But I protested, “Oh no, Lord, God! Look, I don’t know how to speak since I am only a youth.”

“Now, get ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them or I will cause you to cower before them.

The priests quit asking, “Where is the Lord?”
The experts in the law no longer knew Me,
and the rulers rebelled against Me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal
and followed useless idols.

Have you not brought this on yourself
by abandoning the Lord your God
while He was leading you along the way?

Your own evil will discipline you;
your own apostasies will reprimand you.
Think it over and see how evil and bitter it is
for you to abandon the Lord your God
and to have no fear of Me.
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.

Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You have scattered your favors to strangers
under every green tree
and have not obeyed My voice.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

A sound is heard on the barren heights,
the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy,
for they have perverted their way;
they have forgotten the Lord their God.

Return, you faithless children.
I will heal your unfaithfulness.
“Here we are, coming to You,
for You are the Lord our God.

Surely, falsehood comes from the hills,
commotion from the mountains,
but the salvation of Israel
is only in the Lord our God.

Let us lie down in our shame;
let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our fathers,
from the time of our youth even to this day.
We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

I said, “Oh no, Lord God, You have certainly deceived this people and Jerusalem, by announcing, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

“For My people are fools;
they do not know Me.
They are foolish children,
without understanding.
They are skilled in doing what is evil,
but they do not know how to do what is good.”

Then I thought:

They are just the poor;
they have played the fool.
For they don’t understand the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.

I will go to the powerful
and speak to them.
Surely they know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.
However, these also had broken the yoke
and torn off the chains.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says:

Because you have spoken this word,
I am going to make My words
become fire in your mouth.
These people are the wood,
and the fire will consume them.

When people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You will respond to them: Just as you abandoned Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

They have not said to themselves,
‘Let’s fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain, both early and late, in its season,
who guarantees to us the fixed weeks of the harvest.’

For this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Cut down the trees;
raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem.
This city must be punished.
There is nothing but oppression within her.

This is what the Lord says:

Stand by the roadways and look.
Ask about the ancient paths:
Which is the way to what is good?
Then take it
and find rest for yourselves.
But they protested, “We won’t!”

“Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and there call out this word: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the Lord.

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your deeds, and I will allow you to live in this place.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Look, My anger—My burning wrath—is about to be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,

However, I did give them this command: Obey Me, and then I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.

You must therefore declare to them: This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths.

Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under His wrath.

“You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says:

Do people fall and not get up again?
If they turn away, do they not return?

Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let us enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.

We hoped for peace, but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

Speak as follows:

This is what the Lord says:

Human corpses will fall
like manure on the surface of the field,
like newly cut grain after the reaper
with no one to gather it.

Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch,
their idols cannot speak.
They must be carried because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them for they can do no harm—
and they cannot do any good.

But Yahweh is the true God;
He is the living God and eternal King.
The earth quakes at His wrath,
and the nations cannot endure His rage.

You must tell them: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let a curse be on the man who does not obey the words of this covenant,

which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.’ I declared: ‘Obey Me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God,’

for I was like a docile lamb led to slaughter.
I didn’t know that they had devised plots against me:
“Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit;
let’s cut him off from the land of the living
so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen undergarment and put it on, but do not put it in water.”

A long time later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to the Euphrates and get the underwear that I commanded you to hide there.”

So I went to the Euphrates and dug up the underwear and got it from the place where I had hidden it, but it was ruined—of no use at all.

“Say this to them: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Every jar should be filled with wine. Then they will respond to you, ‘Don’t we know that every jar should be filled with wine?’

Give glory to the Lord your God
before He brings darkness,
before your feet stumble
on the mountains at dusk.
You wait for light,
but He brings darkest gloom
and makes thick darkness.

Can the Cushite change his skin,
or a leopard his spots?
If so, you might be able to do what is good,
you who are instructed in evil.

And I replied, “Oh no, Lord God! The prophets are telling them, ‘You won’t see sword or suffer famine. I will certainly give you true peace in this place.’”

Have You completely rejected Judah?
Do You detest Zion?
Why do You strike us
with no hope of healing for us?
We hoped for peace,
but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing,
but there was only terror.

Can any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain?
Or can the skies alone give showers?
Are You not the Lord our God?
We therefore put our hope in You,
for You have done all these things.

Your words were found, and I ate them.
Your words became a delight to me
and the joy of my heart,
for I am called by Your name,
Yahweh God of Hosts.

Both great and small will die in this land without burial. No lament will be made for them, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

He will be like a juniper in the Arabah;
he cannot see when good comes
but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness,
in a salt land where no one lives.

This is what the Lord said to me, “Go and stand at the People’s Gate, through which the kings of Judah enter and leave, as well as at all the gates of Jerusalem.

However, if it does what is evil in My sight by not listening to My voice, I will relent concerning the good I had said I would do to it.

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
to speak good on their behalf,
to turn Your anger from them.

and go out to the Valley of Hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you.

Say: Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that everyone who hears about it will shudder

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its dependent villages—all the disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying My words.’”

So Pashhur had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the Lord’s temple.

‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will repel the weapons of war in your hands, those you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall, and I will bring them into the center of this city.

For I have turned against this city to bring disaster and not good’”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “‘It will be handed over to the king of Babylon, who will burn it down.’

I will appoint destroyers against you,
each with his weapons.
They will cut down the choicest of your cedars
and throw them into the fire.

They will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God and worshiped and served other gods.’”

who says, “I will build myself a massive palace,
with spacious upper rooms.”
He will cut windows in it,
and it will be paneled with cedar
and painted with vermilion.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who shepherd My people: You have scattered My flock, banished them, and have not attended to them. I will attend to you because of your evil acts”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

“Am I a God who is only near”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and not a God who is far away?

But no longer refer to the burden of the Lord, for each man’s word becomes his burden and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of Hosts, our God.

One basket contained very good figs, like early figs, but the other basket contained very bad figs, so bad they were inedible.

The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs! The good figs are very good, but the bad figs are extremely bad, so bad they are inedible.”

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah I sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.

I will keep My eyes on them for their good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them.

I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Yahweh. They will be My people, and I will be their God because they will return to Me with all their heart.

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and make all the nations I am sending you to, drink from it.

“Then you are to say to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk, and vomit. Fall down and never get up again, as a result of the sword I am sending among you.

When the officials of Judah heard these things, they went from the king’s palace to the Lord’s temple and sat at the entrance of the New Gate.

So now, correct your ways and deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God so that He might relent concerning the disaster that He warned about.

As for me, here I am in your hands; do to me what you think is good and right.

Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, “This man doesn’t deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God!”

Command them to go to their masters, saying: This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: This is what you must say to your masters:

Yes, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about the articles that remain in the temple of the Lord, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem:

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, ‘I have put an iron yoke on the neck of all these nations that they might serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have also put the wild animals under him.’”

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon:

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you, and don’t listen to the dreams you elicit from them,

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to Ahab son of Kolaiah and to Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, the ones prophesying a lie to you in My name: “I am about to hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will kill them before your very eyes.

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: You in your own name have sent out letters to all the people of Jerusalem, to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests, saying:

this is what the Lord says: I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. There will not be even one of his descendants living among these people, nor will any ever see the good that I will bring to My people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“for he has preached rebellion against the Lord.”

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Write down on a scroll all the words that I have spoken to you,

They will serve the Lord their God and I will raise up David their king for them.”

As for you, My servant Jacob,
do not be afraid—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
and do not be dismayed, Israel,
for without fail I will save you from far away,
your descendants, from the land of their captivity!
Jacob will return and have calm and quiet
with no one to frighten him.

You will be My people,
and I will be your God.

“At that time”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.”

For there will be a day when watchmen will call out
in the hill country of Ephraim,
“Get up, let’s go up to Zion,
to Yahweh our God!”

I have heard Ephraim moaning,
“You disciplined me, and I have been disciplined
like an untrained calf.
Restore me, and I will return,
for you, Lord, are my God.

This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “When I restore their fortunes, they will once again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities, ‘May the Lord bless you, righteous settlement, holy mountain.’

“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.

“Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when the city from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate will be rebuilt for the Lord.

The whole valley—the corpses, the ashes, and all the fields as far as the Kidron Valley to the corner of the Horse Gate to the east—will be holy to the Lord. It will never be uprooted or demolished again.”

‘This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Take these scrolls—this purchase agreement with the sealed copy and this open copy—and put them in an earthen storage jar so they will last a long time.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

Oh, Lord God! You Yourself made the heavens and earth by Your great power and with Your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!