They sowed wheat and they reaped thorns: they were wearied, they shall not profit; and they were ashamed of your gains from the burning of the anger of Jehovah.

And it was if learning, they shall learn the ways of my people to swear in my name, Jehovah lives; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; and they were built up in the midst of my people.

So I went to Perath and dug up the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

The cities of the south were shut up and none opened: Judah was carried away captive, it was all carried away captive, the whole of them.

Look up and see
those coming from the north.
Where is the flock entrusted to you,
the sheep that were your pride?

And if thou shalt say in thy heart, Wherefore did these things befal me? for the multitude of thine iniquities thy skirts were uncovered, thy heel treated with violence.

Judah mourned and her gates languished; they were darkened to the earth, and the outcry of Jerusalem went up.

And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

If our iniquities answered against us, O Jehovah, do for sake of thy name: for our turnings back were many; we sinned against thee.

You have been the object of Israel's hopes. You have saved them when they were in trouble. Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land? Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night?

Why wilt thou make thyself a coward, and as it were a giant that yet may not help? For thou art ours, O LORD, and we bear thy name; therefore forsake us not."

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.

Then the LORD told me, "Even if Moses and Samuel were standing before me, I wouldn't be favorably disposed toward this people. Send them out of my presence! Let them go!

Their widows were many to me above the sand of the seas: I brought to them against the mother a young man laying waste at noon: I caused to fall upon her suddenly wrath and terror.

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.

Wherefore was my pain everlasting and my blow incurable, refusing to be healed? Being, wilt thou be to me as falsehood, the waters were not faithful?

For mine eyes are upon all their ways, and they were not hid from my face, and their iniquity was not concealed from before mine eyes.

They will be like a shrub in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd,
and I have not longed for the fatal day.
You know my words were spoken in Your presence.

But they didn't listen, nor did they pay attention. They were determined not to listen and not to accept instruction.

Then said they, "Come, let us imagine something against this Jeremiah." Yea, this did even the priests, to whom the law was committed: the Senators, that were the wisest: and the prophets, which wanted not the word of God. "Come," said they, "let us cut out his tongue, and let us not regard his words."

Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, 'I will do just as Jeremiah has done. I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter's vessel which is broken beyond repair. The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.'

And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah were defiled as the place of Tophet to all the houses which they burnt incense upon their roofs to all the army of the heavens, and pouring out libations to other gods

"This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: "I'm about to bring on this city and all its towns all the disaster that I declared against it because they were determined not to obey my message.'"

Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.

And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain .

For why? I heard so many derisions and blasphemies, yea even of my own companions, and such as were conversant with me: which went about, to make me afraid, saying, "Upon him; let us go upon him, to fear him, and make him hold his tongue: that we may overcome him, and be avenged of him."

And Jehovah is with me as a strong terrible one: for this, they pursuing shall be weak, and they shall not prevail; they were greatly ashamed, for they prospered not; perpetual shame shall not be forgotten.

Go up to Lebanon and cry, and in Basilan thou shalt give thy voice and cry from the passages, for all they loving thee were broken.

I spoke to you {in the times you were secure}, [and] you said, 'I will not listen!' This [was] your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed my voice.

As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;

And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die.

A grief -- a despised broken thing -- is this man Coniah? A vessel in which there is no pleasure? Wherefore have they been cast up and down, He and his seed, Yea, they were cast on to a land that they knew not?

The Lord says, "Enroll this man in the register as though he were childless. Enroll him as a man who will not enjoy success during his lifetime. For none of his sons will succeed in occupying the throne of David or ever succeed in ruling over Judah."

The Lord says, "The leaders of my people are sure to be judged. They were supposed to watch over my people like shepherds watch over their sheep. But they are causing my people to be destroyed and scattered.

And I will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands where I thrust them away there, and I turned them back to their rests, and they were fruitful and multiplied.

For the prophets my heart was broken in the midst of me, and all my bones were relaxed; I was as a man intoxicated, and as a man wine passing over him, from the face of Jehovah, and from the face of the words of his holiness.

For the land was filled from adulteries, for from the face of these the land mourned, the beautiful things of the desert were dried up, and their race will be evil, and their strength not right

For also the prophets, also the priests were polluted; also in my house I found their evil, says Jehovah.

And in the prophets of Jerusalem I saw a horrible thing, committing adultery and going in falsehood: and they strengthened the hands of those doing evil, they turned not back a man from his evil: they were to me all of them as Sodom, and those dwelling in her as Gomorrah.

I did not send those prophets. Yet they were in a hurry to give their message. I did not tell them anything. Yet they prophesied anyway.

The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

And I gave to them a heart to know me, that I am Jehovah: and they were to me for a people, and I will be to them for God: for they shall turn back to me with all their heart

So the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the people who were living in Jerusalem.

And it was when seventy years were filled up, I will review over the king of Babel and upon this nation, says Jehovah, their iniquity, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, and I set it for eternal desolations

And they drank and they staggered, and they were mad from the face of the sword which I sent in the midst of them.

Jerusalem and the cities of Judah [being most guilty because their privileges were greatest], its kings and princes, to make them a horror, a ruin, a hissing and a curse, as it is to this day;

And the wounded of Jehovah were in that day from the extremity of the earth and even to the extremity of the earth: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

Wail, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves, ye chiefs of the flocks; for your days for slaughter and your dispersions were filled up, and ye fell as a vessel of desire.

And the dwellings of peace were destroyed from the face of the burning of the anger of Jehovah.

Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant? And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

And when all the people were gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the LORD, the princes of Judah heard of this rumor, and they came soon out of the king's Palace into the house of the LORD, and sat them down before the new door of the LORD.

I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim's son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.' Indeed, the Lord affirms, 'I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.'"

Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes of all the people who were standing in the house of Yahweh,

and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord confirm and fulfill your words which you have prophesied to bring back the articles of the Lord’s house and all the captives, from Babylon to this place.

The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of disaster and of virulent disease.

either of peace, upon many nations and great kingdoms - were proved by this, if God had sent them in very deed: when the thing came to pass, which that prophet told before."

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;

(After that Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the carpenters, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem;)

Which letter Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah did bear, whom Zedekiah the king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon. These were the words of Jeremiah's letter:

"This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were taken from Jerusalem into exile to Babylon,

But just listen to what the Lord has to say about the king who occupies David's throne and all your fellow countrymen who are still living in this city of Jerusalem and were not carried off into exile with you.

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;

Ask ye now, and see if a male brought forth? wherefore did I see every man his hands upon his loins as she bringing forth, and all faces were turned to paleness?

All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.

Why criest thou for thine affliction? thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity: because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee.

For this, all consuming thee shall be consumed; and all thine adversaries, all of them shall go into captivity; and they spoiling thee, were for spoiling, and all plundering thee I will give to plunder.

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.

And ye were to me for a people, and I will be to you for God.

Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.

Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

I have indeed heard the people of Israel say mournfully, 'We were like a calf untrained to the yoke. You disciplined us and we learned from it. Let us come back to you and we will do so, for you are the Lord our God.

Is Ephraim a precious son to me? if a child of delights? for whenever my speaking against him, remembering, I shall remember him yet; for this the bowels were put in motion to me compassionating, I will compassionate him, says Jehovah.

I will say, 'My dear children of Israel, keep in mind the road you took when you were carried off. Mark off in your minds the landmarks. Make a mental note of telltale signs marking the way back. Return, my dear children of Israel. Return to these cities of yours.

How long will you vacillate, you who were once like an unfaithful daughter? For I, the Lord, promise to bring about something new on the earth, something as unique as a woman protecting a man!'"

In the past I saw to it that they were uprooted and torn down, that they were destroyed and demolished. But now I will see to it that they are built up and firmly planted. I, the Lord, affirm it!"

The Lord affirms, "The descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight. That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights were to cease to operate before me."

and, then, the forces of the king of Babylon were besieging Jerusalem, - and, Jeremiah the prophet, had been shut up in the guard-court, which was in the house of the king of Judah;

There were two copies of the deed of purchase. One was sealed and contained the order of transfer and the conditions of purchase. The other was left unsealed.

and I gave the writing of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Nerijah, the son of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanameel mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that had subscribed the writing of purchase, before all the Jews that were sitting in the court of the guard.

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:

The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come, set this city on fire, and burn it along with the houses on whose roofs incense was burned to Baal and liquid offerings were poured out to other gods in order to provoke me.

For the people of Israel and the people of Judah were doing only evil in my eyes from their youth, for the people of Israel [were] only provoking me to anger by the work of their hands," {declares} Yahweh.

And they have turned to me [their] backs and not [their] faces, though {I have taught them over and over again}, but they [were] not listening to accept discipline.

And they were to me for a people, and I will be to them for God.

Thou hast cried unto me, and I have heard thee: I have showed great and high things, which were unknown unto you."

For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, that were torn down [to make a defense] against the siege ramps and against the sword:

I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and will rebuild them as they were at first.

And it was to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for an honor to all the nations of the earth who shall hear all the good which I did them: and they trembled and were moved for all the good and for all the peace which I did to it

Thus said Jehovah: Yet shall be heard in this place which ye were saying it was laid waste without man and without cattle, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, being desolate without man and without inhabitant, and without cattle,

the sounds of rejoicing and gladness, the sounds of the bridegroom and the bride, and the sounds of those saying, "Give thanks to the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, for the LORD is good, and his gracious love lasts forever," as they bring thanksgiving offerings to the LORD's Temple. For I'll restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first,' declares the LORD.

The word which came unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying:

But thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have pronounced the word, saith the LORD.

When the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah: for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah.

This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Each person was to set free his male and female slaves who were Hebrews, so that no Jewish person would enslave his brother.

Now as they had consented, even so they were obedient, and let them go free.

And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name: