For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as one bearing her first child, the voice of Zion's daughter, gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe to me now! For my soul faints because of murderers.

O the Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the land, and as a traveler turning in to lodge?

Why should You be as a man stunned, as one mighty, yet who cannot save? Yet You, O Jehovah, are in our midst, and we are called by Your name. Do not leave us!

Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before You to do good for them, and to turn away Your wrath from them.

Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, A man child is born to you; making him very glad.

Why did I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?

For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by My name; and should you be found entirely without guilt? You shall not be without guilt. For I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says Jehovah of Hosts.

But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.

For they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out and you should perish.

Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon and live. For why should this city be laid waste?

Jehovah has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be officers in the house of Jehovah, over every madman who prophesies, that you should put him into the stocks and into the collar.

Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the corners of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together; a great company shall return there.

Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? For as often as I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still. Therefore My heart is troubled for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says Jehovah.

For this city has been to Me as a cause of My anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even to this day; that I should remove it from before My face;

And they built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

So says Jehovah: If you can break My covenant of the day and My covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season,

then also may My covenant with David My servant be broken, that he should not have a son to reign on his throne, and My covenant with the Levites the priests, My ministers.

Do you not consider what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which Jehovah has chosen, He has even cast them off? So they have despised My people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

that each man should let his male slave, and each man his female slave, if a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, to go free, that none should enslave a Jew, his brother among them.

And all the rulers obeyed, and all the people who had entered into the covenant allowed them to go free, each man his male slave, and each man his female slave, so that not any should enslave among them any more; and they obeyed and let them go.

At the end of seven years each man should let go his brother, a Hebrew, and who has been sold to him. And when he has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you. But your fathers did not listen to me, nor bow down their ears.

But Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had pleaded with the king that he should not burn the scroll, but he would not hear them.

And Zedekiah the king commanded that they should put Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him a piece of bread out of the bakers' street daily, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Please let me go. And I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know. Why should he kill you so that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant in Judah perish?

And now so says Jehovah, the God of Hosts, the God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and babe, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain;

So that none of the remnant of Judah who has gone into the land of Egypt to live there shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah to which they have a desire to return to live there. For none shall return except those who escape.

Set in order the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.

Come up, horses; and rage chariots! And let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans who handle the shield, and the Lydians who handle and bend the bow.

Your dreadfulness has deceived you, and the pride of your heart, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill. Though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there, says Jehovah.

And Chaldea shall be a prize; all who plunder her shall be satisfied, says Jehovah.

And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldea, all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Jehovah.

the violence done to me and to my flesh shall be on Babylon; the dweller in Zion shall say. And, My blood shall be on the people of Chaldea, Jerusalem shall say.

Though Babylon should mount up to the heavens, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet plunderers shall come to her from Me, says Jehovah.

So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, all these words that are written against Babylon.