But they would not listen or turn their ear, and each of them stubbornly followed his own evil desires. So I brought on them all the consequences of this covenant that I commanded them to fulfill, but they did not.'"

I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I didn't know that they had devised schemes against me. They told themselves, "Let's destroy the tree with its fruit. Let's eliminate him from the land of the living, so his name won't be remembered again."

You plant them and they take root, they grow and bear fruit. "You are near to us," they say with their mouths, but the truth is that you're far from their hearts.

But if they don't listen, then I'll completely uproot that nation and destroy it," declares the LORD.

Take the belt that you bought and that is around your waist. Get up and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a crevice in the rock."

After a long time, the LORD told me, "Arise, go to the Euphrates, and get the belt that I commanded you to hide there."

This evil people that refuses to listen to my words, that stubbornly pursues their own desires, and that follows other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt that is not good for anything.

For just as the belt clings tightly to a person's waist, so I've made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah cling tightly to me,' declares the LORD. "I did this so that they would be my people, name, praise, and glory. But they wouldn't listen.'

"This is what you're to tell them: "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Every wineskin is to be filled with wine."' When they say to you, "Don't we know very well that every wineskin is to be filled with wine?',

"Look up and see those who are coming from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you your beautiful sheep?

What will you say when the LORD appoints over you as your head those whom you taught to be your allies? Pain will seize you like that seizing a woman about to give birth, will it not?

When you say to yourselves, "Why have all these things happened to me?' It's because of the extent of your iniquity that your skirt has been lifted up, and your heels have suffered violence.

This is this message from the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

Have you completely rejected Judah? Do you despise Zion? Why have you struck us, so that there is no healing for us? We hoped for peace, but no good came, for a time of healing, but there was only terror.

How terrible for me, my mother, that you gave birth to me, a man of strife and contention for the whole land! I've neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

I'll make you serve your enemies in a land you don't know, for my anger has started a fire that will burn against you."

You are aware LORD, remember me, pay attention to me, and vindicate me in front of those who pursue me. You are patient don't take me away. Know that I suffer insult because of you!

"When you speak all these words to this people, they'll say to you, "Why has the LORD pronounced all this disaster against us? What is our iniquity, and what is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?'

LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in a time of difficulty, to you the nations will come, and from the ends of the earth they'll say, "Surely our ancestors inherited deception, things that are worthless, and in which there is no profit."

Therefore, I'm about to make them understand; this time I'll make them understand my power and strength, so they'll understand that my name is the LORD.

You will let go of your inheritance which I gave you, and I'll make you serve your enemies in a land that you don't know. For with my anger you have started a fire that will burn forever.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by a stream. He won't fear when the heat comes, and his leaves will be green. In a year of drought he won't be concerned, nor will he stop producing fruit."

As a partridge gathers together eggs that it didn't lay, so is a person who amasses wealth unjustly. In the middle of his life it will leave him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool."

The message that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

But the vessel he was working on with the clay was ruined in the potter's hand. So he remade it into another vessel that seemed appropriate to him.

But if that nation about which I spoke turns from its evil way, I'll change my mind about the disaster that I had planned for it.

But if that nation does evil in my eyes by not obeying me, I'll change my mind about the good that I said I would bring on it.

Yet my people have forgotten me, and they burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their journey on the ancient paths. They walk on trails, on a way that is not built up.

Go out to the Valley of Hinnom at the entrance to the Potsherd Gate, and there proclaim the words that I'm telling you.

""This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: "I'm about to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of all who hear about it tingle. For they have forsaken me and have treated this place as foreign. In it they have burned incense to other gods that neither they, their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah knew. They have also filled this place with the blood of innocent people.

"This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel, says: "I'm about to bring on this city and all its towns all the disaster that I declared against it because they were determined not to obey my message.'"

Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were at the upper Benjamin Gate of the Temple.

May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. Let him hear a cry in the morning, and a battle cry at noon,

because he didn't kill me in the womb, so that my mother would have been my grave and her womb forever pregnant.

The message that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Malchijah's son Pashhur and Maaseiah's son Zephaniah the priest:

"This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "I'm about to turn against you the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls. I'll gather them into the center of this city.

But if you don't listen to these words, I swear," declares the LORD, "that this house will become a ruin."'"

You who live in Lebanon, who build your nest in the cedars, how you will groan when pains come upon you, pain like that of a woman giving birth.

and give you to those who are trying to kill you, whom you fear that is, to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Chaldeans.

"Is this man Jehoiachin a despised and shattered jar, a vessel no one wants? Why were he and his descendants hurled away, thrown into a land that they didn't know?

Among the prophets of Jerusalem I saw a horrible thing, for they commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of those who do evil, so that no one repents of his evil. All of them are like Sodom to me, and her residents like Gomorrah."

How long will this go on? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy from the deceit that is in their hearts?

With their dreams that they relate to one another, they plan to make my people forget my name just as their ancestors forgot my name by embracing Baal.

"My message is like fire or like a hammer that shatters rock, is it not?" declares the LORD.

"As for the prophet, the priest, or the people who say, "I have an oracle of the LORD,' I'll judge that person and his household.

I'll bring on you everlasting reproach and everlasting humiliation that won't ever be forgotten."

One basket contained very good figs like the first figs that ripen on the tree. The other basket contained very bad figs that were too bad to be eaten.

""Like the bad figs that are too bad to be eaten for this is what the LORD says so I'll give up on Zedekiah king of Judah, along with his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem that is left in this land, and those living in the land of Egypt.

They said, "Turn, each one of you, from your evil habits and evil deeds, and live in the land that the LORD gave to you and your ancestors forever and ever.

"Then when the seventy years have passed, I'll judge the king of Babylon and that nation, declares the LORD, I'll judge the land of the Chaldeans for their iniquity and I'll make it a desolation forever.

I'll bring on that land all the things I spoke against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied about the nations.

all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and all the kings of the coast lands that are beyond the sea;

Look, I'm beginning to bring disaster on the city that is called by my name, and do you actually think you will avoid punishment? You won't avoid punishment because I'm summoning the sword against all those who live in the land," declares the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.'"

"Those slain by the LORD on that day will extend from one end of the earth to the other. They won't be mourned for or gathered up or buried. They'll be like dung on the surface of the ground.

"This is what the LORD says: "Stand in the courtyard of the LORD's Temple and tell those from all the cities of Judah who are coming to worship at the LORD's Temple everything that I've commanded you to say to them. Don't leave out a word!

As soon as Jeremiah finished saying everything that the LORD had commanded him to say to all the people, the priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him, telling him as they did: "You must certainly die!

Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD that this house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be without an inhabitant?" Then all the people gathered around Jeremiah at the LORD's Temple.

Now, change your habits and your deeds and obey the LORD your God, and the LORD will change his mind about the disaster that he told you about.

But know for certain that if you kill me, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and its residents because the LORD really did send me to you to say all these things for you to hear."

"Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone in Judah kill him? Didn't he fear the LORD and seek the LORD's favor, and so the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he had spoken to them about. We're bringing great disaster on ourselves.

"By my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth, mankind, and the animals that are on the face of the earth, and I give it to whomever I see fit.

If a nation and kingdom does not serve him King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and does not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I'll judge that nation with the sword, with famine, and with plague," declares the LORD, "until I've completely destroyed it by his hand.

But I'll let the nation that brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him remain in its own land," declares the LORD, "and they'll work it and remain in it."'"

Why should you and your people die by the sword, by famine, and by plague as the LORD has decreed about the nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

If they're prophets, and if they have a message from the LORD, let them plead with the LORD of the Heavenly Armies so that the utensils that remain in the LORD's Temple, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem might not be taken to Babylon.

For this is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says about the pillars, the bronze sea, the stands, and the rest of the vessels that remain in this city

that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn't take when he took Jehoiakim's son Jeconiah, king of Judah, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem from Jerusalem into exile to Babylon

For this is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, the God of Israel says about the vessels that remain in the LORD's Temple, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem,

In that same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year and the fifth month, Azzur's son Hananiah, the prophet from Gibeon, told me at the LORD's Temple in front of the priests and all the people,

and within two years I'll bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's Temple that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took from this place and carried to Babylon.

The prophet Jeremiah said, "May the LORD truly do this thing! May the LORD fulfill the words that you prophesied to bring back the vessels of the LORD's Temple and all the exiles from Babylon to this place.

So the prophet Hananiah died in the seventh month of that year.

Theseare the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon,

For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, "plans for well-being, and not for calamity, in order to give you a future and a hope.

This is what the LORD says: "I'm about to send the sword, famine, and plague on them, and I'll make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten because they're so bad.

because they did something stupid in Israel. They committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and in my name they spoke lies that I didn't command them. I'm the one who knows, and I'm a witness," declares the LORD.'"

therefore, this is what the LORD says: "I'm about to judge Shemaiah from Nehelam along with his descendants. He won't have anyone related to him living among these people. Nor will he see the good that I'll do for my people," declares the LORD, "because he advocated rebellion against the LORD."'"

"This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Write all the words that I've spoken to you in a book.

Indeed, the time will come,' declares the LORD, "when I'll restore the security of my people Israel and Judah,' says the LORD. "I'll bring them back to the land that I gave to their ancestors, and they'll possess it.'"

These are the words that the LORD spoke about Israel and Judah:

Oh how terrible! That time will be worse than any like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be rescued from it.

On that day,' declares the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, "I'll break the yoke from your neck and will tear off your restraints. Foreigners will no longer make you serve them.

"At that time," declares the LORD, "I'll be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people."

How long will you go this way and that, rebellious daughter? Indeed, the LORD will create a new thing on the earth; a woman will protect a man.

"Rather, this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD. "I'll put my Law within them and will write it on their hearts. I'll be their God and they will be my people.

This is what the LORD says, who gives the sun for light by day, the laws that govern the moon and stars for light by night, and who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The LORD of the Heavenly Armies is his name:

This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah. It was the eighteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

"Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard just as the LORD had said, and he told me, "Please buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin because you have the right to possess it, and the right to redeem it belongs to you. Buy it for yourself.' So I knew that this was a message from the LORD.

You are great in regards to your purposes and mighty in regards to your works. Your eyes are open to everything that people do, and will reward each one according to their ways and just as their actions deserve.

You are the one who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and continue to do so until this day, both in Israel and among the rest of humanity. You made a reputation for yourself that continues to this day.

And you gave them this land which you had promised their ancestors that you would give them a land flowing with milk and honey.

because of all the evil that the Israelis and Judeans have done to provoke me. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, the people of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem have done these things.

They put their detestable idols in the house that is called by my name and defiled it.

They built the high places of Baal that are in the Hinnom Valley in order to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech something that I didn't command, nor did it ever enter my mind for them to require this utterly repugnant thing and lead Judah into sin."

I'll make an everlasting covenant with them that I won't turn away from doing good for them. I'll put the fear of me in their hearts so they won't turn away from me.

"Indeed, this is what the LORD says: "Just as I'm bringing all this great disaster on this people, so I'll bring on them all the good things that I'm promising concerning them.

"Call to me and I'll answer you, and will tell you about great and hidden things that you don't know.'

For this is what the LORD God of Israel says about the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down to defend against the siege ramps and the sword,

"The Chaldeans are coming to fight and to fill those houses with the dead bodies of the people that I've struck down in my anger and wrath, for I've hidden my face from this city because of all their wickedness.

I'll cleanse them from all their sin that they have committed against me, and I'll forgive all their sins that they committed against me and by which they rebelled against me.