And it came again in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, up to the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah; till Jerusalem was taken away in the fifth month.

Israel was holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of his increase: all who made attacks on him were judged as wrongdoers, evil came on them, says the Lord.

And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living?

Has not this come on you because you have given up the Lord your God, who was your guide by the way?

For in the past, your yoke was broken by your hands and your cords parted; and you said, I will not be your servant; for on every high hill and under every branching tree, your behaviour was like that of a loose woman

So that through all her loose behaviour the land became unclean, and she was untrue, giving herself to stones and trees.

Looking at the earth, I saw that it was waste and without form; and to the heavens, that they had no light.

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

Looking, I saw that the fertile field was a waste, and all its towns were broken down before the Lord and before his burning wrath.

But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I put my name at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil-doing of my people Israel.

But this was the order I gave them, saying, Give ear to my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people: go in all the way ordered by me, so that all may be well for you.

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.

If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes fountains of weeping, so that I might go on weeping day and night for the dead of the daughter of my people!

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.

Though good grain was planted, they have got in thorns: they have given themselves pain without profit: they will be shamed on account of their produce, because of the burning wrath of the Lord.

So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the band from the place where I had put it away: and the band was damaged and of no use for anything.

Let your eyes be lifted up (O Jerusalem), and see those who are coming from the north. Where is the flock which was given to you, your beautiful flock?

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

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.

As for me, I have not said; Let the day of trouble come to them quickly; and I have not been hoping for the death-giving day; you have knowledge of what came from my lips; it was open before you.

Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones.

And when the vessel, which he was forming out of earth, got damaged in the hand of the potter, he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it.

If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed.

And they have put up the high places of the Baal, burning their sons in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me, and it was never in my mind:

Now it came to the ears of Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief in authority in the house of the Lord, that Jeremiah was saying these things;

And Pashhur gave blows to Jeremiah and had his feet chained in a framework of wood in the higher doorway of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord.

O Lord, you have been false to me, and I was tricked; you are stronger than I, and have overcome me: I have become a thing to be laughed at all the day, everyone makes sport of me.

Are you to be a king because you make more use of cedar than your father? did not your father take food and drink and do right, judging in righteousness, and then it was well for him?

He was judge in the cause of the poor and those in need; then it was well. Was not this to have knowledge of me? says the Lord.

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;

The word which came to Jeremiah about all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king of Judah; this was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

Micah the Morashtite, who was a prophet in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to all the people of Judah, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Zion will become like a ploughed field, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the woodland.

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:

And when his words came to the ears of Jehoiakim the king and all his men of war and his captains, the king would have put him to death; but Uriah, hearing of it, was full of fear and went in flight into Egypt:

But Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, gave Jeremiah his help, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to be put to death.

Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and it was broken by his hands.

And Zephaniah the priest made clear to Jeremiah the prophet what was said in the letter, reading it to him.

Why are you crying for help because of your wound? for your pain may never be taken away: because your evil-doing was so great and because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.

For the Lord has given a price for Jacob, and made him free from the hands of him who was stronger than he.

Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years.

At this, awaking from my sleep, I saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which agreement was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.

Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was round Jerusalem, shutting it in: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, in the house of the king of Judah.

So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me, as the Lord had said, to the place of the armed watchmen, and said to me, Give the price and get my property which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's right to the heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was clear to me that this was the word of the Lord.

And they have been turning their backs and not their faces to me: and though I was their teacher, getting up early and teaching them, their ears were not open to teaching.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying,

When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the towns of Judah which had not been taken, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the last of the walled towns of Judah.

That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant:

And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go.

And I will give the men who have gone against my agreement and have not given effect to the words of the agreement which they made before me, when the ox was cut in two and they went between the parts of it,

And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the rulers' room, which was over the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door;

Now it came about in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that it was given out publicly that all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem, were to keep from food before the Lord.

Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words which had come to his ears when Baruch was reading the book to the people.

Now the king was seated in the winter house, and a fire was burning in the fireplace in front of him.

And it came about that whenever Jehudi, in his reading, had got through three or four divisions, the king, cutting them with his penknife, put them into the fire, till all the book was burned up in the fire which was burning in the fireplace.

(Now Jeremiah was going about among the people, for they had not put him in prison.

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 by the order of Zedekiah the king, Jeremiah was put into the place of the armed watchmen, and they gave him every day a cake of bread from the street of the bread-makers, till all the bread in the town was used up. So Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen.

Then Zedekiah the king said, See, he is in your hands: for the king was not able to do anything against them.

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.

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.

So pulling Jeremiah up with the cords they got him out of the water-hole: and Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen.

Then all the rulers came to Jeremiah, questioning him: and he gave them an answer in the words the king had given him orders to say. So they said nothing more to him; for the thing was not made public.

So Jeremiah was kept in the place of the armed watchmen till the day when Jerusalem was taken.

And it came about, that when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, with all his army, came against Jerusalem, shutting it in on every side;

In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the town was broken into:)

And they sent and took Jeremiah out of the place of the watchmen, and gave him into the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him to his house: so he was living among the people.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying,

And the captain of the armed men took Jeremiah and said to him, The Lord your God gave word of the evil which was to come on this place:

So Jeremiah went to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, in Mizpah, and was living with him among the people who were still in the land.

And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, went out from Mizpah with the purpose of meeting them, weeping on his way: and it came about that when he was face to face with them he said, Come to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam.

Now the hole into which Ishmael had put the dead bodies of the men whom he had put to death, was the great hole which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha, king of Israel: and Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, made it full of the bodies of those who had been put to death.

And said to Jeremiah the prophet, Let our request come before you, and make prayer for us to the Lord your God, even for this small band of us; for we are only a small band out of what was a great number, as your eyes may see:

And the Lord was no longer able to put up with the evil of your doings and the disgusting things you did; and because of this your land has become a waste and a cause of wonder and a curse, with no one living in it, as at this day.

This is what you are to say to him: The Lord has said, Truly, the building which I put up will be broken down, and that which was planted by me will be uprooted, and this through all the land;

Of Egypt: about the army of Pharaoh-neco, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

Why has Apis, your strong one, gone in flight? he was not able to keep his place, because the Lord was forcing him down with strength.

Make him full of wine, for his heart has been lifted up against the Lord: and Moab will be rolling in the food he was not able to keep down, and everyone will be making sport of him.

For did you not make sport of Israel? was he taken among thieves? for whenever you were talking about him, you were shaking your head over him.

For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not made ready will certainly be forced to take of it; and are you to go without punishment? you will not be without punishment, but will certainly be forced to take from the cup.

Israel is a wandering sheep; the lions have been driving him away: first he was attacked by the king of Assyria, and now his bones have been broken by Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she had the high places of her strength shut in with walls, still I would send against her those who will make her waste, says the Lord.

The order which Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his rule. Now Seraiah was the chief controller of the house.

And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.

Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.

And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

And as for the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high, and twelve cubits measured all round, and it was as thick as a man's hand: it was hollow.

And there was a crown of brass on it: the crown was five cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same.

There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the number of apples all round the network was a hundred.

And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and seven of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town.

And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken prisoner away from his land.

And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life.