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

“Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the Lord says:

I remember the loyalty of your youth,
your love as a bride—
how you followed Me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.

Is Israel a slave?
Was he born into slavery?
Why else has he become a prey?

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.

For long ago I broke your yoke;
I tore off your chains.
You insisted, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you lie down like a prostitute.

I planted you, a choice vine
from the very best seed.
How then could you turn into
a degenerate, foreign vine?

How can you protest, “I am not defiled;
I have not followed the Baals”?
Look at your behavior in the valley;
acknowledge what you have done.
You are a swift young camel
twisting and turning on her way,

Like the shame of a thief when he is caught,
so the house of Israel has been put to shame.
They, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets

How skillfully you pursue love;
you also teach evil women your ways.

How unstable you are,
constantly changing your ways!
You will be put to shame by Egypt
just as you were put to shame by Assyria.

If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him to marry another,
can he ever return to her?
Wouldn’t such a land become totally defiled?
But you!
You have played the prostitute with many partners—
can you return to Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Will He bear a grudge forever?
Will He be endlessly infuriated?”
This is what you have said,
but you have done the evil things
you are capable of.

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

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 lion has gone up from his thicket;
a destroyer of nations has set out.
He has left his lair
to make your land a waste.
Your cities will be reduced to uninhabited ruins.

Look, he advances like clouds;
his chariots are like a storm.
His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are ruined!

Wash the evil from your heart, Jerusalem,
so that you will be delivered.
How long will you harbor
malicious thoughts within you?

How long must I see the signal flag
and hear the sound of the ram’s horn?

“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.”

Don’t you see how they behave in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom in order to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, a thing I did not command; I never entertained the thought.

“How can you claim, ‘We are wise;
the law of the Lord is with us’?
In fact, the lying pen of scribes
has produced falsehood.

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.

Their tongues are deadly arrows—
they speak deception.
With his mouth
a man speaks peaceably with his friend,
but inwardly he sets up an ambush.

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.

But the one who boasts should boast in this,
that he understands and knows Me—
that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love,
justice, and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

He decorates it with silver and gold.
It is fastened with hammer and nails,
so it won’t totter.

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.

He made the earth by His power,
established the world by His wisdom,
and spread out the heavens by His understanding.

When He thunders,
the waters in the heavens are in turmoil,
and He causes the clouds to rise
from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
and brings the wind from His storehouses.

Jacob’s Portion is not like these
because He is the One who formed all things.
Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;
Yahweh of Hosts is His name.

The Lord named you
a flourishing olive tree,
beautiful with well-formed fruit.
He has set fire to it,
and its branches are consumed
with a great roaring sound.

How long will the land mourn
and the grass of every field wither?
Because of the evil of its residents,
animals and birds have been swept away,
for the people have said,
“He cannot see what our end will be.”

If you have raced with runners
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in a peaceful land,
what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?

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.

What will you say when He appoints
close friends as leaders over you,
ones you yourself trained?
Won’t labor pains seize you,
as they do a woman in labor?

Your adulteries and your lustful neighing,
your heinous prostitution
on the hills, in the fields—
I have seen your detestable acts.
Woe to you, Jerusalem!
You are unclean—
for how long yet?

This is what the Lord says concerning these people:

Truly they love to wander;
they never rest their feet.
So the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins.

I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.

but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.

while their children remember their altars
and their Asherah poles, by the green trees
on the high hills—

My mountains in the countryside.
I will give up your wealth
and all your treasures as plunder
because of the sin of your high places
in all your borders.

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.

He will be like a tree planted by water:
it sends its roots out toward a stream,
it doesn’t fear when heat comes,
and its foliage remains green.
It will not worry in a year of drought
or cease producing fruit.

He who makes a fortune unjustly
is like a partridge that hatches eggs it didn’t lay.
In the middle of his days
his riches will abandon him,
so in the end he will be a fool.

A throne of glory
on high from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.

Hear how they keep challenging me,
“Where is the word of the Lord?
Let it come!”

So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working away at the wheel.

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.

Yet My people have forgotten Me.
They burn incense to false idols
that make them stumble in their ways
on the ancient roads
and walk on new paths, not the highway.

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.

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.

for this is what the Lord says, ‘I am about to make you a terror to both yourself and those you love. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will deport them to Babylon and put them to the sword.

For I have heard the gossip of many people,
“Terror is on every side!
Report him; let’s report him!”
Everyone I trusted watches for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived
so that we might prevail against him
and take our vengeance on him.”

Sing to the Lord!
Praise the Lord,
for He rescues the life of the needy
from the hand of evil people.

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

Afterward’”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officers, and the people—those in this city who survive the plague, the sword, and the famine—I will hand over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, to their enemies, yes, to those who want to take their lives. He will put them to the sword; he won’t spare them or show pity or compassion.’

Do not weep for the dead;
do not mourn for him.
Weep bitterly for the one who has gone away,
for he will never return again
and see his native land.

For this is what the Lord says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of his father Josiah: “He has left this place—he will never return here again,

but he will die in the place where they deported him, never seeing this land again.”

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.

Are you a king because you excel in cedar?
Didn’t your father eat and drink
and administer justice and righteousness?
Then it went well with him.

He took up the case of the poor and needy,
then it went well.
Is this not what it means to know Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

He will be buried like a donkey,
dragged off and thrown
outside the gates of Jerusalem.

You residents of Lebanon,
nestled among the cedars,
how you will groan when labor pains come on you,
agony like a woman in labor.

Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered pot,
a jar no one wants?
Why are he and his descendants hurled out
and cast into a land they have not known?

“The days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—
“when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David.
He will reign wisely as king
and administer justice and righteousness in the land.

In His days Judah will be saved,
and Israel will dwell securely.
This is what He will be named:
Yahweh Our Righteousness.

The Lord’s anger will not turn back
until He has completely fulfilled the purposes of His heart.
In time to come you will understand it clearly.

How long will this continue in the minds of the prophets prophesying lies, prophets of the deceit of their own minds?

He announced, ‘Turn, each of you, from your evil way of life and from your evil deeds. Live in the land the Lord gave to you and your ancestors long ago and forever.

For I am already bringing disaster on the city that bears My name, so how could you possibly go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

“As for you, you are to prophesy all these things to them, and say to them:

The Lord roars from heaven;
He raises His voice from His holy dwelling.
He roars loudly over His grazing land;
He calls out with a shout, like those who tread grapes,
against all the inhabitants of the earth.

The tumult reaches to the ends of the earth
because the Lord brings a case against the nations.
He enters into judgment with all flesh.
As for the wicked, He hands them over to the sword—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

He has left His den like a lion,
for their land has become a desolation
because of the sword of the oppressor,
because of His burning anger.

He finished the address the Lord had commanded him to deliver to all the people. Then the priests, the prophets, and all the people took hold of him, yelling, “You must surely die!

How dare you prophesy in the name of Yahweh, ‘This temple will become like Shiloh and this city will become an uninhabited ruin’!” Then all the people assembled against Jeremiah at the Lord’s temple.

Then the priests and prophets said to the officials and all the people, “This man deserves the death sentence because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”

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.

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!”

Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all the people of Judah put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and plead for the Lord’s favor, and did not the Lord relent concerning the disaster He had pronounced against them? We are about to bring great harm on ourselves!”

Another man was also prophesying in the name of Yahweh—Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like all those of Jeremiah.

King Jehoiakim, all his warriors, and all the officials heard his words, and the king tried to put him to death. When Uriah heard, he fled in fear and went to Egypt.

But Ahikam son of Shaphan supported Jeremiah, so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.

those Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he deported Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

The prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words you have prophesied come true and may He restore the articles of the Lord’s temple and all the exiles from Babylon to this place!

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.

because they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have spoken a lie in My name, which I did not command them. I am He who knows, and I am a witness.” This is the Lord’s declaration.

For he has sent word to us in Babylon, claiming, “The exile will be long. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat their produce.”’”

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.”

How awful that day will be!
There will be none like it!
It will be a time of trouble for Jacob,
but he will be delivered out of it.

Jacob’s leader will be one of them;
his ruler will issue from him.
I will invite him to Me, and he will approach Me,
for who would otherwise risk his life to approach Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The Lord’s burning anger will not turn back
until He has completely fulfilled the purposes of His heart.
In time to come you will understand it.

Nations, hear the word of the Lord,
and tell it among the far off coastlands!
Say: The One who scattered Israel will gather him.
He will watch over him as a shepherd guards his flock,

for the Lord has ransomed Jacob
and redeemed him from the power of one stronger than he.

Set up road markers for yourself;
establish signposts!
Keep the highway in mind,
the way you have traveled.
Return, Virgin Israel!
Return to these cities of yours.

How long will you turn here and there,
faithless daughter?
For the Lord creates something new in the land—
a female will shelter a man.

Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, I am about to hand this city over to Babylon’s king, and he will capture it.