And it came to pass, when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain.

Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Cushite, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee.

But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the LORD: and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid.

For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey to thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD.

Now the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he hath said: because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing is come upon you.

Now while he had not yet gone back, he said, Go back also to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people: or go wherever it seemeth convenient to thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him provisions and a reward, and let him go.

Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon;

And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, swore to them and to their men, saying, Fear not to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.

And said to him, Dost thou certainly know that Baalis the king of the Ammonites hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to slay thee? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not.

But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael.

But ten men were found among them that said to Ishmael, Slay us not: for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he forbore, and slew them not among their brethren.

Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for which the LORD thy God shall send thee to us.

If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent of the evil that I have done to you.

Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the LORD; for I am with you, to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.

But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the LORD your God,

The LORD hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day.

And now I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God, nor any thing for which he hath sent me to you.

Then spoke Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying to Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there:

So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the LORD, to dwell in the land of Judah.

So they came into the land of Egypt: for they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: thus they came even to Tahpanhes.

Because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other gods, whom they knew not, neither they, ye, nor your fathers.

Yet I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense to other gods.

They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers.

As for the word that thou hast spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken to thee.

The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind?

Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil hath happened to you, as at this day.

Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there shall be an end of them.

And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give to thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.

Why have I seen them dismayed and turned away back? and their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and look not back: for fear was on all sides, saith the LORD.

Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape! they shall stumble, and fall towards the north by the river Euphrates.

Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured.

Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the LORD did drive them.

Also her hired men are in the midst of her like fatted bullocks; for they also have turned back, and have fled away together: they did not stand, because the day of their calamity had come upon them, and the time of their visitation.

But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for behold, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.

Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.

At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands:

Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

For was not Israel a derision to thee? was he found among thieves? for since thou hast spoken of him, thou hast leaped for joy.

I know his wrath, saith the LORD; but it shall not be so; his lies shall not so effect it.

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

But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is laid waste, and his brethren, and his neighbors, and he is not.

For thus saith the LORD; Behold, they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drank; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink of it.

How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!

And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them towards all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come.

Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.

They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces towards it, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.

All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.

Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.

I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD.

They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not show mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

Against him that bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifteth himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host.

For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah by his God, by the LORD of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.

Flee from the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD'S vengeance; he will render to her a recompense.

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 to heaven, and is lifted even to the skies.

The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name.

And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.

And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed: and the nations shall not flow together any more to him: even the wall of Babylon shall fall.

Ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the king, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were by the city on all sides:) and they went by the way of the plain.

And a capital of brass was upon it; and the hight of one capital was five cubits, with net-work and pomegranates upon the capitals around, all of brass. The second pillar also and the pomegranates were like to these.

And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side; and all the pomegranates upon the net-work were a hundred on all sides.

She weepeth bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she hath been wonderfully abased: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and its princes.

The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not revealed thy iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.

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 thy enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thy adversaries.

Their heart cried to the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thy eye cease.

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands towards him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

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

He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

For the Lord will not cast off for ever:

For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.

Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

My eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,

Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thy ear at my breathing, at my cry.

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

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

They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

They cried to them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favored not the elders.

As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

Princes were hanged by their hand: the faces of elders were not honored.