when the LORD had first spoken with him, in the time of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his kingdom;

Before you were formed in the body of your mother I had knowledge of you, and before your birth I made you holy; I have given you the work of being a prophet to the nations.

Then the Lord said to me, “Out of the north the evil [which the prophets foretold as the result of national sin] will reveal itself and spill out on all the people of the land.

"Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: 'This is what the Lord says: "I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

Neither said they, Where is Yahweh, Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, - Who led us Through the desert, Through a land of wastes and clefts, Through a land of parched places and of death-shade, Through a land, Along which no man had passed, And in which no son of earth dwelt?

And when I had brought you into a pleasant well builded land, that ye might enjoy the fruits and all the commodities of the same: ye went forth and defiled my land, and brought mine heritage to abomination.

The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and those who were expert in the law had no knowledge of me: and the rulers did evil against me, and the prophets became prophets of the Baal, going after things without value.

“Yet I had planted you [O house of Israel as] a choice vine,
A completely faithful seed.
How then have you turned against Me
Into degenerate shoots of a foreign and wild vine [alien to Me]?

O generation, see ye the word of Jehovah. Was I the desert to Israel? If a land of thick darkness? wherefore said my people, We had dominion, we will come no more to thee?

Even your clothes are stained with the lifeblood of the poor who had not done anything wrong; you did not catch them breaking into your homes. Yet, in spite of all these things you have done,

"Look up at the hilltops and consider this. You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.

“Therefore the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no spring rain.
Yet you had a harlot’s forehead;
You refused to be ashamed.

‘Will He be angry forever?
Will He be indignant to the end?’
Behold, you have spoken,
And you have done all the evil things [you could],
And you have had your way and have carried out your wickedness.”

And I said after she had done all these things, She will return unto me; but she returned not: and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

And I saw [that even though Judah knew] that for all the acts of adultery (idolatry) of faithless Israel, I [the Lord] had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid; but she went and was a prostitute also [following after idols].

Yea though it had come to pass that through the levity of her unchastity, she had defiled the land, - and committed adultery with Stone and with Tree,

but on this condition, that thou know thy great blasphemy: Namely, that thou hast unfaithfully forsaken the LORD thy God, and hast made thyself partaker of strange gods under all green trees, but hast had no will to hear my voice, sayeth the LORD.

Though, I myself, had said, - How can I put thee among the sons, And give thee a land to be coveted, An inheritance of beauty, of the hosts of nations? Yet I said, My father, shalt thou call me, And away from me, shalt thou not turn.

I looked at the earth [in my vision], and behold, it was [as at the time of creation] formless and void;
And to the heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld, The mountains, and lo! they were trembling, - And all the hills, had been violently moved:

I looked, and behold, there was no man,
And all the birds of the air had fled.

I beheld, And lo! the garden-land, was a desert, - And, all its cities, had been broken down, Because of Yahweh, Because of the glow of his anger!

“I will go to the great [men]
And speak to them,
For they [must] know the way of the Lord,
The ordinance of their God.”
But [I found the reverse to be true, that] they too had all alike broken the yoke [of God’s law]
And had burst the bonds [of obedience to Him].

“Why should I [overlook these offenses and] forgive you?
Your children have abandoned (rejected) Me
And sworn [their oaths] by those who are not gods.
When I had fed them until they were full [and bound them to Me by a promise],
They committed [spiritual] adultery,
Assembling in troops at the houses of prostitutes (idols).

Lusty, well-fed horses, had they become, Every man unto his neighbours wife, would neigh!

“Were they ashamed because they had committed disgusting and vile things?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
They did not even know how to blush [at their idolatry].
Therefore they will fall among those who fall;
At the time that I punish them
They will be overthrown,” says the Lord.

So I said, "Oh, my dear people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with painful sobs as though you had lost your only child. For any moment now that destructive army will come against us."

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

However, I will leave some of these wicked people alive and banish them to other places. But wherever these people who survive may go, they will wish they had died rather than lived," says the Lord who rules over all.

I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right: no man had regret for his evil-doing, saying, What have I done? everyone goes off on his way like a horse rushing to the fight.

Let them be put to shame because they have done disgusting things. They had no shame, they were not able to become red with shame: so they will come down with those who are falling: in the time of their punishment they will be made low, says the Lord.

Oh that I had in the wilderness
A lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men,
That I might leave my people
And go away from them!
For they are all adulterers [worshiping idols instead of the Lord],
[They are] an assembly of treacherous men [of weak character, men without integrity].

Woe is me, for my wound! My stroke is hard to heal, and I had said, Yea, this is my grief, and I will bear it.

Yet they did not obey or incline their ear [to listen to Me], but everyone walked in the stubborn way of his [own] evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all [the suffering threatened in] the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.’”

They have turned themselves to the blasphemies of their forefathers, which had no lust to hear my word. Even likewise have these also followed strange gods, and worshiped them. The houses of Israel and Judah have broken my covenant, which I made with their fathers.

You had been named by the Lord, A branching olive-tree, fair with beautiful fruit: with the noise of a great rushing he has put it on fire and its branches are broken.

But I was like a gentle and tame lamb brought to the slaughter;
And I did not know that they had devised plots and schemes against me, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;
Let us cut him off from the land of the living,
That his name be remembered no longer.”

Then the Lord told me about some men from Anathoth who were threatening to kill me. They had threatened, "Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!"

So I bought the shorts as the Lord had told me to do and put them on.

So I went and buried them at Perath as the Lord had ordered me to do.

So I went to Perath and dug up the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

What will you say when the Lord appoints as rulers over you those allies that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? Then anguish and agony will grip you like that of a woman giving birth to a baby.

"Judah shall mourn, men shall not go much more through his gates: the land shall be no more had in reputation, and the cry of Jerusalem shall break out.

I will scatter thee abroad with the fan on every side of the land: I will waste my people and destroy them, for they have had no lust to turn from their own ways.

The mother who had seven children will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. She will suffer shame and humiliation. I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies," says the Lord.

When I had found thy words, I ate them up greedily: they have made my heart joyful and glad, for I call upon thy name, O LORD God of Hosts.

I did not spend my time in the company of other people, laughing and having a good time. I stayed to myself because I felt obligated to you and because I was filled with anger at what they had done.

But in that time they will affirm them with 'I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.' At that time I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors."

Then I said, "Lord, you give me strength and protect me. You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. Nations from all over the earth will come to you and say, 'Our ancestors had nothing but false gods -- worthless idols that could not help them at all.

This is another communication that God had with Jeremiah, saying,

and that nation return from its wickedness against whom I have spoken, then will I repent concerning the calamity which I had devised to bring upon it.

if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.

So this is what the Lord has said: Make search among the nations and see who has had word of such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very shocking thing.

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!

Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent

Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord's temple and stood in its courtyard and called out to all the people.

And when Pashhur son of Immer, the priest, who also was deputy-overseer in the house of Yahweh, heard that Jeremiah had prophesied these things,

When he heard Jeremiah's prophecy, he had the prophet flogged. Then he put him in the stocks which were at the Upper Gate of Benjamin in the Lord's temple.

A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.

Cursed be the man who made my father very glad when he brought him the news that a baby boy had been born to him!

Let it happen unto that man, as to the cities which the LORD turned upside down, when he had long heard the wicked rumor of them;

because he slew me not from the womb. Or would that my mother had been my grave, and her womb always great with me!

Does it make you any more of a king that you outstrip everyone else in building with cedar? Just think about your father. He was content that he had food and drink. He did what was just and right. So things went well with him.

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.

“Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered jar?
Or is he an undesirable vessel?
Why have he and his descendants been hurled out
And cast into a land that they had not known?

And will gather together the remnant of my flock, from all lands that I had driven them unto, and will bring them again to their pastures, that they may grow and increase.

But at that time they will affirm them with "I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the descendants of the former nation of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them." At that time they will live in their own land.'"

Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated.

Even among the prophets of Samaria, had I seen a foolish thing, - They prophesied by Baal, And led astray my people Israel.

But if they had stood in my inner circle, they would have proclaimed my message to my people. They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

The Lord says, "I have heard what those prophets who are prophesying lies in my name are saying. They are saying, 'I have had a dream! I have had a dream!'

Let the prophet who has had a dream go ahead and tell his dream. Let the person who has received my message report that message faithfully. What is like straw cannot compare to what is like grain! I, the Lord, affirm it!

Behold me! against such as prophesy the dreams of falsehood, Declareth Yahweh, who have related them and led astray my people, with their falsehoods and with their recklessness, - whereas, I, had not sent them nor commanded them, so that they could be of no, profit, to this people, Declareth Yahweh.

But, since ye keep on saying, The Oracle of Yahweh, therefore, Thus saith Yahweh, Because ye have said this word, The oracle of Yahweh, whereas I had sent unto you saying, Ye shall not say, The oracle of Yahweh

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jeconiah [who was also called Coniah and Jehoiachin] the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah [along] with the craftsmen and smiths into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Lord showed me [in a vision] two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord.

One basket had very good-looking figs in it. They looked like those that had ripened early. The other basket had very bad-looking figs in it, so bad they could not be eaten.

Then I (Jeremiah) took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord had sent me drink it:

the foreigners living in Egypt; all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the land of the Philistines, the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod;

Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing.

Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people. All at once some of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, "You deserve to die!

Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh [after the ark of the Lord had been taken by our enemies] and this city [Jerusalem] will be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered around Jeremiah in the [outer area of the] house of the Lord.

Therefore amend your ways, and your advisements, and be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God: so shall the LORD repent of the plague, that he had devised against you.

“Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put Micah to death? Did he not [reverently] fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord? And did not the Lord relent and reverse His decision concerning the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But [here] we are [thinking of] committing a great evil against ourselves.”

And there was another man who was a prophet of the Lord, Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against this town and against this land all the words which Jeremiah had said:

Now when Jehoiakim the king with all the estate and princes had heard his words, the king went about to slay him. When Uriah perceived that, he was afraid, and fled, and departed into Egypt.

and they brought Uriah back from there. They took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him executed and had his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.

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 prophet who prophesied of peace when the word of the prophet was fulfilled, then was known the prophet, whom Yahweh had sent in truth.

But shortly after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah.

The prophet Jeremiah sent a letter to the exiles Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon. It was addressed to the elders who were left among the exiles, to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the other people who were exiled in Babylon.

He sent it after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the palace officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had been exiled from Jerusalem.

He sent it with Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah. King Zedekiah of Judah had sent these men to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The letter said:

And be working for the peace of the land to which I have had you taken away prisoners, and make prayer to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.

I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

because they have acted foolishly in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in My Name have spoken false and concocted words, which I did not command them. I am He who knows and I am a witness,” says the Lord.’”

Send thou unto all them of the captivity, saying, Thus, saith Yahweh, Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, - Because Shemaiah, hath prophesied to you, when, I, had not sent him, And hath caused you to trust in falsehood,

All thy lovers have forgotten thee, and care nothing for thee. For I have given thee a cruel stroke, and chastened thee roughly: and that for the multitude of thy misdeeds, for thy sins have had the overhand.

And their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is he that hath had boldness to approach unto me? saith Jehovah.

You will again plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria where planters had planted and defiled the fruit.

For the Lord will rescue the descendants of Jacob. He will secure their release from those who had overpowered them.