“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you [and approved of you as My chosen instrument],
And before you were born I consecrated you [to Myself as My own];
I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

But you [Jeremiah], gird up your loins [in preparation]! Get up and tell them all which I command you. Do not be distraught and break down at the sight of their [hostile] faces, or I will bewilder you before them and allow you to be overcome.

"Indeed, long ago you threw off my authority and refused to be subject to me. You said, 'I will not serve you.' Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill and under every green tree, like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers.

“Yet I planted you a choice vine,
A completely faithful seed.
How then have you turned yourself before Me
Into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine?

“For though you wash yourself with lye
And use much soap,
The stain of your guilt is [still] before Me [and you are soiled and dirty],” says the Lord God.

If you will come back, O Israel, says the Lord, you will come back to me: and if you will put away your disgusting ways, you will not be sent away from before me.

I looked, and behold, the fertile land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were pulled down
Before the [presence of the] Lord, before His fierce anger.

For I heard a cry like a woman in labor,
The anguish as of one giving birth to her first child,
The cry of the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem), who gasps for breath,
Who stretches out her hands, saying,
“Woe is me [my judgment comes]! I faint [in fear] before the murderers.”

‘Do you not fear Me?’ says the Lord.
‘Do you not tremble [in awe] in My presence?
For I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,
An eternal decree and a perpetual barrier beyond which it cannot pass.
Though the waves [of the sea] toss and break, yet they cannot prevail [against the sand ordained to hold them back];
Though the waves and the billows roar, yet they cannot cross over [the barrier].
[Is not such a God to be feared?]

“As a fountain springs up and pours out its fresh waters,
So she [continually] pours out her fresh wickedness.
Violence and destruction are heard inside her [walls];
Sickness and wounds are always before Me.

Therefore, thus says the Lord,

“Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people.
The fathers and the sons together
Will stumble against them;
The neighbor and his friend will perish.”

Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah, and thou hast proclaimed there this word, and hast said, Hear a word of Jehovah, all ye of Judah, who are coming in at these gates, to bow before Jehovah:

and [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, ‘We are protected and set free [by this act of religious ritual]!’—only to go on with this wickedness and these disgusting and loathsome things?

What? Think you this house that beareth my name, is a den of thieves? And these things are not done privily, but before mine eyes, sayeth the LORD.

And I will send you away from before my face, as I have sent away all your brothers, even all the seed of Ephraim.

And they heard not and inclined not their ear, and they went in the counsels in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and they shall be for behind and not before.

They will [carelessly scatter and] spread them out before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which the dead have loved and which they have served, and which they have walked after and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried; they will be like dung on the face of the earth.

The Lord said, “Because they have turned away from My law which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice nor walked in accordance with it,

Namely, thus: Death is climbing up into our windows, he is come into our houses, to destroy the child before the door, and the young man in the street.

But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an eternal king: when he is angry, the earth is shaking with fear, and the nations give way before his wrath.

They turned back to the iniquities of their fathers before them who refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah brake my covenant which I cut out with their fathers.

Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter. I did not know they were making plans to kill me. I did not know they were saying, "Let's destroy the tree along with its fruit! Let's remove Jeremiah from the world of the living so people will not even be reminded of him any more."

But, O Lord of armies, judging in righteousness, testing the thoughts and the heart, let me see your punishment come on them: for I have put my cause before you.

You are in the right, O Lord, when I put my cause before you: still let me take up with you the question of your decisions: why does the evil-doer do well? why are the workers of deceit living in comfort?

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed.

"Therefore lay this riddle before them, and say, 'Thus sayeth the LORD God of Israel: Every pot shall be filled with wine.' And they shall say, 'Thinkest thou we know not, that every pot shall be filled with wine?'

Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. Do it before you stumble into distress like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for into the darkness and gloom of exile.

I will scatter you like drifting chaff
before the desert wind.

So I will have your skirts uncovered before your face, in order that your shame may be seen.

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!

“Their widows will be more numerous before Me
Than the sand of the seas;
I will bring against them, against the mother of a young man,
A destroyer at noonday;
I will suddenly bring down on her
Anguish and dismay.

“She who has borne seven [sons] languishes;
She has breathed out her soul.
Her sun has set while it was still day;
She has been shamed and humiliated.
So I will hand over [the rest of] the survivors to the sword
Before their enemies,” says the Lord.

Therefore thus saith Jehovah, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I will remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and the shout of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

For mine own eyes are upon all their ways, they have not been hid from my face - neither hath their iniquity been concealed from being straight before mine eyes.

Before I restore them I will punish them in full for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own with their detestable idols."

The person who gathers wealth by unjust means is like the partridge that broods over eggs but does not hatch them. Before his life is half over he will lose his ill-gotten gains. At the end of his life it will be clear he was a fool."

As for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd after thee; neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was before thy face.

if the same people do evil before me, and hear not my voice: Immediately, I repent of the good, that I devised to do for them.

I will scatter them before their enemies like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind. I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them when disaster strikes them."

Should good be paid back with evil? Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. Just remember how I stood before you pleading on their behalf to keep you from venting your anger on them.

But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not pardon their crimes! Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! Let them be brought down in defeat before you! Deal with them while you are still angry!

into the valley of the children of Hinnom, which lieth before the port that is made of brick, and show them there the words, that I shall tell thee,

I will pour out and nullify the counsel (plans) of [the men of] Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will make their people fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their lives; and I will give their dead bodies as food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes of the men who have gone with you,

For thus sayeth the LORD: behold, I will make thee afraid, thee thyself and all that favour thee: which shall perish with the sword of their enemies, even before thy face. And I will give whole Judah under the power of the king of Babylon, which shall carry some unto Babylon, prisoners, and slay some with the sword.

But, O Lord of armies, testing the upright and seeing the thoughts and the heart, let me see your punishment come on them; for I have put my cause before you.

For he did not kill me before I came from the womb, making my pregnant mother's womb my grave forever.

“And to this people you (Jeremiah) shall also say, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

O house of David, for thus sayeth the LORD: Minister righteousness, and that soon. Deliver the oppressed from violent power: before my terrible wrath break out like a fire, and burn so that no man may quench it, because of the wickedness of your imaginations.

Yea when he helped the oppressed and poor to their right, then prospered he well. From whence came this? But only because he had me before his eyes, sayeth the LORD.

and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them before whom thou art afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

For this reason, truly, I will put you completely out of my memory, and I will put you, and the town which I gave to you and to your fathers, away from before my face:

The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim's son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon.

And you will say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, “If you will not listen to Me and obey My law which I have set before you,

And when all the people were gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the LORD, the princes of Judah heard of this rumor, and they came soon out of the king's Palace into the house of the LORD, and sat them down before the new door 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 made his defense before all the officials and all the people. "The Lord sent me to prophesy everything you have heard me say against this temple and against this city.

For thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the [bronze] pillars, the [bronze] Sea, the [bronze] bases [of the ten basins in Solomon’s temple used for washing sacrificial animals], and the rest of the articles that are left in this city (Jerusalem),

And it came about in that year, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azzur the prophet, who came from Gibeon, said to Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, before the priests and all the people,

Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, before the priests and all the people who had come into the house of the Lord,

The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of disaster and of virulent disease.

either of peace, upon many nations and great kingdoms - were proved by this, if God had sent them in very deed: when the thing came to pass, which that prophet told before."

Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. "The Lord says, 'In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon before two years are over.'" After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way.

"The Lord God of Israel who rules over all also has something to say about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. 'I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and he will execute them before your very eyes.

‘Their children too will be as in former times,
And their congregation will be established before Me;
And I will punish all their oppressors.

And their chief will be of their number; their ruler will come from among themselves; and I will let him be present before me, so that he may come near to me: for who may have strength of heart to come near me? says the Lord.

Even so shall the LORD now also appear unto me from far, and say, 'I love thee with an everlasting love, therefore do I spread my mercy before thee.'

They will come with weeping, and going before them I will be their guide: guiding them by streams of water in a straight way where there is no falling: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is the first of my sons.

The Lord affirms, "The descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight. That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights were to cease to operate before me."

And the measuring line shall yet go forth before it unto the hill Gareb, and shall turn toward Goath.

and I delivered the deed of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel mine uncle's'son , and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the guard.

And I commanded Baruch in their presence, saying,

For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil in My sight from their youth; for the children of Israel have been provoking Me to anger by the [idols that are the] work of their hands,” says the Lord.

“From the day that they built it [during the reign of Solomon], even to this day, this city has been such a provocation of My anger and My wrath, that I must remove it from My sight,

Yea, land shall be bought for money, and evidences made thereupon and sealed before witnesses in the country of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem: in the cities of Judah; in the cities that are upon the mountains; and in them that lie beneath; yea, and in the cities that are in the desert. For I will bring their prisoners hither again, sayeth the LORD.'"

For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah which are torn down to make a defense against the siege ramps and against the sword,

All the nations will hear about all the good things which I will do to them. This city will bring me fame, honor, and praise before them for the joy that I bring it. The nations will tremble in awe at all the peace and prosperity that I will provide for it.'

Nor will the Levitical priests ever lack someone to stand before me and continually offer up burnt offerings, sacrifice cereal offerings, and offer the other sacrifices."'"

could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me.

I will make the children who follow one another in the line of my servant David very numerous. I will also make the Levites who minister before me very numerous. I will make them all as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands which are on the seashore.'"

Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which Jehovah did choose, he hath cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

You will die in peace; and as spices were burned for [the memory and honor of] your fathers, the former kings who reigned before you, so shall a [ceremonial] burning be made for you; and people will lament (grieve) for you, saying, “Alas, lord (master)!”’ For I have spoken the word,” says the Lord.

So then you recently turned and repented, doing what was right in My sight, each man proclaiming release [from servitude] to his countryman [who was his bond servant]; and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My Name.

The men who have violated My covenant, who have not kept the terms of the solemn pledge which they made before Me when they split the [sacrificial] calf in half, and then afterwards walked between its separated pieces [sealing their pledge to Me by placing a curse on themselves should they violate the covenant—those men I will make like the calf]!

But through my commandment, sayeth the LORD, they shall come again before this city, they shall fight against it, win it, and burn it. Moreover I will lay the cities of Judah so waste, that no man shall dwell therein."

Then I set before the men of the house of the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.”

But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come and let us go to Jerusalem before the army of the Chaldeans and before the army of the Arameans.’ So we have dwelt in Jerusalem.”

therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never fail to have a man (descendant) to stand before Me always.”’”

It may be that their supplication [for mercy] will come before the Lord, and everyone will turn from his evil way, for great is the anger and the wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people.”

All the people living in Jerusalem and all the people who came into Jerusalem from the towns of Judah came to observe a fast before the Lord. The fast took place in the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah.

And Micaiah told them all the words that he heard Baruch read out of the book before the people.

Then all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying, "Take in thine hand the book, whereout thou hast read before all the people, and come." So Baruch the son of Neriah took the book in his hand, and came unto them.

Now it was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, with a fire burning there in the brazier before him.

Then took Jeremiah another book, and gave it Baruch the Scribe, the son of Neriah, which wrote therein out of the mouth of Jeremiah all the sermons that were in the first book, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah did burn. And there were added unto them many more sermons than before."

{And then}, at the withdrawing of the army of the Chaldeans from Jerusalem {before} the army of Pharaoh,

Then said Jeremiah, "It is not so, I go not to the Chaldeans." Nevertheless Irijah would not believe him, but brought Jeremiah bound before the princes.

Therefore now, please listen, O my lord the king; please let my petition come before you and be acceptable and do not make me return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I may not die there.”

Then the king gave Ebed Melech the Ethiopian the following order: "Take thirty men with you from here and go pull the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies."