Ahikam's son Gedaliah replied to Kareah's son Jonathan, "Don't do this! You're lying about Ishmael!"

Ten men who were among them told Ishmael, "Don't kill us, because we have stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey hidden in the field." So Ishmael stopped and did not kill them or their companions.

Then they told Jeremiah, "May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we don't do everything that the LORD your God tells us through you.

The LORD has told you, remnant of Judah, "Don't go to Egypt!' So be fully aware that I've warned you, today,

Hoshaiah's son Azariah, Kareah's son Johanan, and all the arrogant men told Jeremiah, "You're lying! The LORD our God didn't send you to say, "Don't go to Egypt to settle there.'

Yet I sent all my servants the prophets to you again and again, saying, "Don't do this repulsive thing that I hate."

Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don't seek them. Indeed, I'm about to bring disaster on all flesh,' declares the LORD, "but your life will be spared wherever you go.'"

Why am I seeing this? They're terrified, they have turned back. Their warriors are crushed, and they take flight. They don't look back. Terror is on every side," declares the LORD.

Why are your warriors prostrate? They don't stand because the LORD has brought them down.

For this is what the LORD says: "Look, those who don't deserve to drink the cup will surely drink it, and will you actually go unpunished? You won't go unpunished! You will certainly drink it!

"Declare and proclaim among the nations. Lift up a banner and proclaim. Don't conceal anything. Say, "Babylon will be captured. Bel will be disgraced, and Marduk will be destroyed. Her idols will be disgraced, and her filthy images will be destroyed.'

I'll set a trap for you, and you will be caught, Babylon, but you don't realize it. You will be found and also seized, because you challenged the LORD!

Come to her from afar. Open up her barns. Pile her up like heaps of grain, and completely destroy her. Don't leave any survivors.

Flee from Babylon, and each of you, escape with your life! Don't be destroyed because of her guilt, for it's time for the LORD's vengeance. He is paying back what is due to her.

Do this now, so your heart does not grow faint, and so you don't become frightened because of the rumors that are heard in the land a rumor comes one year and then after it another rumor comes the next year about violence in the land and one ruler against another ruler.

Go, you who escaped the sword! Don't stand around! Remember the LORD from far away, and let Jerusalem come to your mind.

I'll make their leaders, their wise men, their governors, their deputies, and their warriors drunk so that they sleep forever and don't wake up," declares the King whose name is the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

and warned him, “Don’t you realize that Baalis, king of the Ammonites, has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you?” But Gedaliah son of Ahikam would not believe them.

Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says Yahweh. Don't I fill heaven and earth? says Yahweh.

But if they be prophets, and if the word of Yahweh be with them, let them now make intercession to Yahweh of Armies, that the vessels which are left in the house of Yahweh, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, don't go to Babylon.

and you have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don't listen to me:

Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?

But if you say, We will not dwell in this land; so that you don't obey the voice of Yahweh your God,

Don't let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; in the north by the river Euphrates have they stumbled and fallen.

At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don't look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

Don't consider what this people has spoken, saying, The two families which Yahweh did choose, he has cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.