It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

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

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

I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.

They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take Me into account.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I have abandoned My house;
I have deserted My inheritance.
I have given the love of My life
into the hands of her enemies.

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard;
they have trampled My plot of land.
They have turned My desirable plot
into a desolate wasteland.

The cities of the Negev are under siege;
no one can help them.
All of Judah has been taken into exile,
taken completely into exile.

The people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. There will be no one to bury them—they, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. I will pour out their own evil on them.”

So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.

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.

As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon. There you will die, and there you will be buried, you and all your friends that you prophesied falsely to.’”

‘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 this is what the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

You are like Gilead to Me,
or the summit of Lebanon,
but I will certainly turn you into a wilderness,
uninhabited cities.

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.

The wind will take charge of all your shepherds,
and your lovers will go into captivity.
Then you will be ashamed and humiliated
because of all your evil.

I will hurl you and the mother who gave birth to you into another land, where neither of you were born, and there you will both die.

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 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.

They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who executed him with the sword and threw his corpse into the burial place of the common people.

But this is what the Lord says concerning the king sitting on David’s throne and concerning all the people living in this city—that is, concerning your brothers who did not go with you into exile.

Nevertheless, all who devoured you will be devoured,
and all your adversaries—all of them—
will go off into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered,
and all who raid you will be raided.

Then the young woman will rejoice with dancing,
while young and old men rejoice together.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
give them consolation,
and bring happiness out of grief.

All the officials and people who entered into covenant to free their male and female slaves—in order not to enslave them any longer—obeyed and freed them.

and I brought them into the temple of the Lord to a chamber occupied by the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God, who had a chamber near the officials’ chamber, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper.

However, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched into the land, we said: Come, let’s go into Jerusalem to get away from the Chaldean and Aramean armies. So we have been living in Jerusalem.”

In the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people of Jerusalem and all those coming in from Judah’s cities into Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.

As soon as Jehudi would read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut the scroll with a scribe’s knife and throw the columns into the blazing fire until the entire scroll was consumed by the fire in the brazier.

Jeremiah was going about his daily tasks among the people, for they had not yet put him into the prison.

The officials were angry at Jeremiah and beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.

So Jeremiah went into a cell in the dungeon and stayed there many days.

So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the guard’s courtyard, lowering Jeremiah with ropes. There was no water in the cistern, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

But Ebed-melech, a Cushite court official employed in the king’s palace, heard Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Benjamin Gate,

“My lord the king, these men have been evil in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern where he will die from hunger, because there is no more bread in the city.”

‘All the women who remain in the palace of Judah’s king will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon and will say:

Your trusted friends misled you
and overcame you.
Your feet sank into the mire,
and they deserted you.

In the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the city was broken into.

But when they came into the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men with him slaughtered them and threw them into a cistern.

They left, stopping in Geruth Chimham, which is near Bethlehem, in order to make their way into Egypt,

Because you trust in your works and treasures,
you will be captured also.
Chemosh will go into exile
with his priests and officials.

Moab has been left quiet since his youth,
settled like wine on its dregs.
He hasn’t been poured from one container to another
or gone into exile.
So his taste has remained the same,
and his aroma hasn’t changed.

Woe to you, Moab!
The people of Chemosh have perished
because your sons have been taken captive
and your daughters have gone into captivity.

Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is devastated;
cry out, daughters of Rabbah!
Clothe yourselves with sackcloth, and lament;
run back and forth within your walls,
because Milcom will go into exile
together with his priests and officials.

Sharpen the arrows!
Fill the quivers!
The Lord has put it into the mind
of the kings of the Medes
because His plan is aimed at Babylon
to destroy her,
for it is the Lord’s vengeance,
vengeance for His temple.

Look, I am against you, devastating mountain—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you devastate the whole earth.
I will stretch out My hand against you,
roll you down from the cliffs,
and turn you into a charred mountain.

When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River.

Then the city was broken into, and all the warriors fled. They left the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. They made their way along the route to the Arabah.

Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the bronze pillars for the Lord’s temple and the water carts and the bronze reservoir that were in the Lord’s temple, and carried all the bronze to Babylon.

The king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from its land.