I thought: How I long to make you My sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
and never turn away from Me.

a wind too strong for this comes at My call. Now I will also pronounce judgments against them.’”

“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.

“When you speak all these things to them, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer you.

Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that don’t recognize You
and on the families
that don’t call on Your name,
for they have consumed Jacob;
they have consumed him and finished him off
and made his homeland desolate.

“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not raise up a cry or a prayer on their behalf, for I will not be listening when they call out to Me at the time of their disaster.

“I will ordain four kinds of judgment for them”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land to devour and destroy.

But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.

“House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.

This is what the Lord says: “Go, buy a potter’s clay jar. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests

The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib,

because he didn’t kill me in the womb
so that my mother might have been my grave,
her womb eternally pregnant.

You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

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.

But I will bring you health
and will heal you of your wounds—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
for they call you Outcast,
Zion whom no one cares about.

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!”

Yet You, Lord God, have said to me: Buy the field with silver and call in witnesses—even though the city has been handed over to the Chaldeans!”

Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.

Jeremiah replied to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, you will kill me, won’t you? Besides, if I give you advice, you won’t listen to me anyway.”

King Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah in private, “As the Lord lives, who has given us this life, I will not kill you or hand you over to these men who want to take your life.”

If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come and demand of you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king; don’t hide anything from us and we won’t kill you. Also, what did the king say to you?’

Then Johanan son of Kareah suggested to Gedaliah in private at Mizpah, “Let me go kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one will know it. Why should he kill you and scatter all of Judah that has gathered to you so that the remnant of Judah would perish?”

However, there were 10 men among them who said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us, for we have hidden treasure in the field—wheat, barley, oil, and honey!” So he stopped and did not kill them along with their companions.

They will take their tents and their flocks
along with their tent curtains and all their equipment.
They will take their camels for themselves.
They will call out to them:
Terror is on every side!