Instead, we will do everything we said we would: burn incense to the queen of heaven and offer drink offerings to her just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in Judah’s cities and in Jerusalem’s streets. Then we had enough food and good things and saw no disaster,

And thou, wilt thou seek great things to thyself? thou shalt not seek: for behold me bringing evil upon all flesh, says Jehovah: and I gave to thee thy soul for a booty to all the places where thou shalt go there.

Go up, O horses, and drive madly, O chariots, and let the warriors go forth; Cush and Put, who wield [the] small shield, and Lud, who wield [and] bend [the] bow.

The word which the Lord said to Jeremiah the prophet, of how Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, would come and make war on the land of Egypt.

And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD.

Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?

Alas! sword of Jehovah, how long wilt thou not be quiet? Withdraw into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.

Flee, save your lives, and you will be like a wild donkey in the desert.

And if Israel was not a derision to thee? if he was found among thieves? for after thy speaking of him thou wilt move to and fro.

From the cry of Heshbon even unto Elealeh, and even unto Jahaz, have they uttered their voice, from Zoar even unto Horonaim, as an heifer of three years old: for the waters also of Nimrim shall be desolate.

Why do you brag about your great power? Your power is ebbing away, you rebellious people of Ammon, who trust in your riches and say, 'Who would dare to attack us?'

If grapegatherers come to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, they will destroy till they have enough.

... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O you who are living in the cracks of the rock, keeping your place on the top of the hill: even if you made your living-place as high as the eagle, I would make you come down, says the Lord.

Because thou rejoicest, because thou exultest, O spoilers of Mine inheritance, Because thou increasest as a heifer at the tender grass, And dost cry aloud as bulls,

Cry out: upon her, upon her, against her round about: she shall yield herself, her foundations shall fall, and her walls shall come down, for it shall be the vengeance of the LORD. Yea vengeance shall be taken of her, and as she hath done, so shall she be dealt withal.

Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon. Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. Let all the foreigners return to their own people. Let them hurry back to their own lands to escape destruction by that enemy army.

Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

Give the signal to attack Babylon's wall! Bring more guards! Post them all around the city! Put men in ambush! For the Lord will do what he has planned. He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon.

With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;

“Behold, I am against you,
O destroying mountain [conqueror of nations],
Who destroys the whole earth,” declares the Lord,
“I will stretch out My hand against you,
And roll you down from the [rugged] cliffs,
And will make you a burnt mountain (extinct volcano).

Together, like wild lions, shall they roar, - They have growled like lions' whelps.

And the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall shout aloud over Babylon; for out of the north the spoilers shall come against her, saith Jehovah.

Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she had the high places of her strength shut in with walls, still I would send against her those who will make her waste, says the Lord.

So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the disaster which would come on Babylon, [that is] all these words which have been written concerning Babylon.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "At your coming [to] Babylon, then you must see [that] you read aloud all these words.

and say, Jehovah, thou hast spoken concerning this place, that thou wilt cut it off, so that none shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.

{And then} when you finish reading aloud this scroll, you must tie a stone on it, and you must throw it into the middle of [the] Euphrates.

Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

ב BetShe weeps aloud during the night,
with tears on her cheeks.
There is no one to offer her comfort,
not one from all her lovers.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.

Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

(Khet) Jerusalem committed terrible sin; therefore she became an object of scorn. All who admired her have despised her because they have seen her nakedness. She groans aloud and turns away in shame.

Uncleanness has soiled her skirts, and she gave no thought to what would follow. She fell in such a startling way, with no one to comfort her. Look, LORD, upon my affliction, because my enemy is boasting.

I called to those loving me, they deceived me: my priests and my old men expired in the city, for they sought food for them, and they will turn back their souls.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

He bent his bow against us as would an enemy, his right hand cocked as would an adversary. He has killed everyone in whom we took pride; in the tent of cherished Zion he poured out his anger like fire.

They sat upon the earth; the old men of the daughter of Zion were silent; they brought up the dust upon their head: they girded on sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem brought down their head to the earth.

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

Arise, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the watches. Pour out as water thy heart, Over against the face of the Lord, Lift up unto Him thy hands, for the soul of thine infants, Who are feeble with hunger at the head of all out-places.

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

Wilt thou proclaim, like the day of an appointed meeting - My terrors round about? when there was not - in the day of the anger of Yahweh - fugitive or survivor, - Those whom I dandled and reared, my foe hath destroyed.

My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

Thou wilt cast of my soul from peace: I forgat good.

Thou wilt, indeed remember, that, bowed down concerning myself, is my soul;

Let him offer his cheek
to the one who would strike him;
let him be filled with shame.

Thou didst cover with anger, and thou wilt pursue us: thou didst slay, thou didst not pity.

Thou heardest my voice: thou wilt not hide thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.

Thou wilt render unto them a recompense, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands.

Thou wilt give them hardness of heart, thy curse unto them.

Thou wilt pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Jehovah.

Even wild dogs, draw out the breast, give suck to their whelps - The daughter of my people, hath become cruel, like the ostriches in the desert.

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

{Nun} So that these blind men went stumbling in the streets, and stained themselves with blood, which else would touch no bloody cloth.

The face of the Lord has sent them in all directions; he will no longer take care of them: they had no respect for the priests, they gave no honour to the old men.

Our eyes failed, searching in vain for hope; we kept watching and looking for a nation that would not help.

We get our bread at the risk of our lives
Because of the sword [of the Arabs] in the wilderness [who may attack if we go out to harvest the crop].

Their hands put princes to death by hanging: the faces of old men were not honoured.

The old men are no longer seated in the doorway, and the music of the young men has come to an end.

For wild animals are prowling over Mount Zion, which lies desolate.

Wherefore wilt thou still forget us, and forsake us so long?

Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went.

The appearance of the wheels and of their structure was like a Tarshish-stone to look upon, and they four had one likeness, - and their appearance and their structure were just as would be a wheel in the midst of a wheel.

When they moved they would go in any of the four directions they faced without turning as they moved.

Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went, thither would their spirit go; and the wheels were lifted up along with them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.

You will eat it as you would a barley cake and bake it over dried human excrement in their sight.”

But I said, “Oh, Lord God, I have never been defiled. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything that died naturally or was mauled by wild beasts. And impure meat has never entered my mouth.”

“Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as you would a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.

Further, I will send against you hunger and wild beasts, and they will bereave you of children; virulent disease and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”

And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

Destruction will come on destruction, and one story after another; and the vision of the prophet will be shamed, and knowledge of the law will come to an end among the priests, and wisdom among the old.

And it was in the sixth year, in the sixth, in the fifth to the month, I sitting in my house, and the old men of Judah sitting before me, and the hand of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me.

And He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations.”

And seventy men from the old men of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, stood in the midst of them, standing before them, and each his censer in his hand; and a rich cloud of incense went up.

And he said to me, Sawest, thou son of man, what the old men of the house of Israel are doing in darkness, a man in the chambers of his images? for they are saying, Jehovah sees us not; Jehovah forsook the earth.

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?

When they moved, they would go in any of the four directions, without pivoting as they moved. But wherever the head faced, they would go in that direction, without pivoting as they went.

Now when the cherubim moved, the wheels would go beside them; also when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels would not turn from beside them.

When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living beings was in them.

It will not be as a pot to you, and [so] you would be in the midst of it as flesh, [for] at the border of Israel I will judge you.

And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?

"Son of Man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, who even now are prophesying, and tell those prophets that keep on prophesying according to what they wish would happen, "Listen to what the LORD says.'"

You didn't go up to repair the breaches in the walls and you didn't build the walls so Israel's house would be able to endure battle on the Day of the LORD.

They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.

those prophets of Israel who would prophesy about Jerusalem and would see visions of peace for it, when there was no peace," declares the sovereign Lord.'

and say, 'Thus sayeth the LORD God: Woe be unto you, that sew pillows under all armholes, and bolsters under the heads both of young and old, to catch souls withal. For when ye have gotten the souls of my people in your captivity, ye promise them life,

""Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD says, "Watch out! I'm opposing your amulets with which you hunt souls as one would swat at a flying insect. I'll tear them off your arms and then deliver those people, whom you've hunted like birds.

And there will come to me men from the old men of Israel, and sit before me.

even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in that land, by their own righteousness (right standing with God) they could only save (deliver) themselves,” says the Lord God.

“If I were to cause predatory beasts to pass through the land and they ravaged it and depopulated it of children, and it became desolate so that no one would pass through because of the predators,

though these three men were in the land, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they could not save either their sons or their daughters. They alone would be saved, but the land would be desolate (ruined, deserted).

even though these three men were in the land, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they could not save either their sons or their daughters, but they alone would be saved.

even though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the land, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they could not save either their son or their daughter; they would save only themselves by their righteousness [that is, their right-standing with God—their moral and spiritual integrity].”

For thus said the Lord Jehovah: Although My four sore judgments -- sword, and famine, and wild beast, and pestilence -- I have sent unto Jerusalem, to cut off from it man and beast,

And thy nativity, in the day thou wert born thy navel was not cut, and thou wert not washed in water for my looking upon; and salting, thou welt not salted, and swathing, thou wert not swathed.

No eye spared upon thee to do one of these to thee, to pity upon thee; and thou wilt be east to the face of the field in loathing of thy soul in the day of bringing thee forth.

And thou shalt be decked with gold and silver, and thy clothing fine linen and silk, and variegation; fine flour and honey and oil thou didst eat; and thou wilt be fair, very exceedingly, and thou wilt prosper into a kingdom.