"For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds, But you said, "I won't serve you!' Instead, on every high hill and under every green tree, you bend down to commit fornication.

In the time of King Josiah the LORD told me, "Have you seen what unfaithful Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she committed fornication there.

"Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. But you haven't obeyed me,' declares the LORD.

You who live under siege, Gather up your bundle from the ground.

If a nation and kingdom does not serve him King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and does not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I'll judge that nation with the sword, with famine, and with plague," declares the LORD, "until I've completely destroyed it by his hand.

But I'll let the nation that brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him remain in its own land," declares the LORD, "and they'll work it and remain in it."'"

I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah using words like these: "Bring your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon. Serve him and his people, and you will live!

In the towns of the hill country, in the towns of the Shephelah, in the towns of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the areas around Jerusalem, and in the towns of Judah flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who counts them,' says the LORD."

This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the LORD while king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his authority, along with all the people were fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns:

Ebed-melech the Ethiopian told Jeremiah, "Put the worn out rags and clothes under your armpits under the ropes," and Jeremiah did as he said.

Consecrate the nations against her, the kings of the Medes, their governors, their prefects, and every land under their domination.

The city was under siege until the eleventh year of the reign of King Zedekiah.

There was too much bronze to weigh in the two pillars, the one sea, the twelve bronze oxen that were under the sea, and the stands which King Solomon had made for the LORD's Temple.