And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.

“I will ordain four kinds of judgment for them”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land to devour and destroy.

You have left Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
You have turned your back,
so I have stretched out My hand against you
and destroyed you.
I am tired of showing compassion.

She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

“Your [nation’s] riches and your treasures
I will give as plunder without price [to the Babylonians],
Because of all your sins
And within all your territories.

And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

Thy words have been found, and I eat them, And Thy word is to me for a joy, And for the rejoicing of my heart, For Thy name is called on me, O Jehovah, God of Hosts.

I dwell not among the council of scorners, neither is my delight therein: but I dwell only in the fear of thy hand, for thou hast filled me with bitterness.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

Then I will make you a fortified wall of bronze
to this people.
They will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to save you and deliver you.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying:

For this is what the Lord says concerning sons and daughters born in this place as well as concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who father them in this land:

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

Death will overtake great as well as small in the land: their bodies will not be put in a resting-place, and no one will be weeping for them or wounding themselves or cutting off their hair for them:

You must not enter the house where feasting is taking place to sit with them to eat and drink.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.

And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?

Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your fathers have abandoned (rejected) Me,’ says the Lord, ‘and have walked after other gods and have served them and bowed down to the handmade idols and have abandoned (rejected) Me and have not kept My law,

Ye also have done evil above your fathers, And lo, ye are walking each after the stubbornness of his evil heart, So as not to hearken unto Me.

For this reason I will send you away out of this land into a land which is strange to you, to you and to your fathers; there you will be the servants of other gods day and night, and you will have no mercy from me.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

but, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither he had driven them. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

Before I restore them I will punish them in full for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own with their detestable idols."

O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD.

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;

As their sons remember their altars and their shrines, By the green tree, by the high hills.

O [Jerusalem] My mountain in the countryside,
I will give [to the Babylonians, as the cost of your sin] your wealth and all your treasures as plunder,
And throughout your territory, your high places of sin.

And your hand will have to let go your heritage which I gave you; and I will make you a servant to your haters in a land which is strange to you: for you have put my wrath on fire with a flame which will go on burning for ever.

Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

And he hath been as a naked thing in a desert, And doth not see when good cometh, And hath inhabited parched places in a wilderness, A salt land, and not inhabited.

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

The hope of Israel is Jehovah, All forsaking Thee are ashamed, And 'My apostates' in the earth are written, For they have forsaken Jehovah, A fountain of living waters.

Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.

As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.

Let my persecutors be put to shame, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be put to shame. Let them be dismayed, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of disaster, and [with] double destruction, destroy them.

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.

As you stand in those places announce, 'Listen, all you people who pass through these gates. Listen, all you kings of Judah, all you people of Judah and all you citizens of Jerusalem. Listen to what the Lord says.

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.

Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

Yet they did not listen, and they did not incline their ear, and they hardened their neck [so as] to not hear, nor to receive discipline.

And it hath been, if ye certainly hearken unto Me, An affirmation of Jehovah, So as not to bring in a burden By the gates of this city on the day of rest, And to sanctify the day of rest, So as not to do in it any work --

If you do this, then the kings and princes who follow in David's succession and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to enter through these gates, as well as their officials and the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. This city will always be filled with people.

And if ye do not hearken unto me to sanctify the day of rest, And so as not to bear a burden, And to come in at the gates of Jerusalem on the day of rest, Then I have kindled a fire in its gates, And it hath consumed the high places of Jerusalem, And it is not quenched!'

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

and I go down to the potter's house, and lo, he is doing a work on the stones,

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

And there is a word of Jehovah to me, saying:

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

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.

if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

So now, say to the men of Judah and to the residents of Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am about to bring harm to you and make plans against you. Turn now, each from your evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds.

And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

Ask among the nations,
Who has heard things like these?
Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.

‘Does the snow of Lebanon forsake the rock of the open country?
Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever snatched away?

But my people have forgotten me. They make smoke offerings to the idols, and they caused them to stumble in their ways, [the] ancient ways, to go [into] {bypaths}, not [one that] is built up.

To make their land become a desolation, A hissing age-during, Every passer by it is astonished, And bemoaneth with his head.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

Is evil recompensed instead of good, That they have dug a pit for my soul? Remember my standing before Thee to speak good of them, To turn back Thy wrath from them.

A cry is heard from their houses, For Thou bringest against them suddenly a troop, For they dug a pit to capture me, And snares they have hidden for my feet.

And Thou, O Jehovah, Thou hast known, All their counsel against me is for death, Thou dost not cover over their iniquity, Nor their sin from before Thee blottest out, And they are made to stumble before Thee, In the time of Thine anger work against them!

This is what the Lord says: “Go, buy a potter’s clay jar. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests

And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee,

and hast said, Hear a word of Jehovah, ye kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: 'Lo, I am bringing in evil on this place, at which the ears of every one who is hearing it do tingle,

Because they have forsaken me, And have treated this as a foreign place, And have burned incense therein to other gods, which neither they, nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah, have known; And have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

and they have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire as burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it up into my mind:

Therefore, lo, days are coming -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- and this place is not called any more, Tophet, and Valley of the son of Hinnom, but, Valley of slaughter.

And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life, and their carcases will I give as food to the fowl of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth.

and I have made this city for a desolation, and for a hissing, every passer by it is astonished, and doth hiss for all its plagues.

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its dependent villages—all the disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying My words.’”

And Pashhur son of Immer the priest -- who also is overseer, leader in the house of Jehovah -- heareth Jeremiah prophesying these things,

and Pashhur smiteth Jeremiah the prophet, and putteth him unto the stocks, that are by the high gate of Benjamin, that is by the house of Jehovah.

But the next day Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks. When he did, Jeremiah said to him, "The Lord's name for you is not 'Pashhur' but 'Terror is Everywhere.'

for this is what the Lord says, ‘I am about to make you a terror to both yourself and those you love. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will deport them to Babylon and put them to the sword.

I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder and carry it off to Babylon.

As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon. There you will die, and there you will be buried, you and all your friends that you prophesied falsely to.’”

Thou hast persuaded me, O Jehovah, and I am persuaded; Thou hast hardened me, and dost prevail, I have been for a laughter all the day, Every one is mocking at me,

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the word of Jehovah is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day.

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

For I have heard the evil report of many, Fear is round about: 'Declare, and we declare it,' All mine allies are watching for my halting, 'Perhaps he is enticed, and we prevail over him, And we take our vengeance out of him.'

But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.

Cursed is the day in which I was born, The day that my mother bare me, Let it not be blessed!

Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.

And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;

Because he hath not put me to death from the womb, And my mother is to me -- my grave, And her womb a pregnancy age-during.

Why is this? from the womb I have come out, To see labour and sorrow, Yea, consumed in shame are my days!

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah, asking,