"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came out from [the] womb I consecrated you; I appointed you [as] a prophet to the nations."

Now look, I have made you {today} as a fortified city and as an iron pillar and a bronze wall against all the land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land.

[The] young lions have roared against him, they have {raised} their voices. And they have made his land as horror; his cities are destroyed, {without} an inhabitant.

"For from long ago you have broken your yoke, you tore to pieces your bonds. And you said, 'I will not serve!' But on every high hill and under every leafy tree you [were] lying down [as] a prostitute.

Yet I planted you [as] a choice vine, all of it a seed of trustworthiness. How then have you altered before me [into something that is] degenerate, the foreign vine?

For if you wash with natron, and you {use much soap}, your guilt [is] sticking as a stain {before} me," {declares} the Lord Yahweh.

A wild ass accustomed to [the] desert, in the desire of her soul. She gasps [for] wind [in] her rutting time. Who can quell her [lust]? All [those who] seek her will not grow weary, in her month they will find her.

As [the] shame of a thief when he is caught in the act, so the house of Israel will be ashamed. They, their kings, their officials, and their priests, and their prophets.

How you go about so much changing your way! Also by Egypt you will be put to shame, just as you were put to shame by Assyria.

In those days the house of Judah will walk along with the house of Israel and they will come together from [the] land of [the] north to the land that I gave as an inheritance [to] your ancestors.

However, as a wife departs treacherously from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel," {declares} Yahweh.

and you swear, '{As Yahweh lives},' in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then nations will be blessed by him, and in him they will boast."

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has gone out from his place to make your land as a horror, your cities will go to ruin {without} inhabitant.

And though they say, '{As Yahweh lives},' {therefore} they swear falsely."

{And then}, when you [people] say, 'Why has Yahweh our God done all of these [things] to us?' Then you will say to them, 'As you have forsaken me and have served gods of a foreign land in your land, so will you serve strangers in {a land that does not belong to you}.'

Do you not revere me?" {declares} Yahweh, "Do you not tremble {before me}? For I have placed [the] sand [as] a boundary for the sea, {as an everlasting limit}, and it cannot pass over it, and they rise and fall loudly, but they cannot prevail, and its waves roar, but they cannot pass over it.

As a water well keeps its water cool, so she keeps cool her wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard within her, sickness and wounds [are] continually {before me}.

Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine, turn back your hand over [the] branches like a grape-gatherer.

Thus says Yahweh: "Stand at [the] roads and look, and ask for [the] ancient paths, where the way of the good [is], and walk in it, and find rest for your inner selves. But they said, 'We will not walk [in it].'

We have heard news of it, our hands grow slack, anxiety has grasped us, pain as a [woman who] gives birth.

O daughter of my people, gird yourself [with] sackcloth, and roll about in the ashes in mourning, a mourning ceremony [as for] an only child. Make for yourself wailing of bitterness, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.

And I will cast you {out of my sight} just as I cast out all of your blood relatives, all of the offspring of Ephraim." '

And the dead bodies of this people [will be] as food for the birds of the heavens, and for the animals of the earth, without anyone to scare [them] away.

And I will make Jerusalem as heaps [of ruins], a lair of jackals, and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation, {without inhabitants}.

in order to keep the oath that I swore to your ancestors, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as [it is] this day." '" Then I answered and said, "{Let it be so}, O Yahweh."

Thus says Yahweh concerning all of the evil neighbors who touch the inheritance that I gave as an inheritance [to] my people Israel: "Look, I [am] about to drive them out from their land, and the house of Judah I will drive out from among them.

{And then}, if they diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, '{as Yahweh lives},' even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will live in the midst of my people.

So I went and hid it by [the] Euphrates just as Yahweh had commanded me.

For as the loincloth clings to [the] loins of a person, so I caused to cling to me all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah,' {declares} Yahweh, 'to be for me a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.'

Give glory to Yahweh your God {before} he brings darkness, and {before} your feet stumble on the mountains at twilight. And you will hope for light, but he makes it as gloom, he makes [it] as thick darkness.

What will you say when he sets over you-- and you have taught them--allies as head over you? Will not labor pains take hold of you, like a woman giving birth?

[That] which came [as] the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah concerning the matter of the severe drought.

"For who will have compassion on you, Jerusalem, or who will show sympathy to you, or who will turn aside {to ask about your welfare}?

I will give your wealth and your treasures as plunder without price, even because of all your sins, and throughout all your territories.

Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became to me as jubilation, even as the joy of my heart, for your name is called on me, Yahweh God of hosts.

Therefore thus says Yahweh, "If you turn back, then I will take you back. You will stand {before me}. And if you utter [what is] precious and not [what is] worthless, you will be as my mouth. They will turn back to you, and you will not turn back to them.

"They will die by diseases, they will not be mourned, and they will not be buried. They will be as dung on the face of the earth. And they will perish by the sword and they will perish by the famine. And their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air, and for the wild animals of the earth."

{And then} when you tell this people all these words and they ask you, '{Why} has Yahweh pronounced against us all this great evil, and what [is] our iniquity, and what [is] our sin that we have sinned against Yahweh our God?'

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

{but only} "{As Yahweh lives}, who led up the {Israelites} from [the] land of [the] north, and from all the lands where he had driven them," for I will bring them back to their ground that I gave to their ancestors.

As the remembering of their children, [so is the remembering of] their altars and their poles of Asherah worship beside [the] leafy trees on [the] high hills.

Let my persecutors be put to shame, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be put to shame. Let them be dismayed, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of disaster, and [with] double destruction, destroy them.

And you must not carry a burden from your houses on the day of the Sabbath, and you must not do any work. But you must declare holy the day of Sabbath, just as I commanded your ancestors.

Yet they did not listen, and they did not incline their ear, and they hardened their neck [so as] to not hear, nor to receive discipline.

And the vessel that he [was] making with the clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter, so {he made again} another vessel, as it was right in the eyes of the potter to make.

"Therefore thus says Yahweh, 'Please ask among the nations, "Who has heard {the like of this}?" The virgin of Israel has done something very horrible.

And I will lay waste the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will bring them to ruin by the sword {before} their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life, and I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of heaven and to the animals of the earth.

And you shall say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "So I will break this people and this city as one breaks the vessel of the potter, [so] that it is not able to be repaired again. And in Topheth they will bury {until there is no room to bury}.

For {as often as} I speak, I must cry out violence and destruction. I must shout, for the word of Yahweh has become for me a disgrace and derision all day [long].

He who stays in this city will die by the sword, or by the famine, or by the plague. And he who goes out and goes over to the Chaldeans who are laying siege to you will live, and his life will be to him as booty.

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.

Do you reign as king because you [are] competing in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and he did justice and righteousness, then it was well with him?

Inhabitants of Lebanon, nestled among the cedars, how you will groan when labor pains come to you, fear and pain as the [woman who] gives birth.

"As I live," {declares} Yahweh, "surely if Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were [the] seal on my right hand, surely from there I would wrench you off.

As for the land to which they are {longing} to return, they will not return.

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."

"Look, days [are] coming," {declares} Yahweh, "when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign [as] king, and he will achieve success, and he will do justice and righteousness in the land.

"{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 '{As Yahweh lives}, who led up, and who brought the offspring of the house of Israel from [the] land [of the] north and from all the lands where he had driven them.' Then they will live in their land."

"For both prophet as well as priest are godless, even in my temple I have found their wickedness," {declares} Yahweh.

who plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell each one to his neighbor, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal?

Look, I [am] against the prophets," {declares} Yahweh, "who take their tongues and declare as prophets, '[Yahweh] {declares}.'

"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.

"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.

And I will make them as a terror, an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, as a disgrace and a proverb, as a taunt and a curse, in all the places where I will drive them.

Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and its kings, [and] its officials, to make them a site of ruins, a horror, an [object of] hissing, and a curse, as [it is] this day;

{And then} as Jeremiah finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded [him] to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, {saying}, "You will die!

Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, {saying}, "{This man deserves the death sentence}, because he has prophesied against this city as that [which] you have heard with your ears."

But [as for] me, look, I [am] in your hand, do to me what [is] good and right in your eyes.

"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." '

Why should you die--you and your people--by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

The prophet who prophesies peace, at the coming of the word of the prophet, will become known [as] the prophet that Yahweh has {truly} sent."

For thus says Yahweh, '{As soon as the time has passed}, seventy years for Babylon, I will attend to you, and I will fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place.

Ask please and see whether a male can bear a child. Why [do] I see every strong man [with] his hands on his loins like a woman giving birth? And [why] are all [their] faces changed to paleness?

And it will happen on that day,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'I will break his yoke from your neck and your bonds I will tear to pieces. And strangers will no longer let him work as a slave.

{Therefore} all [those who] devour you will be devoured, and all your foes, all of them will go into captivity, and [those who] plunder you will be as plunder, and all [those who] plunder you I will make as plunder.

And their children will be as of old, and their community will be established {before me}. And I will punish all their oppressors.

Hear the word of Yahweh, nations, and declare in the coastlands from afar, and say, "The scatterer of Israel will gather him, and he will keep him as a shepherd his flock.

[Is] Ephraim my dear son, or [the] child of [my] delight? For {as often as} I have earnestly spoken against him, I still remember him. {Therefore} my bowels are turbulent for him, surely I will have compassion on him," {declares} Yahweh.

{And then} as I have watched over them to pull up, and to tear down, and to annihilate, and to destroy, and to do evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant," {declares} Yahweh.

And I signed on the letter and sealed [it], and I called witnesses as witness, and I weighed out the money on a set of scales.

who accomplished signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, up to this day, and in Israel, and among humankind, and you have made for yourself a name, as [it is] this day.

Yet you have said to me, Lord Yahweh, "Buy for yourself the field with the money, and call witnesses as witness," though the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.'"

And they built the high places of Baal that [are] in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to present as offerings their sons and their daughters to Molech, which I had not commanded them, and it had not come to my {mind} to do this detestable thing in order to cause Judah to sin."

"For thus says Yahweh, 'Just as I have brought to this people all this great disaster, so I [will] bring upon them all the good that I promise to them.

They will buy fields with money, and they will sign the deeds, and they will seal [them], and they will call witnesses as witness in the land of Benjamin, and in the surroundings of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negev, for I will restore their fortunes,' {declares} Yahweh."

And I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and I will rebuild them as in the beginning.

[the] voice of jubilation, and [the] voice of joy, [the] voice of [the] bridegroom, and [the] voice of [the] bride, [the] voices of [those who] say, "Praise Yahweh of hosts, for Yahweh [is] good, for his loyal love [is] {forever}," [the voices of those who] bring thank offerings [to] the house of Yahweh, for I will restore the fortunes of the land as in the beginning,' says Yahweh.

As the host of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will make numerous the offspring of David my servant and the Levites [who] minister [to] me.'"

In peace you will die, and as [there was] burning for your ancestors, the former kings who were {before you}, so they will burn for you, and they will lament for you, "Alas, lord!" For [the] word I have spoken,' {declares} Yahweh." '"

But {afterward} they turned back and they brought back the [male] slaves and the female slaves whom they had let go free, and they subdued them as [male] slaves and female slaves.

But you turned back and you profaned my name when you brought back each one his [male] slave and each one his female slave, whom you had let go free according to their desire, and you subdued them to be to you as [male] slaves and as female slaves.'

and I will give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of the seekers of their lives, and their dead bodies will become as food for the birds of the heavens and for the animals of the earth.

And you shall not build a house, and you shall not sow seed, and you shall not plant a vineyard, and it shall not be for you, but in tents you shall live all your days, so that you may live many days on the surface of the land where you [are] dwelling as aliens.'

{And then}, as Jehudi read three or four columns, he would cut it up in pieces with the knife of the scribe, and he would throw [it] into the fire that [was] in the fire-pot until the whole of the scroll [was] consumed in the fire that was in the fire-pot.

And king Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had made king, reigned as king in the land of Judah in place of Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim.

"Thus says Yahweh, 'The [one who] stays in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague. But the [one who] goes out to the Chaldeans will live. And his life will be for him as booty, and he will live.'

So Zedekiah the king swore to Jeremiah in secret, {saying}, "{As Yahweh lives}, who has made for us this life, I will not kill you and I will not give you into the hand of these men who are seeking your life."

For surely I will save you, and you will not fall by the sword. But your life will be for you as booty because you have trusted in me," {declares} Yahweh.'"

and [now] he has brought [it about], and Yahweh has done {just as} he threatened. Because you sinned against Yahweh and did not listen to his voice, so this thing [has] happened to you.