So I will choose their punishments,
And will bring the things they dread upon them
Because I called, but no one answered;
I spoke, but they did not listen or obey.
But they did evil in My sight
And chose that in which I did not delight.”

“Before she (Zion) was in labor, she gave birth;
Before her labor pain came, she gave birth to a boy.

“Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things?
Can a land be born in one day?
Or can a nation be brought forth in a moment?
As soon as Zion was in labor, she also brought forth her sons.

“Israel was holy [something set apart from ordinary purposes, consecrated] to the Lord,
The first fruits of His harvest [in which no outsider was allowed to share].
All who ate of it [injuring Israel] became guilty;
Evil came on them,” says the Lord.’”

“For though you wash yourself with lye
And use much soap,
The stain of your guilt is [still] before Me [and you are soiled and dirty],” says the Lord God.

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].

O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness,
That you may be saved.
How long will your wicked and immoral thoughts
Lodge within you?

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 looked, and behold, the fertile land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were pulled down
Before the [presence of the] Lord, before His fierce anger.

“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh [in Ephraim], where I first set My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

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.

“Lift up your eyes and see
Those coming from the north.
Where is the flock that was given to you [to shepherd],
Your beautiful flock?

“She who has borne seven [sons] languishes;
She has breathed out her soul.
Her sun has set while it was still day;
She has been shamed and humiliated.
So I will hand over [the rest of] the survivors to the sword
Before their enemies,” says the Lord.

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 for me, I have not tried to escape from being a shepherd [walking] after You,
Nor have I longed for the woeful day [of judgment];
You know that, whatever I said
Was [spoken] in Your presence and was from You.

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and saw that he was working at the wheel.

But the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled by the potter’s hand; so he made it over, reworking it and making it into another pot that seemed good to him.

Now Pashhur the son of Immer, the priest, who was [also] chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.

[Jeremiah said,] O Lord, You have persuaded me and I was deceived;
You are stronger than I and You have prevailed.
I am a laughingstock all day long;
Everyone mocks me.

Cursed be the day on which I was born;
Do not bless the day on which my mother gave birth to me!

“Do you think that you become a king because you have much more cedar [in your palace than Solomon]?
Did not your father [Josiah], as he ate and drank,
Do just and righteous acts [being upright and in right standing with God]?
Then all was well with him.

“He defended the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then all was well.
Is that not what it means to know Me?”
Says the Lord.

Therefore thus says the Lord in regard to Jehoiakim the [second] son of Josiah, king of Judah,

“The relatives will not lament (mourn over with expressions of grief) for him:
‘Alas, my brother!’ or, ‘Alas, sister,’ [how great our loss]!
The subjects will not lament for him:
‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, majesty [how great was his glory]!’

The word that came to Jeremiah in regard to all the people of Judah in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon),

then I will make this house [the temple] like Shiloh, and I will make this city [subject to] the curse of all nations of the earth [because it will be so vile in their sight].”’”

And there was also a man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land in words similar to all those of Jeremiah.

And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put Uriah to death; but when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt.

But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that he was not given into the hands of the people to put him to death.

In the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year and the fifth month, the [false] prophet Hananiah the son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon [one of the priests’ cities], spoke [without godly authority] to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying:

(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.)

The letter was hand-carried by Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying,

For the Lord has ransomed Jacob
And has redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

“I have surely heard Ephraim (Israel) moaning and grieving,
‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,
Like a bull unaccustomed to the yoke or an untrained calf;
Bring me back that I may be restored,
For You are the Lord my God.

‘After I turned away [from You], I repented;
After I was instructed, I struck my thigh [in remorse];
I was ashamed and even humiliated
Because I carried the disgrace of my youth [as a nation].’

At this I (Jeremiah) awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me.

not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the Lord.

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.

Now at that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah.

Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard in accordance with the word of the Lord, and he said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin, for you have the right of inheritance and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

“I bought the field that was at Anathoth from Hanamel my uncle’s son, and weighed out the money for him, seventeen shekels of silver.

So I took the deeds of the purchase, both the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, and the unsealed copy;

“From the day that they built it [during the reign of Solomon], even to this day, this city has been such a provocation of My anger and My wrath, that I must remove it from My sight,

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still confined in the court of the guard, saying,

the [sound of the] voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the [song-filled] voice of those who say,

“Give praise and thanks to the Lord of hosts,
For the Lord is good;
For His [steadfast] lovingkindness (mercy) endures forever”;

and of those who bring a thank offering into the house of the Lord. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first,’ says the Lord.

when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the remaining cities of Judah, against Lachish and Azekah, for these were the [only] fortified cities among the cities of Judah.

So then you recently turned and repented, doing what was right in My sight, each man proclaiming release [from servitude] to his countryman [who was his bond servant]; and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My Name.

and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the chamber of the princes, above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum the doorkeeper.

Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, a fast was proclaimed before the Lord for all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came to Jerusalem from the cities of Judah.

Now it was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, with a fire burning there in the brazier before him.

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.

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

When he was at the Gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah the son of Hananiah was there; and he seized and arrested Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are deserting to join the Chaldeans [of Babylon]!”

Then King Zedekiah commanded, and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guardhouse, and a [round] loaf of bread from the bakers’ street was given to him daily, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained [imprisoned] in the court of the guardhouse.

So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down [into the cistern] with ropes. Now there was no water in the cistern but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

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 you are to say to them, ‘I was presenting my [humble] petition and plea to the king so that he would not send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.’”

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.

So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guardhouse until the day that Jerusalem was captured [by the Chaldeans of Babylon].

Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat in the Middle Gate [establishing both military control of the city and their authority to judge the captives]: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris (chief of the eunuchs), and Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag (chief of the magicians), with all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

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.

Now the word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah while he was [still] confined in the court of the guardhouse, saying,

While Jeremiah was still hesitating, the captain of the bodyguard said, “Go on back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed [governor] over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people; or else go wherever it seems right for you to go.” So the captain of the bodyguard gave him an allowance of food and a gift and let him go.

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.

Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and was seeking his life.’”

Concerning Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated [decisively] in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:

And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh [his worthless, disgusting god], as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their [misplaced] confidence.

For was not Israel a laughingstock to you? Was he caught among thieves? For whenever you speak of him you shake your head in scorn.

For thus says the Lord, “Behold, those (Israel) who were not sentenced to drink the cup [of wrath] shall certainly drink it, and are you to remain unpunished? You will not be acquitted and go unpunished, but you will certainly drink [from the cup of wrath and judgment].

As [it was] in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah with their neighboring cities,” says the Lord, “no man will live there, nor will a son of man dwell in it.

‘Then I will set My throne [of judgment] in Elam
And I will destroy from there the king and princes,’
Says the Lord.

Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
Intoxicating all the earth.
The nations drank her wine;
Therefore the nations have gone mad.

The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now this Seraiah was chief chamberlain or quartermaster [and brother of Baruch].

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

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

So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

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).

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and his entire army was scattered from him.

Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took away into exile some of the poorest of the people, those who were left in the city [at the time it was captured], along with those who deserted to join the king of Babylon [during the siege] and the rest of the artisans.

The captain of the guard also took away the [small] bowls and the firepans and the basins and the pots and the lampstands and the incense cups and the bowls for the drink offerings—whatever was made of fine gold and whatever was made of fine silver.

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.

Concerning the pillars, the height of each pillar was eighteen cubits (twenty-seven feet), and a line [an ornamental molding] of twelve cubits (eighteen feet) went around its circumference; it was four fingers thick, and [the pillar was] hollow.

A capital of bronze was on [top of] it. The height of each capital was five cubits (seven and one-half feet), with a lattice-work and pomegranates around it, all of bronze. The second pillar also, with its pomegranates, was similar to these.

Then the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was led away into exile from its own land.

And his allowance, a regular allowance was given to him by the king of Babylon, a daily portion [according to his needs] until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

How solitary and lonely sits the city [Jerusalem]
That was [once] full of people!
How like a widow she has become.
She who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces,
Has become a forced laborer!

In the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious things
That she had from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary,
And no one helped her,
The enemy saw her,
They mocked at her downfall.

Her (ceremonial) uncleanness was on her skirts;
She did not [seriously] consider her future.
Therefore she has come down [from throne to slavery] in an astonishing manner;
She has no comforter.
“O Lord” [cries Jerusalem], “look at my affliction,
For the enemy has magnified himself [in triumph]!”

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass this way?
Look and see if there is any pain like my pain
Which was severely dealt out to me,
Which the Lord has inflicted [on me] on the day of His fierce anger.

All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They scoff and shake their heads
At the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that was called
‘The perfection of beauty,
The joy of all the earth’?”

You [Lord] called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.

For the [punishment of the] wickedness of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem]
Is greater than the [punishment for the] sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her [to offer help].

They wandered, blind, in the streets;
They were defiled with blood
So that no one could touch their garments.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord [our king],
Was captured in their snares,
He of whom we had said, “Under his shadow
We shall live among the nations.”

Now it came about [when I was] in my thirtieth year [of life], on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles beside the River Chebar [in Babylonia], the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

(On the fifth of the month, which was in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,

the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Chebar; and the hand of the Lord came upon him there.)