Wherefore should I pardon thee? Thy children have forsaken me, and swear by them that are not God. I have satiated them, and they have committed adultery, and they troop to the harlots' house.

To what purpose should there come to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing unto me.

Wherefore came I forth from the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?

For behold, I begin to bring evil on the city that is called by my name, and should ye be altogether unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished; for I call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? Did he not fear Jehovah, and supplicate Jehovah, and Jehovah repented him of the evil that he had pronounced against them? And we should be doing a great evil against our souls.

Nevertheless 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 falsehood unto you, to remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.

For I have not sent them, saith Jehovah, yet they prophesy falsely in my name; in order that I should drive you out, and that ye should perish, ye, and the prophets who prophesy unto you.

Hearken not unto them; serve the king of Babylon, and live: wherefore should this city become a waste?

Jehovah hath made thee priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest, that there should be officers in the house of Jehovah, over every madman and self-made prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks and in the shackles.

For this city hath been to me a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face,

and they have built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause to pass through the fire their sons and their daughters unto Molech: which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

Thus saith Jehovah: If ye can break my covenant in respect of the day, and my covenant in respect of the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season,

then shall also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers.

Hast thou not seen what this people have spoken, saying, The two families that Jehovah had chosen, he hath even cast them off? And they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

that every man should let his bondman, and every man his bondmaid, the Hebrew and the Hebrewess, go free, that none should exact service of them, that is, of a Jew his brother.

And all the princes and all the people that had entered into the covenant obeyed, every man letting his bondman and every man his bondmaid go free, that none should exact service of them any more: they obeyed, and let them go.

For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

And the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; for why should he weaken the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking to them according to these words? for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt.

even they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard and committed him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, that he should conduct him away home. And he dwelt among the people.

And Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will smite Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and no man shall know it: why should he take thy life, and all they of Judah who are gathered unto thee be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?

that Jehovah thy God may shew us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do.

provoking me to anger with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye are come to sojourn, that ye should be cut off, and that ye should be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?

Though Babylon should mount up to the heavens, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith Jehovah.

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