The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I watch over My word to accomplish it.”

Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.

Wash the evil from your heart, Jerusalem,
so that you will be delivered.
How long will you harbor
malicious thoughts within you?

Therefore, a lion from the forest will strike them down.
A wolf from an arid plain will ravage them.
A leopard keeps watch over their cities.
Anyone who leaves them will be torn to pieces
because their rebellious acts are many,
their unfaithful deeds numerous.

They will consume your harvest and your food.
They will consume your sons and your daughters.
They will consume your flocks and your herds.
They will consume your vines and your fig trees.
They will destroy with the sword
your fortified cities in which you trust.

for wicked men live among My people.
They watch like fowlers lying in wait.
They set a trap;
they catch men.

This is what the Lord says:

Stand by the roadways and look.
Ask about the ancient paths:
Which is the way to what is good?
Then take it
and find rest for yourselves.
But they protested, “We won’t!”

Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that is called by My name—the house in which you trust—the place that I gave you and your ancestors.

They will be exposed to the sun, the moon, and the whole heavenly host, which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be collected and buried but will become like manure on the surface of the soil.

which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace.’ I declared: ‘Obey Me, and do everything that I command you, and you will be My people, and I will be your God,’

You will be righteous, Lord,
even if I bring a case against You.
Yet, I wish to contend with You:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the treacherous live at ease?

This is what the Lord said to me, “Go and stand at the People’s Gate, through which the kings of Judah enter and leave, as well as at all the gates of Jerusalem.

This is what the Lord says: Watch yourselves; do not pick up a load and bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.

May the day I was born
be cursed.
May the day my mother bore me
never be blessed.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah (which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon).

all the kings of the north, both near and far from one another;
that is, all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth.
Finally, the king of Sheshach will drink after them.

because they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have spoken a lie in My name, which I did not command them. I am He who knows, and I am a witness.” This is the Lord’s declaration.

Watch! I am going to bring them from the northern land.
I will gather them from remote regions of the earth—
the blind and the lame will be with them,
along with those who are pregnant and those about to give birth.
They will return here as a great assembly!

Nations, hear the word of the Lord,
and tell it among the far off coastlands!
Say: The One who scattered Israel will gather him.
He will watch over him as a shepherd guards his flock,

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Watch! Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, is coming to you to say, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth for yourself, for you own the right of redemption to buy it.’

“Now therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to this city about which you said, ‘It has been handed over to Babylon’s king through sword, famine, and plague’:

Fields will be bought in this land about which you are saying, ‘It’s a desolation without man or beast; it has been handed over to the Chaldeans!’

“This is what the Lord says: In this place, which you say is a ruin, without man or beast—that is, in Judah’s cities and Jerusalem’s streets that are a desolation without man, without inhabitant, and without beast—there will be heard again

and I brought them into the temple of the Lord to a chamber occupied by the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God, who had a chamber near the officials’ chamber, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper.

so you must go and read from the scroll—which you wrote at my dictation—the words of the Lord in the hearing of the people at the temple of the Lord on a day of fasting. You must also read them in the hearing of all the Judeans who are coming from their cities.

I will punish him, his descendants, and his officers for their wrongdoing. I will bring on them, on the residents of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah all the disaster, which I warned them about but they did not listen.”

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: This is what you will say to Judah’s king, who is sending you to inquire of Me: Watch: Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, is going to return to its own land of Egypt.

So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the guard’s courtyard, lowering Jeremiah with ropes. There was no water in the cistern, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

They left, stopping in Geruth Chimham, which is near Bethlehem, in order to make their way into Egypt,

About Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco, Egypt’s king, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim son of Josiah:

About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s king, defeated, this is what the Lord says:

Rise up, go against Kedar,
and destroy the people of the east!

I will bring the four winds against Elam
from the four corners of the heavens,
and I will scatter them to all these winds.
There will not be a nation
to which Elam’s banished ones will not go.

Raise up a signal flag
against the walls of Babylon;
fortify the watch post;
set the watchmen in place;
prepare the ambush.
For the Lord has both planned and accomplished
what He has threatened
against those who live in Babylon.

On the tenth day of the fifth month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, entered Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon.