Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible



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. And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words; read more.
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. 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: 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.


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. And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words; read more.
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. 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: 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.


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.

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.


Peres; your kingdom has been cut up and given to the Medes and Persians.

The word about the waste land. As storm-winds in the South go rushing through, it comes from the waste land, from the land greatly to be feared. A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow. For this cause I am full of bitter grief; pains like the pains of a woman in childbirth have come on me: I am bent down with sorrow at what comes to my ears; I am shocked by what I see. read more.
My mind is wandering, fear has overcome me: the evening of my desire has been turned into shaking for me. They make ready the table, they put down the covers, they take food and drink. Up! you captains; put oil on your breastplates. For so has the Lord said to me, Go, let a watchman be placed; let him give word of what he sees: And when he sees war-carriages, horsemen by twos, war-carriages with asses, war-carriages with camels, let him give special attention. And the watchman gave a loud cry, O my lord, I am on the watchtower all day, and am placed in my watch every night: See, here come war-carriages with men, horsemen by twos: and in answer he said, Babylon is made low, is made low, and all her images are broken on the earth. O my crushed ones, the grain of my floor! I have given you the word which came to me from the Lord of armies, the God of Israel.

And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede I was on his side to make his position safe and make him strong. And now I will make clear to you what is true. There are still three kings to come in Persia, and the fourth will have much greater wealth than all of them: and when he has become strong through his wealth, he will put his forces in motion against all the kingdoms of Greece. And a strong king will come to power, ruling with great authority and doing whatever is his pleasure. read more.
And when he has become strong, his kingdom will be broken and parted to the four winds of heaven; but not to his offspring, for it will be uprooted; and his kingdom will be for the others and not for these: but not with the same authority as his.

You, O King, were looking, and a great image was there. This image, which was very great, and whose glory was very bright, was placed before you: its form sent fear into the heart. As for this image, its head was made of the best gold, its breast and its arms were of silver, its middle and its sides were of brass, Its legs of iron, its feet were in part of iron and in part of potter's earth. read more.
While you were looking at it, a stone was cut out, but not by hands, and it gave the image a blow on its feet, which were of iron and earth, and they were broken in bits. Then the iron and the earth, the brass and the silver and the gold, were smashed together, and became like the dust on the floors where grain is crushed in summer; and the wind took them away so that no sign of them was to be seen: and the stone which gave the image a blow became a great mountain, covering all the earth. This is the dream; and we will make clear to the king the sense of it. You, O King, king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory, Wherever the children of men are living; into whose hands he has given the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven, and has made you ruler over them all, you are the head of gold. And after you another kingdom, lower than you, will come to power; and a third kingdom, of brass, ruling over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom will be strong as iron: because, as all things are broken and overcome by iron, so it will have the power of crushing and smashing down all the earth. And as you saw the feet and toes, part of potter's work and part of iron, there will be a division in the kingdom; but there will be some of the strength of iron in it, because you saw the iron mixed with the potter's earth. And as the toes of the feet were in part of iron and in part of earth, so part of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will readily be broken. And as you saw the iron mixed with earth, they will give their daughters to one another as wives: but they will not be united one with another, even as iron is not mixed with earth. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will put up a kingdom which will never come to destruction, and its power will never be given into the hands of another people, and all these kingdoms will be broken and overcome by it, but it will keep its place for ever. Because you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that by it the iron and the brass and the earth and the silver and the gold were broken to bits, a great God has given the king knowledge of what is to take place in the future: the dream is fixed, and its sense is certain.

Persia, Cush, and Put with them; all of them with body-cover and metal head-dress:

See, I am driving the Medes against them, who put no value on silver and have no pleasure in gold.

The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying, This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken. 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. read more.
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: 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. But it will come about that, in the last days, I will let the fate of Elam be changed, says the Lord.

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. 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. O you whose living-place is by the wide waters, whose stores are great, your end is come, your evil profit is ended. read more.
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. 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: 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. 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. They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them. The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name. You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken; With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken; 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; 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. They will be crying out together like lions, their voices will be like the voices of young lions. 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. I will make them go down to death like lambs, like he-goats together. How is Babylon taken! and the praise of all the earth surprised! how has Babylon become a cause of wonder among the nations! The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the mass of its waves. 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. 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. My people, go out from her, and let every man get away safe from the burning wrath of the Lord. 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. 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. 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. As Babylon had the dead of Israel put to the sword, so in Babylon the dead of all the land will be stretched out. 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. 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. 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. 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. There is the sound of a cry from Babylon, and of a great destruction from the land of the Chaldaeans: 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: 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. 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. 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. 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. And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words; 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. 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: 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.

There is Elam and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword, who have gone down without circumcision into the lowest parts of the earth, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld: They have made a bed for her among the dead, and all her people are round about her resting-place: all of them without circumcision, put to death with the sword; for they were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld: they have been given a place among those who have been put to the sword.


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.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words;


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.

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.

Now in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round the town. And the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. Now on the ninth day of the fourth month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land. read more.
So an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight 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 the king went by the way of the Arabah. But the Chaldaean army went after the king, and overtook him in the lowlands of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction. And they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah to be judged. And they put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes, and then they put out his eyes, and chaining him with iron bands, took him to Babylon. Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem; 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; And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

So he sent against them the king of the Chaldaeans, who put their young men to death with the sword in the house of their holy place, and had no pity for any, young man or virgin, old man or white-haired: God gave them all into his hands. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the stored wealth of the Lord's house and the wealth of the king and his chiefs, he took away to Babylon. And the house of God was burned and the wall of Jerusalem broken down; all its great houses were burned with fire and all its beautiful vessels given up to destruction. read more.
And all who had not come to death by the sword he took away prisoners to Babylon; and they became servants to him and to his sons till the kingdom of Persia came to power:

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. 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.

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; In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the town was broken into:) 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. read more.
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. 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. 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. And more than this, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and had him put in chains to take him away to Babylon. 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. 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. 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.

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. So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 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. read more.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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: And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the number of apples all round the network was a hundred. And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers; 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. These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 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. These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took away prisoner: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews: And in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took away as prisoners from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons: 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.