Then the Lord said to me, “Out of the north the evil [which the prophets foretold as the result of national sin] will reveal itself and spill out on all the people of the land.

“Yet I had planted you [O house of Israel as] a choice vine,
A completely faithful seed.
How then have you turned against Me
Into degenerate shoots of a foreign and wild vine [alien to Me]?

‘Will He be angry forever?
Will He be indignant to the end?’
Behold, you have spoken,
And you have done all the evil things [you could],
And you have had your way and have carried out your wickedness.”

And I saw [that even though Judah knew] that for all the acts of adultery (idolatry) of faithless Israel, I [the Lord] had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid; but she went and was a prostitute also [following after idols].

I looked at the earth [in my vision], and behold, it was [as at the time of creation] formless and void;
And to the heavens, and they had no light.

I looked, and behold, there was no man,
And all the birds of the air had fled.

“I will go to the great [men]
And speak to them,
For they [must] know the way of the Lord,
The ordinance of their God.”
But [I found the reverse to be true, that] they too had all alike broken the yoke [of God’s law]
And had burst the bonds [of obedience to Him].

“Why should I [overlook these offenses and] forgive you?
Your children have abandoned (rejected) Me
And sworn [their oaths] by those who are not gods.
When I had fed them until they were full [and bound them to Me by a promise],
They committed [spiritual] adultery,
Assembling in troops at the houses of prostitutes (idols).

“Were they ashamed because they had committed disgusting and vile things?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
They did not even know how to blush [at their idolatry].
Therefore they will fall among those who fall;
At the time that I punish them
They will be overthrown,” says the Lord.

Oh that I had in the wilderness
A lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men,
That I might leave my people
And go away from them!
For they are all adulterers [worshiping idols instead of the Lord],
[They are] an assembly of treacherous men [of weak character, men without integrity].

Yet they did not obey or incline their ear [to listen to Me], but everyone walked in the stubborn way of his [own] evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all [the suffering threatened in] the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.’”

But I was like a gentle and tame lamb brought to the slaughter;
And I did not know that they had devised plots and schemes against me, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;
Let us cut him off from the land of the living,
That his name be remembered no longer.”

Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the waistband was decayed and ruined; it was completely worthless.

I did not sit with the group of those who celebrate,
Nor did I rejoice;
I sat alone because Your [powerful] hand was upon me,
For You had filled me with indignation [at their sin].

but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries to which He had driven them.’ And I will bring them back to their land which I gave to their fathers.

Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people:

but [they will say], ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries to which I had driven them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”

“But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned My people from their evil way
And from the evil of their decisions and deeds.

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jeconiah [who was also called Coniah and Jehoiachin] the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah [along] with the craftsmen and smiths into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Lord showed me [in a vision] two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord.

One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are the first to ripen; but the other basket had very bad figs, so rotten that they could not be eaten.

Then I (Jeremiah) took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord had sent me drink it:

Now when Jeremiah finished proclaiming everything that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the [false] prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!

Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh [after the ark of the Lord had been taken by our enemies] and this city [Jerusalem] will be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered around Jeremiah in the [outer area of the] house of the Lord.

“Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put Micah to death? Did he not [reverently] fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord? And did not the Lord relent and reverse His decision concerning the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But [here] we are [thinking of] committing a great evil against ourselves.”

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah [some time] after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders in exile and to the priests, the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

(This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes (court officials) of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.)

because they have acted foolishly in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in My Name have spoken false and concocted words, which I did not command them. I am He who knows and I am a witness,” says the Lord.’”

For Zedekiah [the last] king of Judah had locked him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy [disaster] and say, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

“Now when I had delivered the purchase deed to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying,

The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant (solemn pledge) with all the [Hebrew] people who were [slaves] in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them:

So all the princes and all the people who had entered into the covenant agreed that everyone would let his male servant and his female servant go free, and that no one would keep them in bondage any longer; they obeyed, and set them free.

But afterward they backed out [of the covenant] and made the male servants and the female servants whom they had set free return [to them], and brought the male servants and the female servants again into servitude.

Yet you backed out [of the covenant] and profaned My Name, and each man took back his servants, male and female, whom had been set free in accordance with their desire, and you brought them into servitude [again] to be your male servants and your female servants.”’

The men who have violated My covenant, who have not kept the terms of the solemn pledge which they made before Me when they split the [sacrificial] calf in half, and then afterwards walked between its separated pieces [sealing their pledge to Me by placing a curse on themselves should they violate the covenant—those men I will make like the calf]!

Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on the scroll of the book all the words which Jeremiah dictated, [words] which the Lord had spoken to him.

When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard all the words of the Lord from the scroll,

Then Micaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read from the scroll to all the people.

Now when they had heard all the words, they turned one to another in fear and said to Baruch, “We must surely report all these words to the king.”

And after Jehudi had read three or four columns [of the scroll], King Jehoiakim would cut off that portion with a scribe’s knife and throw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until the [entire] scroll was consumed by the fire.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll containing the words which Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah:

Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.

Now Jeremiah was coming and going among the people, for they had not [yet] put him in prison.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh’s army had set out from Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the news about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

Now it happened when the army of the Chaldeans departed from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s [approaching] army,

that Jeremiah left Jerusalem [during the withdrawal of the Chaldean invaders] to go to [Anathoth, his hometown, in] the land of Benjamin to take possession of [the title to] the land [which he had purchased] there among the people.

The princes were enraged with Jeremiah and beat him and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe—for they had made that the prison.

When Jeremiah had come into the vaulted cell in the dungeon and had remained there many days,

Now Ebed-melech the Ethiopian (Cushite), one of the eunuchs who was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern, and while the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin,

Then all the princes (court officials) came to Jeremiah and asked him [just what King Zedekiah had anticipated they would ask], and he reported to them in accordance with all that the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, since the conversation [with the king] had not been overheard.

But the Chaldean (Babylonian) army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had seized him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the [Aramean] land of Hamath, where he passed sentence on him.

But Nebuzaradan the [Babylonian] captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who had nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.

they even sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guardhouse and entrusted him to Gedaliah [a prominent citizen], the son of Ahikam [who had once saved Jeremiah’s life], the son of Shaphan, to take him home [with him to Mizpah]. So Jeremiah [was released and] lived among the people.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had released him from Ramah, when he had taken him bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being taken as exiles to Babylon.

Now when all the commanders of the forces that were [scattered] in the open country [of Judah] and their men heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land [of Judah] and had put him in charge of the men, women, and children, those of the poorest of the land who had not been exiled to Babylon,

Likewise, when all the Jews who were in Moab and among the people of Ammon and in Edom and who were in all the [other] countries heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant [of the people] in Judah and had appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan over them [as governor],

then all the Jews returned from all the places to which they had been driven and came back to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and gathered a great abundance of wine and summer fruits.

Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him got up and struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword and killed the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed [governor] over the land.

Now the cistern into which Ishmael had thrown all the corpses of the men whom he had killed along with Gedaliah was the one which King Asa [of Judah] had made [about three hundred years earlier] on account of King Baasha of Israel [believing that Baasha would lay siege to Mizpah]. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with [the bodies of] those who were killed.

Then Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah—even the king’s daughters (ladies of the court) and all the people who remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had put under the charge of Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah took them captive and crossed over [the Jordan] to [meet his allies] the Ammonites.

But when Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him heard of the murderous behavior of Ishmael the son of Nethaniah,

So all the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah turned around and came back, and joined Johanan the son of Kareah.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him took from Mizpah all the people whom he had rescued from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, after Ishmael had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam: the soldiers, the women, the children, and the high officials whom Johanan had brought back from Gibeon.

because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed [governor] over the land [and whose death the king might avenge].

Now it happened when Jeremiah, whom the Lord their God had sent, had finished telling all the people all the words of the Lord their God—that is, all these words—

But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven—

the men, women, and children, the king’s daughters (ladies of the court), and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; he also took Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah.

But rather we will certainly perform every word of the vows we have made: to burn sacrifices to the queen of heaven (Ishtar) and to pour out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves and our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for [then] we had plenty of food and were prosperous and saw no misfortune.

Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and to the women and to all the people who had given him that answer,

The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,

“They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is destroyed and is merely a loud noise;
He has let the appointed time [of opportunity] pass by!’

“Make him drunk, for he has become arrogant and magnified himself against the Lord [by denying Reuben’s occupation of the land the Lord had assigned him]. Moab also will wallow in his vomit, and he too shall become a laughingstock.

He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord like all that Jehoiakim had done.

Then the city was broken into, and all the soldiers fled. They left the city at night [as Ezekiel prophesied] passing through the gate between the two walls by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They fled by way of the Arabah (the Jordan Valley).

The two pillars, the one [enormous] Sea (basin), and the twelve bronze bulls under the Sea, and the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the bronze of all these things was beyond weighing.

He also took out of the city one official who was overseer of the soldiers, and seven of the king’s advisers who were found in the city, and the scribe of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men who were still in the city.