See, I have appointed you today
over nations and kingdoms
to uproot and tear down,
to destroy and demolish,
to build and plant.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”

For long ago I broke your yoke;
I tore off your chains.
You insisted, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you lie down like a prostitute.

say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their back to Me
and not their face,
yet in their time of disaster they beg,
“Rise up and save us!”

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

Indifferent to her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You have scattered your favors to strangers
under every green tree
and have not obeyed My voice.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to My dear people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

My dear people, dress yourselves in sackcloth
and roll in the dust.
Mourn as you would for an only son,
a bitter lament,
for suddenly the destroyer will come on us.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Look, My anger—My burning wrath—is about to be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”

They have treated superficially the brokenness
of My dear people,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.

I will gather them and bring them to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
There will be no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the fig tree,
and even the leaf will wither.
Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?

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If my head were a spring of water,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
over the slain of my dear people.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:

I am about to refine them and test them,
for what else can I do
because of My dear people?

for the customs of the peoples are worthless.
Someone cuts down a tree from the forest;
it is worked by the hands of a craftsman with a chisel.

But Yahweh is the true God;
He is the living God and eternal King.
The earth quakes at His wrath,
and the nations cannot endure His rage.

The Lord named you
a flourishing olive tree,
beautiful with well-formed fruit.
He has set fire to it,
and its branches are consumed
with a great roaring sound.

for I was like a docile lamb led to slaughter.
I didn’t know that they had devised plots against me:
“Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit;
let’s cut him off from the land of the living
so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

And I replied, “Oh no, Lord God! The prophets are telling them, ‘You won’t see sword or suffer famine. I will certainly give you true peace in this place.’”

He will be like a tree planted by water:
it sends its roots out toward a stream,
it doesn’t fear when heat comes,
and its foliage remains green.
It will not worry in a year of drought
or cease producing fruit.

At one moment I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it.

“As I live,” says the Lord, “though you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would tear you from it.

all the kings of Tyre,
all the kings of Sidon,
and the kings of the coastlands across the sea;

How dare you prophesy in the name of Yahweh, ‘This temple will become like Shiloh and this city will become an uninhabited ruin’!” Then all the people assembled against Jeremiah at the Lord’s temple.

Send word to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon through messengers who are coming to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem.

The prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words you have prophesied come true and may He restore the articles of the Lord’s temple and all the exiles from Babylon to this place!

As for the prophet who prophesies peace—only when the word of the prophet comes true will the prophet be recognized as one the Lord has truly sent.”

Just as I watched over them to uproot and to tear them down, to demolish and to destroy, and to cause disaster, so will I be attentive to build and to plant them,” says the Lord.

“Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when the city from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate will be rebuilt for the Lord.

As they heard all these words, the king and all of his servants did not become terrified or tear their garments.

The Chaldeans next burned down the king’s palace and the people’s houses and tore down the walls of Jerusalem.

And they said to Jeremiah, “As for every word the Lord your God sends you to tell us, if we don’t act accordingly, may the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us.

Deploy small shields and large;
draw near for battle!

on account of the day that is coming
to destroy all the Philistines,
to cut off from Tyre and Sidon
every remaining ally.
Indeed, the Lord is about to destroy the Philistines,
the remnant of the islands of Caphtor.

The whole Chaldean army with the commander of the guards tore down all the walls surrounding Jerusalem.