For go over to the sea-lands of Kittim and see; send to Kedar and give deep thought to it; and see if there has ever been such a thing.

Do not let your foot be without shoes, or your throat dry from need of water: but you said, There is no hope: no, for I have been a lover of strange gods, and after them I will go.

So the showers have been kept back, and there has been no spring rain; still your brow is the brow of a loose woman, you will not let yourself be shamed.

And the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel, turning away from me, has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every branching tree, acting like a loose woman there.

Looking, I saw that there was no man, and all the birds of heaven had gone in flight.

Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

For there are sinners among my people: they keep watch, like men watching for birds; they put a net and take men in it.

For this is what the Lord of armies has said: Let trees be cut down and an earthwork be placed against Jerusalem: sorrow on the false town! inside her there is nothing but cruel ways.

And they have made little of the wounds of my people, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Go not out into the field or by the way; for there is the sword of the attacker, and fear on every side.

Take your place in the doorway of the Lord's house, and give out this word there, and say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who come inside these doors to give worship to the Lord.

And they have put up the high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burning their sons and their daughters there in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me and never came into my mind.

For this cause, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be named Topheth, or, The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of Death: for they will put the dead into the earth in Topheth till there is no more room.

And the bodies of this people will be food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth; and there will be no one to send them away.

And they have made little of the wounds of the daughter of Zion, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

I will put an end to them completely, says the Lord: there are no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf is dry.

Why are we seated doing nothing? come together, and let us go to the walled towns, and let destruction overtake us there, for the Lord our God has sent destruction on us, and given us bitter water for our drink, because we have done evil against the Lord.

We were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there is only a great fear.

Is there no life-giving oil in Gilead? is there no expert in medical arts? why then have my people not been made well?

There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

Give yourselves to weeping, crying out in sorrow for the mountains; and for the fields of the waste land send up a song of grief, because they are burned up, so that no one goes through; there is no sound of cattle; the bird of the heavens and the beast are in flight and are gone.

And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the living-place of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a waste, with no man living there.

There is no one like you, O Lord; you are great and your name is great in power.

Who would not have fear of you, O King of the nations? for it is your right: for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.

At the sound of his voice there is a massing of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain, and sends out the wind from his store-houses.

Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.

My tent is pulled down and all my cords are broken: my children have gone from me, and they are not: no longer is there anyone to give help in stretching out my tent and hanging up my curtains.

And the Lord said to me, There is an evil design at work among the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

But I was like a gentle lamb taken to be put to death; I had no thought that they were designing evil against me, saying, Come and let us make trouble his food, cutting him off from the land of the living, so that there may be no more memory of his name.

Take the band which you got for a price, which is round your body, and go to Parah and put it in a secret place there in a hole of the rock.

Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to Parah and get the band which I gave you orders to put there.

The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no one to make them open: Judah is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is taken away as prisoners.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water.

Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.

Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads.

And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass.

And the asses of the field on the open hilltops are opening their mouths wide like jackals to get air; their eyes are hollow because there is no grass.

And the people to whom they are prophets will be pushed out dead into the streets of Jerusalem, because there is no food, and because of the sword; and they will have no one to put their bodies into the earth, them or their wives or their sons or their daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing on them.

If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.

Have you completely given up Judah? is your soul turned in disgust from Zion? why have you given us blows from which there is no one to make us well? we were looking for peace, but no good came; and for a time of well-being, but there was only a great fear.

Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.

For this reason I will send you away out of this land into a land which is strange to you, to you and to your fathers; there you will be the servants of other gods day and night, and you will have no mercy from me.

For my eyes are on all their ways: there is no cover for them from my face, and their evil-doing is not kept secret from my eyes.

O Lord, my strength and my strong tower, my safe place in the day of trouble, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and say, The heritage of our fathers is nothing but deceit, even false things in which there is no profit.

Then through the doors of this town there will come kings and princes, seated on the seat of David, going in carriages and on horseback, they and their princes, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem: and this town will keep its place for ever.

Up! go down to the potter's house, and there I will let my words come to your ears.

But they will say, There is no hope: we will go on in our designs, and every one of us will do what he is moved by the pride of his evil heart to do.

And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the way into the door of broken pots, and there say in a loud voice the words which I will give you;

And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Even so will this people and this town be broken by me, as a potter's bottle is broken and may not be put together again: and the bodies of the dead will be put in the earth in Topheth, till there is no more room.

And you, Pashhur, and all who are in your house, will go away prisoners: you will come to Babylon, and there your body will be put to rest, you and all your friends, to whom you said false words.

For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing (there is fear on every side): they say, Come, let us give witness against him; all my nearest friends, who are watching for my fall, say, It may be that he will be taken by deceit, and we will get the better of him and give him punishment.

A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.

This is what the Lord has said: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and there give him this word,

For if you truly do this, then there will come in through the doors of this house kings seated on the seat of David, going in carriages and on horseback, he and his servants and his people

Let there be no weeping for the dead, and make no songs of grief for him: but make bitter weeping for him who has gone away, for he will never come back or see again the country of his birth.

For this is what the Lord has said about Shallum, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He will never come back there again:

By my life, says the Lord, even if Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, was the ring on my right hand, even from there I would have you pulled off;

I will send you out, and your mother who gave you birth, into another country not the land of your birth; and there death will come to you.

Is this man Coniah a broken vessel of no value? is he a vessel in which there is no pleasure? why are they violently sent out, he and his seed, into a land which is strange to them?

And I will put over them keepers who will take care of them: never again will they be overcome with fear or be troubled, and there will not be the loss of one of them, says the Lord

For this cause their steps will be slipping on their way: they will be forced on into the dark and have a fall there: for I will send evil on them in the year of their punishment, says the Lord.

In what secret place may a man take cover without my seeing him? says the Lord. Is there any place in heaven or earth where I am not? says the Lord.

And if this people, or the prophet, or a priest, questioning you, says, What word of weight is there from the Lord? then you are to say to them, You are the word, for I will not be troubled with you any more, says the Lord.

And at that day, the bodies of those whom the Lord has put to death will be seen from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: there will be no weeping for them, their bodies will not be taken up or put to rest in the earth; they will be like waste on the face of the land.

There will be no way of flight for the keepers of sheep, no road for the chiefs of the flock to get away safely.

And there is no sound in the fields of peace, because of the burning wrath of the Lord.

And there was another man who was a prophet of the Lord, Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against this town and against this land all the words which Jeremiah had said:

They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they will be till the day when I send their punishment on them, says the Lord. Then I will take them up and put them back in their place.

Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may have sons and daughters; and be increased in number there and do not become less.

And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.

Ha! for that day is so great that there is no day like it: it is the time of Jacob's trouble: but he will get salvation from it.

There is no help for your wound, there is nothing to make you well.

For there will be a day when those who get in the grapes on the hills of Ephraim will be crying, Up! let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.

They will come with weeping, and going before them I will be their guide: guiding them by streams of water in a straight way where there is no falling: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is the first of my sons.

So has the Lord said: In Ramah there is a sound of crying, weeping and bitter sorrow; Rachel weeping for her children; she will not be comforted for their loss.

And there is hope for the future, says the Lord; and your children will come back to the land which is theirs.

And Judah and all its towns will be living there together; the farmers and those who go about with flocks.

For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, There will again be trading in houses and fields and vine-gardens in this land.

Ah Lord God! see, you have made the heaven and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, and there is nothing you are not able to do:

See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything so hard that I am unable to do it?

And there will be trading in fields in this land of which you say, It is a waste, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

This is what the Lord has said: There will again be sounding in this place, of which you say, It is a waste, without man and without beast; even in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem which are waste and unpeopled, without man and without beast,

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Again there will be in this place, which is a waste, without man and without beast, and in all its towns, a resting-place where the keepers of sheep will make their flocks take rest.

This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Go and say to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Is there no hope of teaching you to give ear to my words? says the Lord.

So you are to go, reading there from the book, which you have taken down from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of the people in the Lord's house, on a day when they go without food, and in the hearing of all the men of Judah who have come out from their towns.

Went down to the king's house, to the scribe's room: and all the rulers were seated there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the rulers.

For even if you had overcome all the army of the Chaldaeans fighting against you, and there were only wounded men among them, still they would get up, every man in his tent, and put this town on fire.

Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, with the purpose of taking up his heritage there among the people.

But when he was at the Benjamin door, a captain of the watch named Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, who was stationed there, put his hand on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are going to give yourself up to the Chaldaeans.

So Jeremiah came into the hole of the prison, under the arches, and was there for a long time.

Then King Zedekiah sent and got him out: and the king, questioning him secretly in his house, said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said, There is. Then he said, You will be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon.

And now be pleased to give ear, O my lord the king; let my prayer for help come before you, and do not make me go back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, for fear that I may come to my death there.

So they took Jeremiah and put him into the water-hole of Malchiah, the king's son, in the place of the armed watchmen: and they let Jeremiah down with cords. And in the hole there was no water, but wet earth: and Jeremiah went down into the wet earth.

My lord the king, these men have done evil in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have put into the water-hole; and he will come to his death in the place where he is through need of food: for there is no more bread in the town.

So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went into the house of the king, to the place where the clothing was kept, and got from there old clothing and bits of old cloth, and let them down by cords into the water-hole where Jeremiah was.

But there were ten men among them who said to Ishmael, Do not put us to death, for we have secret stores, in the country, of grain and oil and honey. So he did not put them to death with their countrymen.

Saying, No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, or be hearing the sound of the horn, or be in need of food; there we will make our living-place;

Then give ear now to the word of the Lord, O you last of Judah: the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, If your minds are fixed on going into Egypt and stopping there;

Then it will come about that the sword, which is the cause of your fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and need of food, which you are fearing, will go after you there in Egypt; and there death will come to you.

Such will be the fate of all the men whose minds are fixed on going into Egypt and stopping there; they will come to their end by the sword, by being short of food, and by disease: not one of them will keep his life or get away from the evil which I will send on them.