This message from the LORD came to him during the thirteenth year of the reign of Ammon's son Josiah, the king of Judah,

This message from the LORD came to me:

'Before I form thee in the belly, I have known thee; and before thou comest forth from the womb I have separated thee, a prophet to nations I have made thee.'

This message from the LORD came to me, asking, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I replied, "I see an almond branch."

And the word of Jehovah came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a boiling caldron; and the face thereof is from the north.

And Jehovah saith unto me, 'From the north is the evil loosed against all inhabitants of the land.

because I'm about to summon all the families and kingdoms from the north," declares the LORD. "They'll come and each one will set up his seat at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all of its surrounding walls, and against all of the towns of Judah.

And thou shalt gird thy loins and rise and speak to them all that I shall command thee: thou shalt not be terrified from their face lest I shall break thee before them.

This message from the LORD came to me:

“Israel was holy [something set apart from ordinary purposes, consecrated] to the Lord,
The first fruits of His harvest [in which no outsider was allowed to share].
All who ate of it [injuring Israel] became guilty;
Evil came on them,” says the Lord.’”

Listen to this message from the LORD, you descendants of Jacob and all the families of the descendants of Israel.

Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

And they did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh, the one who brought us up from the land of Egypt, the one who led us in the desert, in a land of desert plains and gorges, in a land of dryness and deep darkness, in a land {that no one passes through}, and no human lives there?'

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.

Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?

Upon him the young lions roared, they gave their voice, they will set his land for a desolation: his cities were burned from not being inhabited.

Also, people from Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken your skull.

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?

For from of old thou hast broken thy yoke, Drawn away thy bands, and sayest, 'I do not serve,' For, on every high height, and under every green tree, Thou art wandering -- a harlot.

I planted you, a choice vine
from the very best seed.
How then could you turn into
a degenerate, foreign vine?

Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.

They say to a wooden idol, 'You are my father.' They say to a stone image, 'You gave birth to me.' Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. Yet when they are in trouble, they say, 'Come and save us!'

And where thy gods which thou didst make to thee? they will arise, if they shall save thee in the time of thine evil: for from the numbering of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah.

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.

"You, generation, pay attention to this message from the LORD! Am I the desert to Israel, or a land of gloom? Why do my people say, "We're free to roam? We won't come to you anymore.'

“How well you prepare your path
To seek and obtain [adulterous] love!
Even the most wicked of women
Have learned [indecent] ways from you.

Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

Why do you constantly go about changing your political allegiances? You will get no help from Egypt just as you got no help from Assyria.

Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them.

They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?

Wilt thou then put me away and cast me off for ever? Or wilt thou withdraw thyself clean from me?' Nevertheless, thou speakest such words, but thou art ever doing worse and worse."

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.

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.

And it hath come to pass, from the vileness of her fornication, that the land is defiled, and she committeth fornication with stone and with wood.

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.

‘Return, O faithless children [of the twelve tribes],’ says the Lord,
‘For I am a master and husband to you,
And I will take you [not as a nation, but individually]—one from a city and two from a [tribal] family—
And I will bring you to Zion.’

Moreover, when ye be increased and multiplied in the land, then, sayeth the LORD, there shall no more boast be made of the ark of the LORD's Covenant: No man shall think upon it, neither shall any man make mention of it: for from thenceforth it shall neither be visited, nor honored with gifts.

Then shall Jerusalem be called the LORD's seat, and all Heathen shall be gathered unto it, for the name of the LORD's sake, which shall be set up at Jerusalem. And from that time forth, they shall follow no more the imagination of their own froward heart.

In those days do the house of Judah Go unto the house of Israel, And they come together from the land of the south, unto the land That I caused your fathers to inherit.

But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.

Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.

Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

If thou dost turn back, O Israel, An affirmation of Jehovah, unto Me turn back, And if thou dost turn aside Thine abominations from My face, Then thou dost not bemoan.

Be circumcised to Jehovah, and remove the uncircumcision of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath shall come forth as fire, and burn, and none quenching it from the face of the evil of your doings.

Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.

At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;

Even a full wind from those places shall come unto me: now also will I give sentence against them.

O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.

Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

Like watchers of a field they were against her from all around, because she has rebelled against me," {declares} Yahweh.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I saw, and behold, Carmel a desert, and all its cities were broken down from the face of Jehovah, from the face of the heat of his anger.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

From the voice of the horseman, And of him shooting with the bow, all the city is fleeing, They have come into thickets, And on cliffs they have gone up, All the city is forsaken, And there is no one dwelling in them.

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.

O Jehovah, are not thine eyes upon faithfulness? thou didst smite them, and they were not pained; thou didst consume them, they refused to take instruction: they made their faces firm above the rock; they refused to turn back.

Therefore a lion from [the] forest will kill them, A wolf [from the] desert plains will devastate them. A leopard [is] watching their cities, everyone [who] goes out from there will be torn, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.

Me do ye not fear, an affirmation of Jehovah? From My presence are ye not pained? Who hath made sand the border of the sea, A limit age-during, and it passeth not over it, They shake themselves, and they are not able, Yea, sounded have its billows, and they pass not over.

‘But this people has a stubborn heart and a rebellious will [that draws them away from Me];
They have turned away and have gone [into idolatry].

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

hereof are they fat and wealthy, and are run away from me with shameful blasphemies. They minister not the law, they make no end of the fatherless cause, they judge not the poor according to equity.

Am I not to give punishment for these things? says the Lord: will not my soul take payment from such a nation as this?

Flee for safety, ye children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth-haccherem; for evil looketh forth from the north, and a great destruction.

Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

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.

To whom will I speak and give a warning so they'll listen? Look, their ears are closed, and they cannot hear. Look, this message from the LORD is contemptible to them; they don't delight in it.

For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

And therefore thus sayeth the LORD, 'Behold, I will make this people fall, and there shall fall from among them the father with the children; one neighbour shall perish with another.'"

Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.

Thou shalt not go forth to the field, and thou shalt not go by the way; for the sword to the enemy, fear from round about.

The bellows are burnt in the fire, the lead is consumed, the melter melteth in vain, for the evil is not taken away from them.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

"Stand at the gate of the LORD's Temple and proclaim this message there. Say, "Listen to this message from the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD.'"

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:

then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore.

But go now to my place which is in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell there at the first, and see what I did to it from the face of the evil of my people Israel.

And I have cast you from before My face, As I have cast out all your brethren, The whole seed of Ephraim.

For I did not speak with your ancestors, nor did I command them in the day of bringing them out from the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offering and sacrifice.

Even from the day when your fathers Went out of the land of Egypt till this day, I send to you all my servants the prophets, Daily rising early and sending,

But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

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.

For this, behold, the days coming, says Jehovah, and it shall no more be said, Tophet, and The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: and they buried in Tophet, from not being place.

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

“At that time,” says the Lord, “they [the Babylonian army] will bring out from their graves the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. These are things they adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground.

And death was chosen above life to all the remnant of those being left from this evil family, in all the places being left where I cast them out there, says Jehovah of armies.

“Moreover [Jeremiah], you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord,

“Do men fall and not rise up again?
Does one turn away [from God] and not repent and return [to Him]?

“Why then has this people of Jerusalem
Turned away with a perpetual turning away [from Me]?
They hold tightly to deceit (idolatry);
They refuse to repent and return [to God].

The wise men will be put to shame. They'll be dismayed and taken captive. Look, they have rejected the message from the LORD! So what kind of wisdom do they have?

Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.