Then the Lord said to me, “Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me [interceding for them], My heart would still not be [turned with favor] toward this people [Judah]. Send them away from My presence and out of My sight and let them go!

Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember [with compassion] that I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
To turn Your anger away from them.

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:

“But who [among them] has stood in the council of the Lord,
That he would perceive and hear His word?
Who has marked His word [noticing and observing and paying attention to it] and has [actually] heard it?

“But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned My people from their evil way
And from the evil of their decisions and deeds.

How long [shall this state of affairs continue]? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart,

Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who stood in the house of the Lord,

“Go and tell Hananiah, ‘The Lord says this, “You have broken yokes of wood, but you have made in their place bars of iron.”

So the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the princes who stood beside the king.

Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, and all the women who were standing by, a large group, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah, saying,

“Why have your strong ones been cut down?
They do not stand because the Lord drove them away.

Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.