Raise a signal flag that tells people to go to Zion. Run for safety! Do not delay! For I am about to bring disaster out of the north. It will bring great destruction.

"Run for safety, people of Benjamin! Get out of Jerusalem! Sound the trumpet in Tekoa! Light the signal fires at Beth Hakkerem! For disaster lurks out of the north; it will bring great destruction.

Everyone must be on his guard around his friends. He must not even trust any of his relatives. For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. And all of his friends will tell lies about him.

I said, "There is no one like you, Lord. You are great. And you are renowned for your power.

Listen! News is coming even now. The rumble of a great army is heard approaching from a land in the north. It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.

"When you tell these people about all this, they will undoubtedly ask you, 'Why has the Lord threatened us with such great disaster? What wrong have we done? What sin have we done to offend the Lord our God?'

In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength!

The Lord told me to say to the royal court of Judah, "Listen to what the Lord says,

"'People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, "Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?"

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation too. I will repay them for all they have done!'"

However, some of the officials of Judah heard about what was happening and they rushed up to the Lord's temple from the royal palace. They set up court at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord's temple.

King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord's favor? Did not the Lord forgo destroying them as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves."

"I made the earth and the people and animals on it by my mighty power and great strength, and I give it to whomever I see fit.

All nations must serve him and his son and grandson until the time comes for his own nation to fall. Then many nations and great kings will in turn subjugate Babylon.

From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably prophesied war, disaster, and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms.

All your allies have abandoned you. They no longer have any concern for you. For I have attacked you like an enemy would. I have chastened you cruelly. For your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much.

Why do you complain about your injuries, that your pain is incurable? I have done all this to you because your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much.

Oh, Lord God, you did indeed make heaven and earth by your mighty power and great strength. Nothing is too hard for you!

You show unfailing love to thousands. But you also punish children for the sins of their parents. You are the great and powerful God who is known as the Lord who rules over all.

You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. You see everything people do. You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do.

You used your mighty power and your great strength to perform miracles and amazing deeds and to bring great terror on the Egyptians. By this means you brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt.

I will certainly regather my people from all the countries where I will have exiled them in my anger, fury, and great wrath. I will bring them back to this place and allow them to live here in safety.

"For I, the Lord, say: 'I will surely bring on these people all the good fortune that I am hereby promising them. I will be just as sure to do that as I have been in bringing all this great disaster on them.

Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.'

I will punish the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the other people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf.

Perhaps then they will ask the Lord for mercy and will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. For the Lord has threatened to bring great anger and wrath against these people."

At that time Baruch went into the temple of the Lord. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary. That room was in the upper court near the entrance of the New Gate. There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said.

He went down to the chamber of the royal secretary in the king's palace and found all the court officials in session there. Elishama the royal secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were seated there.

The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the royal secretary, for safekeeping. Then they went to the court and reported everything to the king.

An Ethiopian, Ebed Melech, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put in the cistern. While the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate,

Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took captive the rest of the people who were left in the city. He carried them off to Babylon along with the people who had deserted to him.

Now King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had issued orders concerning Jeremiah. He had passed them on through Nebuzaradan, the captain of his royal guard,

So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, Nebushazban, who was a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer, who was a high official, and all the other officers of the king of Babylon

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah after Nebuzaradan the captain of the royal guard had set him free at Ramah. He had taken him there in chains along with all the people from Jerusalem and Judah who were being carried off to exile to Babylon.

The captain of the royal guard took Jeremiah aside and said to him, "The Lord your God threatened this place with this disaster.

Before Jeremiah could turn to leave, the captain of the guard added, "Go back to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon appointed to govern the towns of Judah. Go back and live with him among the people. Or go wherever else you choose." Then the captain of the guard gave Jeremiah some food and a present and let him go.

Then Ishmael took captive all the people who were still left alive in Mizpah. This included the royal princesses and all the rest of the people in Mizpah that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had put under the authority of Gedaliah son of Ahikam. Ishmael son of Nethaniah took all these people captive and set out to cross over to the Ammonites.

Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him led off all the people who had been left alive at Mizpah. They had rescued them from Ishmael son of Nethaniah after he killed Gedaliah son of Ahikam. They led off the men, women, children, soldiers, and court officials whom they had brought away from Gibeon.

They also led off all the men, women, children, and royal princesses that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had left with Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan. This included the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah.

"So now the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, asks, 'Why will you do such great harm to yourselves? Why should every man, woman, child, and baby of yours be destroyed from the midst of Judah? Why should you leave yourselves without a remnant?

Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods, as well as all their wives, answered Jeremiah. There was a great crowd of them representing all the people who lived in northern and southern Egypt. They answered,

But ever since we stopped sacrificing and pouring out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in great need. Our people have died in wars or of starvation."

But listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, 'I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, "As surely as the Lord God lives."

Are you looking for great things for yourself? Do not look for such things. For I, the Lord, affirm that I am about to bring disaster on all humanity. But I will allow you to escape with your life wherever you go."'"

For the time has come to destroy all the Philistines. The time has come to destroy all the help that remains for Tyre and Sidon. For I, the Lord, will destroy the Philistines, that remnant that came from the island of Crete.

Cries of anguish will arise in Horonaim, 'Oh, the ruin and great destruction!'

Why do you brag about your great power? Your power is ebbing away, you rebellious people of Ammon, who trust in your riches and say, 'Who would dare to attack us?'

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born will be disgraced. Indeed, Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

The noise of battle can be heard in the land of Babylonia. There is the sound of great destruction.

The exiles from Judah will say, 'The Lord has brought about a great deliverance for us! Come on, let's go and proclaim in Zion what the Lord our God has done!'

Cries of anguish will come from Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.

On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

The whole Babylonian army that came with the captain of the royal guard tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took into exile some of the poor, the rest of the people who remained in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the craftsmen.

The captain of the royal guard took the gold and silver bowls, censers, basins, pots, lampstands, pans, and vessels.

The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.