"Therefore, you shall say to them this word, 'Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: "Every jar must be filled with wine." ' And they will say to you, 'Do we not certainly know that every jar should be filled with wine?'

[You are] the hope of Israel, its savior in time of distress. Why should you be like an alien in the land, or like a traveler who spreads out [his tent] to spend the night?

Why should you be like a confused man, like a warrior [who] is not able to help? Yet you [are] in our midst, Yahweh, and your name is called upon us. You must not leave us!

Should good be repaid in place of evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember my standing {before you} to speak good for them, to avert your wrath from them.

Why should you die--you and your people--by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

And you must not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this city become a site of ruins?

to let go each one his [male] slave and each one his female slave, the Hebrew and the free Hebrew, [so that] no one among the Judeans [should] enslave his fellow countryman.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah said to Gedaliah in secrecy at Mizpah, {saying}, "Please let me go and kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and {nobody} will know. Why should he kill you, so that all of Judah who are gathered to you will be scattered, and the remnant of Judah will perish?"

And let Yahweh your God inform us the way in which we should go and the thing that we should do."