It standeth as stiff as the palm tree, it can neither speak nor go, but must be borne. Be not ye afraid of such, for they can do neither good nor evil."

Yea, the children of Noph and Tahpenes have defiled thy neck.

"Make thee bonds and chains, and put them about thy neck,

Moreover, that people and kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, and that will not put their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, the same people will I visit with the sword, with hunger, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them in his hands, sayeth the LORD.

But the people that put their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those I will let remain still in their own land, sayeth the LORD, and they shall occupy it, and dwell therein.'"

All these things told I Zedekiah the king of Judah, and said, "Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, that ye may live.

And Hananiah the prophet took the chain from the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it;

and with that said Hananiah, that all the people might hear, "Thus hath the LORD spoken: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations; yea, and that within this two years." And so the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

Now after that Hananiah the prophet had taken the chain from the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and broken it, the word of the LORD came unto the prophet Jeremiah saying,

For thus sayeth the LORD of Hosts the God of Israel: I will put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all this people, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, yea and so shall they do. And I will give him the beasts in the field.'"

For in that day, sayeth the LORD, I will take his yoke from off thy neck, and break thy bonds. They shall no more serve strange gods under him,