Then I said to the people of Judah, "Listen and pay attention! Do not be arrogant! For the Lord has spoken.

Then I said, "Look up, Jerusalem, and see the enemy that is coming from the north. Where now is the flock of people that were entrusted to your care? Where now are the 'sheep' that you take such pride in?

Then I said, "O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name even though our sins speak out against us. Indeed, we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

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.

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not pray for good to come to these people!

Then I said, "Oh, Lord God, look! The prophets are telling them that you said, 'You will not experience war or suffer famine. I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.'"

Then the Lord said to me, "Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! I did not send them. I did not commission them. I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, and the delusions of their own mind.

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.

And thou hast said unto them this word: Tears come down mine eyes night and day, And they do not cease, For, with a great breach, Broken hath been the virgin daughter of my people, A very grievous stroke.

Then I said, "Lord, have you completely rejected the nation of Judah? Do you despise the city of Zion? Why have you struck us with such force that we are beyond recovery? We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it. We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror.

Then the Lord said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I would not feel pity for them! Get them away from me! Tell them to go away!

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.

I said, "Oh, mother, how I regret that you ever gave birth to me! I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone. Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt."

The Lord said, "Jerusalem, I will surely send you away for your own good. I will surely bring the enemy upon you in a time of trouble and distress.

I said, "Lord, you know how I suffer. Take thought of me and care for me. Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me. Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me. Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.

Because of this, the Lord said, "You must repent of such words and thoughts! If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless, I will again allow you to be my spokesman. They must become as you have been. You must not become like them.

The Lord said to me,

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:

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.

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.

And it hath come to pass when thou declarest to this people all these words, and they have said unto thee, 'For what hath Jehovah spoken against us all this great evil? yea, what is our iniquity, and what our sin, that we have sinned against Jehovah our God?'

Then thou hast said unto them: Because that your fathers have forsaken Me, An affirmation of Jehovah, And go after other gods, and serve them, And they bow themselves to them, And Me have forsaken, and My law not kept,

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’

But it shall be said, 'The LORD liveth, that brought the children of Israel from the North, and from all lands where I had scattered them.' For I will bring them again into the land that I gave unto their fathers.

Then I said, "Lord, you give me strength and protect me. You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. Nations from all over the earth will come to you and say, 'Our ancestors had nothing but false gods -- worthless idols that could not help them at all.

The Lord said, "So I will now let this wicked people know -- I will let them know my mighty power in judgment. Then they will know that my name is the Lord."

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.

Then I said, "Lord, from the very beginning you have been seated on your glorious throne on high. You are the place where we can find refuge.

Behold, they keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the Lord [that is, the disaster that you prophesied]?
Let it come now!”

But as for me, I have not tried to escape from being a shepherd [walking] after You,
Nor have I longed for the woeful day [of judgment];
You know that, whatever I said
Was [spoken] in Your presence and was from You.

Thus the Lord said to me, “Go and stand in the public gate, through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, and [stand] also in all the gates of Jerusalem;

and thou hast said unto them: Hear a word of Jehovah, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all inhabitants of Jerusalem, who are coming in by these gates,

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;

The Lord said to Jeremiah:

Then the Lord said to me,

and if they do evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will reverse My decision concerning the good with which I had promised to bless them.

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.

And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.

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.

Then some people said, "Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God's word. Come on! Let's bring charges against him and get rid of him! Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says."

Then I said, "Lord, pay attention to me. Listen to what my enemies are saying.

Thus said Jehovah, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;

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.

and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “This is the way I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it cannot be mended. They will bury [corpses] in Topheth until there is no more room left [in that place] to bury [the dead].

Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people:

"The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, 'I will soon bring on this city and all the towns surrounding it all the disaster I threatened to do to it. I will do so because they have stubbornly refused to pay any attention to what I have said!'"

But the next day Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks. When he did, Jeremiah said to him, "The Lord's name for you is not 'Pashhur' but 'Terror is Everywhere.'

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.

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.

[Jeremiah said,] O Lord, You have persuaded me and I was deceived;
You are stronger than I and You have prevailed.
I am a laughingstock all day long;
Everyone mocks me.

And I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name: but it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I became wearied with holding in, and I could not.

Then Jeremiah said to them, “Say this to Zedekiah:

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.

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.

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.

Thus said Jehovah: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,

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.

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.

And many nations have passed by this city, And they have said, each to his neighbour, For what hath Jehovah done thus to this great city?

And they have said, 'Because that they have forsaken The covenant of Jehovah their God, And bow themselves to other gods, and serve them.'

"'For the Lord has spoken about Shallum son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah but was carried off into exile. He has said, "He will never return to this land.

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!

While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. But you said, "I refuse to listen to you." That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

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.

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.

Therefore, lo! days are coming, Declareth Yahweh, When it shall not be said any more As Yahweh liveth, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

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.

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.

They continually say to those who reject what the Lord has said, 'Things will go well for you!' They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts, 'Nothing bad will happen to you!'

Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord's inner circle so they could see and hear what he has to say? Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said?

I did not send these prophets, but they went running: I said nothing to them, but they gave out the prophet's word

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My Name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed [visions when on my bed at night].’

See, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who let their tongues say, He has said.

The Lord said to me, "Jeremiah, when one of these people, or a prophet, or a priest asks you, 'What burdensome message do you have from the Lord?' Tell them, 'You are the burden, and I will cast you away. I, the Lord, affirm it!

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?

This is what you are to say to the prophet, What answer has the Lord given to you? and, What has the Lord said?

For if you say, ‘The oracle of the Lord!’ surely thus says the Lord, ‘Because you said this word, “The oracle of the Lord!” when I have also sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The oracle of the Lord!’”’

The Lord said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I answered, "I see figs. The good ones look very good. But the bad ones look very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten."

The Lord said to me,

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.

And like the bad figs, that are not eaten for badness, Surely thus said Jehovah: So do I make Zedekiah king of Judah, And his heads, and the remnant of Jerusalem, Who are left in this land, And who are dwelling in the land of Egypt,

"For the last twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was ruling in Judah until now, the Lord has been speaking to me. I told you over and over again what he said. But you would not listen.

He said through them, 'Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and stop doing the evil things you are doing. If you do, I will allow you to continue to live here in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors as a lasting possession.

"Therefore, the Lord who rules over all says, 'You have not listened to what I said.

and this whole land shall become a wilderness, and they shall serve the said people and the king of Babylon, three score years and ten.

I will bring on that land everything that I said I would. I will bring on it everything that is written in this book. I will bring on it everything that Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.

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.

to wit said he - Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and her kings her princes, - making them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a contempt, as at this day;

all kings toward the north, whether they be far or nigh, everyone with his neighbours; Yea, and all the kingdoms that are upon the whole earth. The king of Sheshach, said he, shall drink with them also.

Then the Lord said to me, "Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, 'Drink this cup until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can't get up. For I will send wars sweeping through you.'

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.

And thou, thou dost prophesy unto them all these words, and hast said unto them: Jehovah from the high place doth roar, And from His holy habitation giveth forth His voice, He surely roareth for His habitation, A shout as of treaders down, God answereth all the inhabitants of the land,

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.

The Lord said, "Go stand in the courtyard of the Lord's temple. Speak out to all the people who are coming from the towns of Judah to worship in the Lord's temple. Tell them everything I command you to tell them. Do not leave out a single word!

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,

And in the hearing of the priests and the prophets and all the people, Jeremiah said these words in the house of the Lord.

Now when he had spoken out all the words that the LORD commanded him to preach unto all the people, then the priests, the prophets and all the people took hold upon him, and said, "Thou shalt die.

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.

Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, "This man should be condemned to die because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so with your own ears."

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and to all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard.