For they are saying to you what is false in my name: I have not sent them, says the Lord.

For this is what the Lord has said: When seventy years are ended for Babylon, I will have pity on you and give effect to my good purpose for you, causing you to come back to this place.

For I am conscious of my thoughts about you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope at the end.

And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to me, and I will give ear to you.

I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

I will go after them, attacking them with the sword and with need of food and with disease, and will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a wonder and a surprise and a name of shame among all the nations where I have sent them:

Because they have not given ear to my words, says the Lord, when I sent to them my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you did not give ear, says the Lord.

And now, give ear to the word of the Lord, all you whom I have sent away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon.

This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said about Ahab, the son of Kolaiah, and about Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, who are saying to you what is false in my name: See, I will give them up into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your eyes.

Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.

Shemaiah the Nehelamite sent a letter in his name to Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,

The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be an overseer in the house of the Lord for every man who is off his head and is acting as a prophet, to put such men in prison and in chains.

So why have you made no protest against Jeremiah of Anathoth, who is acting as a prophet to you?

For he has sent to us in Babylon saying, The time will be long: go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them.

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

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying,

Send to all those who have been taken away, saying, This is what the Lord has said about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has been acting as a prophet to you, and I did not send him, and has made you put your faith in what is false;

For this cause the Lord has said, Truly I will send punishment on Shemaiah and on his seed; not a man of his family will have a place among this people, and he will not see the good which I am going to do to my people, says the Lord: because he has said words against the Lord.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Put down in a book all the words which I have said to you.

For see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will let the fate of my people Israel and Judah be changed, says the Lord: and I will make them come back to the land which I gave to their fathers, so that they may take it for their heritage.

This is what the Lord has said: A voice of shaking fear has come to our ears, of fear and not of peace.

Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to have birth-pains: why do I see every man with his hands gripping his sides, as a woman does when the pains of birth are on her, and all faces are turned green?

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.

For it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that his yoke will be broken off his neck, and his bands will be burst; and men of strange lands will no longer make use of him as their servant:

But they will be servants to the Lord their God and to David their king, whom I will give back to them.

So have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and at peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

For I am with you, says the Lord, to be your saviour: for I will put an end to all the nations where I have sent you wandering, but I will not put an end to you completely: though with wise purpose I will put right your errors, and will not let you go quite without punishment.

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

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 this cause, all those who take you for their food will themselves become your food; and all your attackers, every one of them, will be taken prisoners; and those who send destruction on you will come to destruction; and all those who take away your goods by force will undergo the same themselves.

And their children will be as they were in the old days, and the meeting of the people will have its place before me, and I will send punishment on all who are cruel to them.

And their chief will be of their number; their ruler will come from among themselves; and I will let him be present before me, so that he may come near to me: for who may have strength of heart to come near me? says the Lord.

The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

The Lord has said, Grace came in the waste land to a people kept safe from the sword, even to Israel on the way to his resting-place.

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.

For the Lord has said, Make a glad song for Jacob and give a cry on the top of the mountains: give the news, give praise, and say, The Lord has given salvation to his people, even to the rest of Israel.

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.

Give ear to the word of the Lord, O you nations, and give news of it in the sea-lands far away, and say, He who has sent Israel wandering will get him together and will keep him as a keeper does his flock.

So they will come with songs on the high places, flowing together to the good things of the Lord, to the grain and the wine and the oil, to the young ones of the flock and of the herd: their souls will be like a watered garden, and they will have no more sorrow.

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

Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God.

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.

Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself: give attention to the highway, even the way in which you went: be turned again, O virgin of Israel, be turned to these your towns.

For I have given new strength to the tired soul and to every sorrowing soul in full measure.

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

But everyone will be put to death for the evil which he himself has done: whoever has taken bitter grapes will himself have his teeth put on edge.

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.

And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.

These are the words of the Lord, who has given the sun for a light by day, ordering the moon and stars for a light by night, who puts the sea in motion, causing the thunder of its waves; the Lord of armies is his name.

If the order of these things before me is ever broken, says the Lord, then will the seed of Israel come to an end as a nation before me for ever.

See, the days are coming, says the Lord, for the building of the Lord's town, from the tower of Hananel to the doorway of the angle.

And the measuring-line will go out in front of it as far as the hill Gareb, going round to Goah.

And all the valley of the dead bodies, and all the field of death as far as the stream Kidron, up to the angle of the horses' doorway to the east, will be holy to the Lord; it will not again be uprooted or overturned for ever.

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.

And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not get away from the hands of the Chaldaeans, but will certainly be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will have talk with him, mouth to mouth, and see him, eye to eye.

And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he will be till I have pity on him, says the Lord: though you are fighting with the Chaldaeans, things will not go well for you?

And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's brother, will come to you and say, Give the price and get for yourself my property in Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest relation.

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 I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and of the witnesses who had put their names to the paper, and before all the Jews who were seated in the place of the armed watchmen.

And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying,

Now after I had given the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, I made my prayer to the Lord, saying,

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:

Great in wisdom and strong in act: whose eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, giving to everyone the reward of his ways and the fruit of his doings:

You have done signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day, in Israel and among other men; and have made a name for yourself as at this day;

And have given them this land, which you gave your word to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;

And they came in and took it for their heritage, but they did not give ear to your voice, and were not ruled by your law; they have done nothing of all you gave them orders to do: so you have made all this evil come on them:

See, they have made earthworks against the town to take it; and the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans who are fighting against it, because of the sword and need of food and disease: and what you have said has taken place, and truly you see it.

And you have said to me, Give the money to get yourself a property, and have the business witnessed; though the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

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

And the Chaldaeans, who are fighting against this town, will come and put the town on fire, burning it together with the houses, on the roofs of which perfumes have been burned to the Baal, and drink offerings have been drained out to other gods, moving me to wrath.

For this town has been to me a cause of wrath and of burning passion from the day of its building till this day, so that I put it away from before my face:

Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to make me angry, they and their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

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.

And they put up the high places of the Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, making their sons and their daughters go through the fire to Molech; which I did not give them orders to do, and it never came into my mind that they would do this disgusting thing, causing Judah to be turned out of the way.

And I will make an eternal agreement with them, that I will never give them up, but ever do them good; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not go away from me.

And truly, I will take pleasure in doing them good, and all my heart and soul will be given to planting them in this land in good faith.

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,

These are the words of the Lord, who is doing it, the Lord who is forming it, to make it certain; the Lord is his name;

Let your cry come to me, and I will give you an answer, and let you see great things and secret things of which you had no knowledge.

For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said about the houses of this town and the houses of the kings of Judah, which have been broken down to make earthworks and ...;

... and to make them full of the dead bodies of men whom I have put to death in my wrath and in my passion, and because of whose evil-doing I have kept my face covered from this town.

And this town will be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, who, hearing of all the good which I am doing for them, will be shaking with fear because of all the good and the peace which I am doing for it.

Happy sounds, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who say, Give praise to the Lord of armies, for the Lord is good, for his mercy is unchanging for ever: the voices of those who go with praise into the house of the Lord. For I will let the land come back to its first condition, says the Lord.

See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will give effect to the good word which I have said about the people of Israel and the people of Judah.

In those days, Judah will have salvation and Jerusalem will be safe: and this is the name which will be given to her: The Lord is our righteousness.

For the Lord has said, David will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel;

And the priests and the Levites will never be without a man to come before me, offering burned offerings and perfumes and meal offerings and offerings of beasts at all times.

And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

The Lord has said: If it is possible for my agreement of the day and the night to be broken, so that day and night no longer come at their fixed times,

Then my agreement with my servant David may be broken, so that he no longer has a son to take his place on the seat of the kingdom; and my agreement with the Levites, the priests, my servants.

As it is not possible for the army of heaven to be numbered, or the sand of the sea measured, so will I make the seed of my servant David, and the Levites my servants.

And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation.

The Lord has said, If I have not made day and night, and if the limits of heaven and earth have not been fixed by me,

Then I will give up caring for the seed of Jacob and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will let their fate be changed and will have mercy on them.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth which were under his rule, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns, saying,

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Go and say to Zedekiah, king of Judah, This is what the Lord has said: See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will have it burned with fire: