For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him,'say all my familiar friends, they that watch for my fall; peradventure he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.

Then Jeremiah said to them, "Thus you shall say to Zedekiah:

'Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: "Look, I [am] about to turn back the weapons of war that [are] in your hands, [with] which you [are] fighting against them, the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are laying siege to you from outside the wall, and I will gather them into the center of this city.

And afterward, says the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.

"And to this people you shall say, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Look, I [am] setting {before you} the way of life and the way of death.

For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, says the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, Hear you the word of the LORD;

O house of David, thus says Yahweh, "Execute judgment in the morning, justice, and deliver [the] one who has been seized from [the] hand of [the] oppressor, lest my wrath goes forth like the fire and it burns, and there is no [one who] quenches [it] because of the evil of your deeds.

Look, I [am] against you, O inhabitants of the valley, O rock of the plain," {declares} Yahweh; "you who say, 'Who can descend against us, or who can enter into our hiding place?'

But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all things round about it.

Thus says Yahweh: "Go down [to] the house of the king of Judah and you must speak this word there.

And you must say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter through these gates.

Thus says Yahweh, "Act [with] justice and righteousness, and deliver [the] one who has been seized from the hand of [the] oppressor. And you must not oppress [the] immigrant, [the] orphan, and [the] widow. And you must not shed innocent blood in this place.

But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.

For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, "You [are like] Gilead to me, [like] the head of the Lebanon. {Surely} I will make you a desert, [like] cities [that] are not inhabited.

And many nations will pass by this city and they will say each one to his neighbor, '{Why} has Yahweh done in this manner to this great city?'

And they shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.

For thus says Yahweh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned as king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: "He will not return here again.

Who says 'I will build for myself a spacious house with large upper rooms,' and he cuts windows for it, and [it is] paneled with cedar, and he paints [it] with vermilion.

He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? says the LORD.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah: "They will not lament for him, 'Alas, my brother,' or 'Alas, sister.' They will not lament for him, 'Alas, lord,' or 'alas, his majesty.'

As I live, says the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck you from there;

O land of Judah, land of Judah, land of Judah! Listen to what the Lord has to say!

Thus says Yahweh: "Record this man [as] childless, a man [who] will not succeed in his days, for no man from his offspring will succeed [him], sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah."

Woe be unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people, "You yourselves have scattered my flock, and you have driven them away, and you do not attend to them. Look, I [will] punish you [for] the evil of your deeds," {declares} Yahweh.

And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, says the LORD.

Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the earth.

"{Therefore} look, days [are] coming," {declares} Yahweh, "when they will no longer say, '{As Yahweh lives}, who led up the {Israelites} from the land of Egypt,'

but they'll say, "As surely as the LORD lives who brought the descendants of the Israelis from the land of the north and from all the lands where I had driven them and brought them into the land.' Then they'll live in their own land."

Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated.

For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, says the LORD.

Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall in it: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their punishment, says the LORD.

The Lord says, "I saw the prophets of Samaria doing something that was disgusting. They prophesied in the name of the god Baal and led my people Israel astray.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets, "Look, I [am] going to let them eat wormwood and I will give them water of poison to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem went out ungodliness to all the land."

Thus says Yahweh of hosts, "You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They [are] deluding you [with] visions of their {mind}, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh.

[They are] continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, 'Peace it will be to you,' and [to] {each one} who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, 'Calamity will not come upon 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?

Am I a God at hand, says the LORD, and not a God afar off?

Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? says the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the LORD.

I have heard what the prophets say, who prophesy falsehood in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

The prophet that has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? says the LORD.

Is not my word like a fire? says the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the LORD, that steal my words everyone from his neighbor.

Behold, I am against the prophets, saith Jehovah, that use their tongues, and say, He saith.

Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, says the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their recklessness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, says the LORD.

"Now when this people, or a prophet, or a priest, ask you, {saying}, 'What [is] the burden of Yahweh?' then you shall say to them, '{You are the burden}, and I will forsake you,'" {declares} Yahweh.

"And the prophet, and the priest, and the people who say, 'The burden of Yahweh,' I will punish that man and his house.

Thus you shall say, each one to his neighbor and each one to his brother: 'What has Yahweh answered?' or, 'What has Yahweh spoken?'

You must no longer say that the Lord's message is burdensome. For what is 'burdensome' really pertains to what a person himself says. You are misrepresenting the words of our God, the living God, the Lord who rules over all.

Thus you shall say to that prophet, 'What has Yahweh answered you?' or, 'What has Yahweh spoken?'

But if you say, 'The burden of Yahweh,' {therefore} thus says Yahweh, 'because of your saying these words, "The burden of Yahweh," then I will send to you, {saying}, "You shall not say, 'The burden of Yahweh.'"

And Jehovah saith unto me, 'What art thou seeing, Jeremiah?' and I say, 'Figs, the good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, that are not eaten for badness.'

"Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles of Judah whom I have sent away from this place [to the] land of [the] Chaldeans.

But like the bad figs that cannot be eaten because of [their] bad quality--for thus says Yahweh--so I will treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who live in the land of Egypt.

Yet you have not hearkened unto me, says the LORD; that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own harm.

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'Because you have not obeyed my words,

Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

For thus says the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury from my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it.

"And you shall say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "Drink and become drunk, and vomit, and fall, and you must not rise because of the {presence} of the sword that I [am] sending among you." '

And it will happen, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts, "You must certainly drink!

For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of hosts.

And you yourself shall prophesy against them all these words, and you shall say to them: 'Yahweh will roar from [on] high, and from {his holy dwelling place} he will give his voice. He will roar mightily against his settlement, a jubilant shout like those who tread [grapes], he will answer against all the inhabitants of the earth.

A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, says the LORD.

Thus says Yahweh of hosts, "Look, disaster [is] going out from nation to nation, and a great tempest is stirred up from the farthest parts of [the] earth.

"Thus says Yahweh: 'Stand in the courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and you must speak to all the cities of Judah that come to bow in worship [in] the house of Yahweh all the words that I command you to speak to them. You must not omit a word.

And you shall say to them, "Thus says Yahweh: 'If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set {before you},

and to hear the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, rising up timely, and still sending: If ye will not follow them, I say,

The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord's temple.

Now, when Jeremiah had come to the end of saying everything the Lord had given him orders to say to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people took him by force, saying, Death will certainly be your fate.

How darest thou be so bold, as to say in the name of the LORD, 'It shall happen to this house as it did unto Shiloh? And this city shall be so waste, that no man shall dwell therein?'"

And the priests and the prophets will say to the chiefs, and to all the people, saying, The judgment of death for this man, for he prophesied against this city, as ye heard with your ears.

Then Jeremiah said to all the rulers and to all the people, The Lord has sent me as his prophet to say against this house and against this town all the words which have come to your ears.

Only be certain that, if you put me to death, you will make yourselves and your town and its people responsible for the blood of one who has done no wrong: for truly, the Lord has sent me to you to say all these words in your ears.

And the heads and all the people say unto the priests and unto the prophets, 'There is not for this man a judgment of death, for in the name of Jehovah our God he hath spoken unto us.'

And men will rise up from the old men of the land, and they will say to all the convocation of the people, saying,

"Micah the Morashtite was prophesying in the days of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and he said to all the people of Judah, {saying}: 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts, "Zion will be plowed, and Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the {temple} as high places of wood." '

Thus says the LORD to me; Make yourself bonds and yokes, and put them upon your neck,

And you must command them for their masters, {saying}, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, this you shall say to your masters:

Thus do ye say unto your lords, I -- I have made the earth with man, and the cattle that are on the face of the earth, by My great power, and by My stretched-out arm, and I have given it to whom it hath been right in Mine eyes.

And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, says the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

And you are not to give attention to your prophets or your readers of signs or your dreamers or those who see into the future or those who make use of secret arts, who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon:

For they say false words to you, so that you may be sent away far from your land, and so that you may be forced out by me and come to destruction.

But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, says the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell in it.

There is no reason why you and your people should die in war or from starvation or disease! That's what the Lord says will happen to any nation that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

And you are not to give ear to the prophets who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon: for what they say is not true.

For I have not sent them, says the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that you might perish, you, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.

Then I spoke to the priests and to all this people, {saying}, "Thus says Yahweh, 'You must not listen to the words of your prophets who are prophesying to you, {saying}, "Look, the vessels of the house of Yahweh [are] about to be quickly brought back from Babylon", for they [are] prophesying a lie to you.

For thus says Yahweh of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the stands, and concerning the rest of the vessels that are left in this city,

For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left [in] the house of Yahweh, and [in] the house of the king of Judah, and [in] Jerusalem:

They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, says the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.

"Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, {saying}, 'I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, says the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

And Jeremiah the prophet will say to Hansaiah the prophet, before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes of all the people standing in the house of Jehovah,

And Jeremiah the prophet will say, Verily: so will Jehovah do: will Jehovah raise up thy words which thou didst prophesy, to turn back the vessels of the house of Jehovah, and all the captivity from Babel to this place.

But listen to what I say to you and to all these people.

Then Hananiah said before the eyes of all the people, {saying}, "Thus says Yahweh, 'This is how I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, {within two years}, from the neck of all the nations.'" And Jeremiah the prophet went on his way.

"Go, and you must say to Hananiah, {saying}, 'Thus says Yahweh, "You have broken yoke bars of wood, but you have made in place of them yoke bars of iron."

For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, to serve Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and they will serve him, and I have even given the animals of the open field to him." '"