I replied, "Ah, LORD God! Look, I don't know how to speak, because I'm only a young man."

Then the LORD told me, "Don't say, "I'm only a young man,' for you will go everywhere I send you, and you will speak everything I command you.

"Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. But you haven't obeyed me,' declares the LORD.

Then I said, "These are only the poor, they're foolish, for they don't know the LORD's way, the requirement of their God.

Daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as one mourns at the death of an only son. For the destroyer will come on us suddenly.

"Look, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I'll punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh:

Have you completely rejected Judah? Do you despise Zion? Why have you struck us, so that there is no healing for us? We hoped for peace, but no good came, for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

But you are to no longer mention the oracle of the LORD, because the oracle is only for the person to whom the LORD gives his message, and you have overturned the words of the living God, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, our God.

Indeed, the Israelis and Judeans have been doing only evil in my presence since their youth. Indeed, the Israelis have done nothing but provoke me by what they have made with their hands," declares the LORD.

while the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah that were left, namely Lachish and Azekah. (They were the only fortified cities that remained among the cities of Judah.)

Indeed, even if you defeated the entire Chaldean army that is fighting against you, and they had only wounded men left in their tents, they would get up and burn this city with fire.'"'"

So they threw Jeremiah into a cistern that belonged to the king's son Malchijah and was located in the courtyard of the guard. When they let Jeremiah down with ropes, because there was no water in the cistern only mud Jeremiah sank into the mud.

They told Jeremiah the prophet, "Please listen to what we have to ask of you. Pray to the LORD your God for us and for all these survivors. Indeed, only a few of us remain out of many, as you can see.

If the grape harvesters came to you, would they not leave gleanings? If thieves came at night, they would destroy only until they had enough.

This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: "The broad wall of Babylon will be completely leveled, and its high gate set on fire. and so the nations toil for nothing, and the nations weary themselves only for fire."