the
Lord.
48:45 Those who went in flight from the fear are waiting
under
the shade of Heshbon:
for a fire has gone out from Heshbon and
a flame from the
house of Sihon, burning up the pride of Moab
and the crown of the
head of the violent ones.
48:46 Sorrow is yours, O Moab! the people of Chemosh are
overcome: for your
sons have been taken away as prisoners, and
your daughters made
servants.
48:47 But still, I will let the fate of Moab be changed in
the
last days, says the
Lord.
49:1 About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the
Lord: Has Israel no
sons? has he no one to take the heritage?
why then has Milcom
taken Gad for himself, putting his people
in its towns?
49:2 Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will
have
a cry of war sounded
against Rabbah, the town of the children
of Ammon; it will
become a waste of broken walls, and her
daughter-towns will
be burned with fire: then Israel will take
the heritage of those
who took his heritage, says the Lord.
49:3 Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give
loud cries, O
daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you:
give yourselves to
weeping, running here and there and wounding
yourselves; for
Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his
rulers and his
priests.
49:4 Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your
valleys,
your flowing valley,
O daughter ever turning away? who puts her
faith in her wealth,
saying, Who will come against me?
49:5 See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord
of
armies, from those
who are round you on every side; you will be
forced out, every man
straight before him, and there will be no
one to get together
the wanderers.
49:6 But after these things, I will let the fate of the
children
of Ammon be changed,
says the Lord.
49:7 About Edom. This is what the Lord of armies has said.
Is
there no more wisdom
in Teman? have wise suggestions come to an
end among men of good
sense? has their wisdom completely gone?
49:8 Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you
who
are living in Dedan;
for I will send the fate of Edom on him,
even the time of his
punishment.
49:9 If men came to get your grapes, would they not let some
be
uncut on the vines?
if thieves came by night, would they not
make waste till they
had enough?
49:10 I have had Esau searched out, uncovering his secret
places, so that he
may not keep himself covered: his seed is
wasted and has come
to an end, and there is no help from his
neighbours.
49:11 Put in my care your children who have no father, and I
will keep them safe;
and let your widows put their faith in me.
49:12 For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not
made
ready will certainly
be forced to take of it; and are you to go
without punishment?
you will not be without punishment, but
will certainly be
forced to take from the cup.
49:13 For I have taken an oath by myself, says the Lord,
that
Bozrah will become a
cause of wonder, a name of shame, a waste
and a curse; and all
its towns will be waste places for ever.
49:14 Word has come to me from the Lord, and a
representative
has been sent to the
nations, to say, Come together and go up
against her, and take
your places for the fight.
49:15 For see, I have made you small among the nations,
looked
down on by men.
49:16 ... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O
you
who are living in the
cracks of the rock, keeping your place on
the top of the hill:
even if you made your living-place as high
as the eagle, I would
make you come down, says the Lord.
49:17 And Edom will become a cause of wonder: everyone who
goes
by will be overcome
with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all
her punishments.
49:18 As at the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah and their
neighbouring towns,
says the Lord, no man will be living in it,
no son of man will
have a resting-place there.
49:19 See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth
of
Jordan against the
resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly
make him go in flight
from her; and I will put over her the man
of my selection: for
who is like me? and who will put forward
his cause against me?
and what keeper of sheep will be able to
keep his place before
me?
49:20 For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord
which
he has made against
Edom, and to his purposes designed against
the people of Teman:
Truly, they will be pulled away by the
smallest of the
flock; truly, he will make waste their fields
with them.
49:21 The earth is shaking with the noise of their fall;
their
cry is sounding in
the Red Sea.
49:22 See, he will come up like an eagle in flight,
stretching
out his wings against
Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of
war on that day will
be like the heart of a woman in
birth-pains.
49:23 About Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for
the
word of evil has come
to their ears, their heart in its fear is
turned to water, it
will not be quiet.
49:24 Damascus has become feeble, she is turned to flight,
fear
has taken her in its
grip: pain and sorrows have come on her,
as on a woman in
birth-pains.
49:25 How has the town of praise been wasted, the place of
joy!
49:26 So her young men will be falling in her streets, and
all
the men of war will
be cut off in that day, says the Lord of
armies.
49:27 And I will have a fire lighted on the wall of
Damascus,
burning up the great
houses of Ben-hadad.
49:28 About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which
Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, overcame. This is what the
Lord has said: Up! go
against Kedar, and make an attack on the
children of the east.
49:29 Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will
take away for
themselves their curtains and all their vessels
and their camels:
they will give a cry to them, Fear on every
side.
49:30 Go in flight, go wandering far off, take cover in deep
places, O people of
Hazor, says the Lord; for Nebuchadrezzar,
king of Babylon, has
made a design against you, he has a
purpose against you
in mind.
49:31 Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and
without fear of
danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks,
living by themselves.
49:32 And their camels will be taken from them by force, and
their great herds
will come into the hands of their attackers:
those who have the
ends of their hair cut I will send in flight
to all the winds; and
I will send their fate on them from every
side, says the Lord.
49:33 And Hazor will be a hole for jackals, a waste for
ever: no
one will be living in
it, and no son of man will have a
resting-place there.
49:34 The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the
prophet
about Elam, when
Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,
49:35 This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will
have
the bow of Elam,
their chief strength, broken.
49:36 And I will send on Elam four winds from the four
quarters
of heaven, driving
them out to all those winds; there will be
no nation into which
the wanderers from Elam do not come.
49:37 And I will let Elam be broken before their haters, and
before those who are
making designs against their lives: I will
send evil on them,
even my burning wrath, says the Lord; and I
will send the sword
after them till I have put an end to them:
49:38 I will put the seat of my power in Elam, and in Elam I
will put an end to
kings and rulers, says the Lord.
49:39 But it will come about that, in the last days, I will
let
the fate of Elam be changed,
says the Lord.
50:1 The word which the Lord said about Babylon, about the
land
of the Chaldaeans, by
Jeremiah the prophet.
50:2 Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let
the
flag be lifted up;
give the word and keep nothing back; say,
Babylon is taken, Bel
is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her
images are put to
shame, her gods are broken.
50:3 For out of the north a nation is coming up against her,
which will make her
land waste and unpeopled: they are in
flight, man and beast
are gone.
50:4 In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the
children
of Israel will come,
they and the children of Judah together;
they will go on their
way weeping and making prayer to the Lord
their God.
50:5 They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with
their
faces turned in its
direction, saying, Come, and be united to
the Lord in an
eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for
ever.
50:6 My people have been wandering sheep: their keepers have
made them go out of
the right way, turning them loose on the
mountains: they have
gone from mountain to hill, having no
memory of their
resting-place.
50:7 They have been attacked by all those who came across
them:
and their attackers
said, We are doing no wrong, because they
have done evil
against the Lord in whom is righteousness,
against the Lord, the
hope of their fathers.
50:8 Go in flight out of Babylon, go out of the land of the
Chaldaeans, and be
like he-goats before the flocks.
50:9 For see, I am moving and sending up against Babylon a
band
of great nations from
the north country: and they will put
their armies in
position against her; and from there she will
be taken: their
arrows will be like those of an expert man of
war; not one will
come back without getting its mark.
50:10 And the wealth of Chaldaea will come into the hands of
her
attackers: all those
who take her wealth will have enough, says
the Lord.
50:11 Because you are glad, because you are lifted up with
pride, you wasters of
my heritage, because you are playing like
a young cow put out
to grass, and you make a noise like strong
horses;
50:12 Your mother will be put to shame; she who gave you
birth
will be looked down
on: see, she will be the last of the
nations, a waste
place, a dry and unwatered land.
50:13 Because of the wrath of the Lord no one will be living
in
it, and it will be
quite unpeopled: everyone who goes by
Babylon will be
overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear
at all her
punishments.
50:14 Put your armies in position against Babylon on every
side,
all you bowmen; let
loose your arrows at her, not keeping any
back: for she has
done evil against the Lord.
50:15 Give a loud cry against her on every side; she has
given
herself up, her
supports are overturned, her walls are broken
down: for it is the
payment taken by the Lord; give her
payment; as she has
done, so do to her.
50:16 Let the planter of seed be cut off from Babylon, and
everyone using the
curved blade at the time of the
grain-cutting: for
fear of the cruel sword, everyone will be
turned to his people,
everyone will go in flight to his land.
50:17 Israel is a wandering sheep; the lions have been
driving
him away: first he
was attacked by the king of Assyria, and now
his bones have been
broken by Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.
50:18 So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel,
has
said: See, I will
send punishment on the king of Babylon and on
his land, as I have
given punishment to the king of Assyria.
50:19 And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place,
and
he will get his food
on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire
in full measure on
the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.
50:20 In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the
evil-doing of Israel
is looked for, there will be nothing; and
in Judah no sins will
be seen: for I will have forgiveness for
those whom I will
keep safe.
50:21 Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it,
and
against the people of
Pekod; put them to death and send
destruction after
them, says the Lord, and do everything I have
given you orders to
do.
50:22 There is a sound of war in the land and of great
destruction.
50:23 How is the hammer of all the earth cut in two and
broken!
how has Babylon
become a waste among the nations!
50:24 I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O
Babylon, without your
knowledge: you have been uncovered and
taken because you
were fighting against the Lord.
50:25 From his store-house the Lord has taken the
instruments of
his wrath: for the
Lord, the Lord of armies, has a work to do
in the land of the
Chaldaeans.
50:26 Come up against her one and all, let her store-houses
be
broken open: make her
into a mass of stones, give her to the
curse, till there is
nothing of her to be seen.
50:27 Put all her oxen to the sword; let them go down to
death:
sorrow is theirs, for
their day has come, the time of their
punishment.
50:28 The voice of those who are in flight, who have got
away
safe from the land of
Babylon, to give news in Zion of
punishment from the
Lord our God, even payment for his Temple.
50:29 Send for the archers to come together against Babylon,
all
the bowmen; put up
your tents against her on every side; let no
one get away: give
her the reward of her work; as she has done,
so do to her: for she
has been uplifted in pride against the
Lord, against the
Holy One of Israel.
50:30 For this cause her young men will be falling in her
streets, and all her
men of war will be cut off in that day,
says the Lord.
50:31 See, I am against you, O pride, says the Lord, the
Lord of
armies, for your day
has come, the time when I will send
punishment on you.
50:32 And pride will go with uncertain steps and have a
fall,
and there will be no one
to come to his help: and I will put a
fire in his towns,
burning up everything round about him.
50:33 This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children
of
Israel and the
children of Judah are crushed down together: all
those who took them
prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they
will not let them go.
50:34 Their saviour is strong; the Lord of armies is his
name:
he will certainly
take up their cause, so that he may give rest
to the earth and
trouble to the people of Babylon.
50:35 A sword is on the Chaldaeans, says the Lord, and on
the
people of Babylon,
and on her rulers and on her wise men.
50:36 A sword is on the men of pride, and they will become
foolish: a sword is
on her men of war, and they will be broken.
50:37 A sword is on all the mixed people in her, and they
will
become like women: a
sword is on her store-houses, and they
will be taken by her
attackers.
50:38 A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a
land
of images, and their
minds are fixed on false gods.
50:39 For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the
wolves will make
their holes there and the ostriches will be
living in it: never
again will men be living there, it will be
unpeopled from
generation to generation.
50:40 As when Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring
towns
were overturned by
God, says the Lord, so no man will be living
in it, and no son of
man will have a resting-place there.
50:41 See, a people is coming from the north; a great nation
and
a number of kings
will be put in motion from the inmost parts
of the earth.
50:42 Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and
have no mercy; their
voice is like the thunder of the sea, and
they go on horses;
everyone in his place like men going to the
fight, against you, O
daughter of Babylon.
50:43 The king of Babylon has had news of them, and his
hands
have become feeble:
trouble has come on him and pain like the
pain of a woman in
childbirth.
50:44 See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth
of
Jordan against the
resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly
make them go in
flight from her; and I will put over her the
man of my selection:
for who is like me? and who will put
forward his cause
against me? and what keeper of sheep will
keep his place before
me?
50:45 So give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has
made
against Babylon, and
to his purposes designed against the land
of the Chaldaeans;
Truly, they will be pulled away by the
smallest of the
flock; truly, he will make waste their fields
with them.
50:46 At the cry, Babylon is taken! the earth is shaking,
and
the cry comes to the
ears of the nations.
51:1 The Lord has said: See, I will make a wind of
destruction
come up against
Babylon and against those who are living in
Chaldaea;
51:2 And I will send men to Babylon to make her clean and
get
her land cleared: for
in the day of trouble they will put up
their tents against
her on every side.
51:3 Against her the bow of the archer is bent, and he puts
on
his coat of metal:
have no mercy on her young men, give all her
army up to the curse.
51:4 And the dead will be stretched out in the land of the
Chaldaeans, and the
wounded in her streets.
51:5 For Israel has not been given up, or Judah, by his God,
by
the Lord of armies;
for their land is full of sin against the
Holy One of Israel.
51:6 Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep
his
life; do not be cut
off in her evil-doing: for it is the time
of the Lord's
punishment; he will give her her reward.
51:7 Babylon has been a gold cup in the hand of the Lord,
which
has made all the
earth overcome with wine: the nations have
taken of her wine,
and for this cause the nations have gone off
their heads.
51:8 Sudden is the downfall of Babylon and her destruction:
make
cries of grief for
her; take sweet oil for her pain, if it is
possible for her to
be made well.
51:9 We would have made Babylon well, but she is not made
well:
give her up, and let
us go everyone to his country: for her
punishment is
stretching up to heaven, and lifted up even to
the skies.
51:10 The Lord has made clear our righteousness: come, and
let
us give an account in
Zion of the work of the Lord our God.
51:11 Make bright the arrows; take up the body-covers: the
Lord
has been moving the
spirit of the king of the Medes; because
his design against
Babylon is its destruction: for it is the
punishment from the
Lord, the payment for his Temple.
51:12 Let the flag be lifted up against the walls of
Babylon,
make the watch strong,
put the watchmen in their places, make
ready a surprise
attack: for it is the Lord's purpose, and he
has done what he said
about the people of Babylon.
51:13 O you whose living-place is by the wide waters, whose
stores are great,
your end is come, your evil profit is ended.
51:14 The Lord of armies has taken an oath by himself,
saying,
Truly, I will make
you full with men as with locusts, and their
voices will be loud
against you.
51:15 He has made the earth by his power, he has made the
world
strong in its place
by his wisdom, and by his wise design the
heavens have been
stretched out:
51:16 At the sound of his voice there is a massing of the
waters
in the heavens, and
he makes the mists go up from the ends of
the earth; he makes
the thunder-flames for the rain and sends
out the wind from his
store-houses.
51:17 Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge;
every gold-worker is
put to shame by the image he has made: for
his metal image is
deceit, and there is no breath in them.
51:18 They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of
their
punishment,
destruction will overtake them.
51:19 The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker
of
all things is his
heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.
51:20 You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with
you
the nations will be
broken; with you kingdoms will be broken;
51:21 With you the horse and the horseman will be broken;
with
you the war-carriage
and he who goes in it will be broken;
51:22 With you man and woman will be broken; with you the
old
man and the boy will
be broken; with you the young man and the
virgin will be
broken;
51:23 With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be
broken, and with you
the farmer and his oxen will be broken,
and with you captains
and rulers will be broken.
51:24 And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of
Chaldaea, their
reward for all the evil they have done in Zion
before your eyes,
says the Lord.
51:25 See, I am against you, says the Lord, O mountain of
destruction, causing
the destruction of all the earth: and my
hand will be
stretched out on you, rolling you down from the
rocks, and making you
a burned mountain.
51:26 And they will not take from you a stone for the angle
of a
wall or the base of a
building; but you will be a waste place
for ever, says the
Lord.
51:27 Let a flag be lifted up in the land, let the horn be
sounded among the
nations, make the nations ready against her;
get the kingdoms of
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together
against her, make
ready a scribe against her; let the horses
come up against her
like massed locusts.
51:28 Make the nations ready for war against her, the king
of
the Medes and his
rulers and all his captains, and all the land
under his rule.
51:29 And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes
of
the Lord are fixed,
to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled
waste.
51:30 Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight,
waiting in their
strong places; their strength has given way,
they have become like
women: her houses have been put on fire,
her locks are broken.
51:31 One man, running, will give word to another, and one
who
goes with news will
be handing it on to another, to give word
to the king of
Babylon that his town has been taken from every
quarter:
51:32 And the ways across the river have been taken, and the
water-holes ...
burned with fire, and the men of war are in the
grip of fear.
51:33 For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God
of
Israel: The daughter
of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it
is stamped down;
before long, the time of her grain-cutting
will come.
51:34 Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a meal of
me,
violently crushing
me, he has made me a vessel with nothing in
it, he has taken me
in his mouth like a dragon, he has made his
stomach full with my
delicate flesh, crushing me with his
teeth.
51:35 May the violent things done to me, and my downfall,
come
on Babylon, the
daughter of Zion will say; and, May my blood be
on the people of
Chaldaea, Jerusalem will say.
51:36 For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give
support to your
cause, and take payment for what you have
undergone; I will
make her sea dry, and her fountain without
water.
51:37 And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole
for
jackals, a cause of
wonder and surprise, without a living man
in it.
51:38 They will be crying out together like lions, their
voices
will be like the
voices of young lions.
51:39 When they are heated, I will make a feast for them,
and
overcome them with
wine, so that they may become unconscious,
sleeping an eternal
sleep without awaking, says the Lord.
51:40 I will make them go down to death like lambs, like
he-goats together.
51:41 How is Babylon taken! and the praise of all the earth
surprised! how has
Babylon become a cause of wonder among the
nations!
51:42 The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with
the
mass of its waves.
51:43 Her towns have become a waste, a dry and unwatered
land,
where no man has his
living-place and no son of man goes by.
51:44 And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take
out
of his mouth what
went into it; no longer will the nations be
flowing together to
him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come
down.
51:45 My people, go out from her, and let every man get away
safe from the burning
wrath of the Lord.
51:46 So that your hearts may not become feeble and full of
fear
because of the news which
will go about in the land; for a
story will go about
one year, and after that in another year
another story, and
violent acts in the land, ruler against
ruler.
51:47 For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will
send punishment on
the images of Babylon, and all her land will
be shamed, and her
dead will be falling down in her.
51:48 And the heaven and the earth and everything in them,
will
make a song of joy
over Babylon: for those who make her waste
will come from the
north, says the Lord.
51:49 As Babylon had the dead of Israel put to the sword, so
in
Babylon the dead of
all the land will be stretched out.
51:50 You who have got away safe from the sword, go, waiting
for
nothing; have the
Lord in memory when you are far away, and
keep Jerusalem in
mind.
51:51 We are shamed because bitter words have come to our
ears;
our faces are covered
with shame: for men from strange lands
have come into the
holy places of the Lord's house.
51:52 For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the
Lord,
when I will send
punishment on her images; and through all her
land the wounded will
be crying out in pain.
51:53 Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she
had
the high places of
her strength shut in with walls, still I
would send against
her those who will make her waste, says the
Lord.
51:54 There is the sound of a cry from Babylon, and of a
great
destruction from the
land of the Chaldaeans:
51:55 For the Lord is making Babylon waste, and putting an
end
to the great voice
coming out of her; and her waves are
thundering like great
waters, their voice is sounding loud:
51:56 For the waster has come on her, even on Babylon, and
her
men of war are taken,
their bows are broken: for the Lord is a
rewarding God, and he
will certainly give payment.
51:57 And I will make her chiefs and her wise men, her
rulers
and her captains and
her men of war, overcome with wine; their
sleep will be an
eternal sleep without awaking, says the King;
the Lord of armies is
his name.
51:58 The Lord of armies has said: The wide walls of Babylon
will be completely
uncovered and her high doorways will be
burned with fire; so
peoples keep on working for nothing, and
the weariness of
nations comes to an end in the smoke.
51:59 The order which Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah,
the
son of Neriah, the
son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah,
the king of Judah, to
Babylon in the fourth year of his rule.
Now Seraiah was the
chief controller of the house.
51:60 And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to
come
on Babylon.
51:61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to
Babylon,
see that you give
them all these words;
51:62 And after reading them, say, O Lord, you have said
about
this place that it is
to be cut off, so that no one will be
living in it, not a
man or a beast, but it will be unpeopled
for ever.
51:63 And it will be that, when you have come to an end of
reading this book,
you are to have a stone fixed to it, and
have it dropped into
the Euphrates:
51:64 And you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to
be
lifted up again,
because of the evil which I will send on her:
and weariness will
overcome them. So far, these are the words
of Jeremiah.
52:1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king;
he
was king for eleven
years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name
was Hamutal, the
daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
52:2 And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim
had
done.
52:3 And because of the wrath of the Lord this came about in
Jerusalem and Judah,
till he had sent them away from before
him: and Zedekiah
took up arms against the king of Babylon.
52:4 And in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of
the
tenth month,
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came against
Jerusalem with all
his army and took up his position before it,
building earthworks
all round it.
52:5 So the town was shut in by their forces till the
eleventh
year of King
Zedekiah.
52:6 In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the
store of food in the
town was almost gone, so that there was no
food for the people
of the land.
52:7 Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and
all
the men of war went
in flight out of the town by night through
the doorway between
the two walls which was by the king's
garden; (now the
Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and
they went by the way
of the Arabah.
52:8 And the Chaldaean army went after King Zedekiah and
overtook him on the
other side of Jericho, and all his army
went in flight from
him in every direction.
52:9 Then they made the king a prisoner and took him up to
the
king of Babylon to
Riblah in the land of Hamath to be judged.
52:10 And the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to
death
before his eyes: and
he put to death all the rulers of Judah in
Riblah.
52:11 And he put out Zedekiah's eyes; and the king of
Babylon,
chaining him in iron
bands, took him to Babylon, and put him in
prison till the day
of his death.
52:12 Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month,
in
the nineteenth year
of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon,
Nebuzaradan, the
captain of the armed men, a servant of the
king of Babylon, came
into Jerusalem.
52:13 And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house
and
all the houses of
Jerusalem, even every great house, burned
with fire:
52:14 And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the
Chaldaean army which
was with the captain.
52:15 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took
away
as prisoners the rest
of the people who were still in the town,
and those who had
given themselves up to the king of Babylon,
and the rest of the
workmen.
52:16 But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the
poorest of the land
go on living there, to take care of the
vines and the fields.
52:17 And the brass pillars which were in the house of the
Lord,
and the wheeled bases
and the great brass water-vessel in the
house of the Lord,
were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took
all the brass away to
Babylon.
52:18 And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the
lights and the
spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the
Lord's house, they
took away.
52:19 And the cups and the fire-trays and the basins and the
pots and the supports
for the lights and the spoons and the
wide basins; the gold
of the gold vessels, and the silver of
the silver vessels,
the captain of the armed men took away.
52:20 The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the
twelve
brass oxen which were
under it, and the ten wheeled bases,
which King Solomon
had made for the house of the Lord: the
brass of all these
vessels was without weight.
52:21 And as for the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits
high, and twelve
cubits measured all round, and it was as thick
as a man's hand: it
was hollow.
52:22 And there was a crown of brass on it: the crown was
five
cubits high, circled
with a network and apples all of brass;
and the second pillar
had the same.
52:23 There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the
number of
apples all round the
network was a hundred.
52:24 And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the
chief
priest, and
Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three
door-keepers;
52:25 And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was
over
the men of war, and
seven of the king's near friends who were
in the town, and the
scribe of the captain of the army, who was
responsible for
getting the people of the land together in
military order, and
sixty men of the people of the land who
were in the town.
52:26 These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took
with
him to the king of
Babylon at Riblah.
52:27 And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in
the
land of Hamath. So
Judah was taken prisoner away from his land.
52:28 These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took away
prisoner: in the
seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three
Jews:
52:29 And in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took
away
as prisoners from
Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two
persons:
52:30 In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar,
Nebuzaradan,
the captain of the
armed men, took away as prisoners seven
hundred and
forty-five of the Jews: all the persons were four
thousand and six
hundred.
52:31 And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king
of
Judah, had been taken
prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the
twenty-fifth day of
the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon,
in the first year
after he became king, took Jehoiachin, king
of Judah, out of
prison.
52:32 And he said kind words to him and put his seat higher
than
the seats of the
other kings who were with him in Babylon.
52:33 And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a
guest at
the king's table
every day for the rest of his life.
52:34 And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount
every
day till the day of his death, for the rest of his life.