This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a linen band and put it round you and do not put it in water.

After this, the LORD spake unto me again,

And it happened, long after this, that the LORD spake unto me, "Up, and get thee to Euphrates, and fetch the breech from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there."

Then this message from the LORD came to me:

Thus saith Jehovah, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

This evil people, who refuse to listen to my words, who go in the stubbornness of their hearts, and have gone after other gods, to serve them, and to bow in worship to them, let them be like this loincloth which is not good for anything.

Just as underwear clings to one’s waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“so that they might be My people for My fame, praise, and glory, but they would not obey.

"Therefore, you shall say to them this word, 'Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: "Every jar must be filled with wine." ' And they will say to you, 'Do we not certainly know that every jar should be filled with wine?'

Then you shall say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh: "Look, I [am] about to fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings who sit on David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem [with] drunkenness.

But if you will not pay attention to this warning, I will weep alone because of your arrogant pride. I will weep bitterly and my eyes will overflow with tears because you, the Lord's flock, will be carried into exile."

This [is] your lot, the portion of your measure from me," {declares} Yahweh, "because you have forgotten me, and you have trusted in the lie.

I've seen your detestable behavior: your adulteries, your passionate neighing, your lewd immorality on the hills in the field. How terrible it will be for you, Jerusalem! You are unclean. How much longer will this go on?"

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

Thus says Yahweh concerning this people: "They have loved so much to wander, they have not spared their feet. Therefore Yahweh is not favorable to them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins."

So Yahweh said to me, "You must not pray for this people, for [their] happiness.

Then I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh, look, the prophets [are] saying to them, 'You will not see [the] sword, and famine will not be yours, but reliable peace I will give to you in this place.'"

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who prophecy in my name though I have not sent them, yet they [are] saying, "Sword and famine will not be in this land." "By the sword and by the famine those prophets will perish.

And the people to whom they are prophesying, Are cast into out-places of Jerusalem, Because of the famine, and of the sword, And they have none burying them, Them, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, And I have poured out upon them this evil.

"And you shall say to them this word, 'Let my eyes melt [with] tears night and day, and let them not cease, for [with] a great wound the virgin daughter of my people is broken, [with] a very incurable wound.

Do any of the worthless idols of the nations cause rain to fall? Do the skies themselves send showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? So we put our hopes in you because you alone do all this."

Then Yahweh said to me, "[Even] if Moses and Samuel stood {before me}, my heart [would] not [be] to this people. Send [them] away from my {sight}, and let them go out.

If they ask you, ‘Where will we go?’ you must tell them: This is what the Lord says:

Those destined for death, to death;
those destined for the sword, to the sword.
Those destined for famine, to famine;
those destined for captivity, to 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.

The mother of seven grew faint;
she breathed her last breath.
Her sun set while it was still day;
she was ashamed and humiliated.
The rest of them I will give over to the sword
in the presence of their enemies.”
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I said, "Oh, mother, how I regret that you ever gave birth to me! I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone. Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt."

For this cause the Lord has said, If you will come back, then I will again let you take your place before me; and if you give out what is of value and not that which has no value, you will be as my mouth: let them come back to you, but do not go back to them.

And I will make you to this people a wall of fortified bronze, and they will fight against you, but they will not prevail over you, for I [am] with you, to save you, and to deliver you," {declares} Yahweh.

This message from the LORD came to me:

"You shall not take for yourself a wife, there shall not be for you sons and daughters in this place."

For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and concerning the daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who gave birth to them, and concerning their fathers who fathered them in this land:

For thus says Yahweh, "You must not enter [the] house of [the] funeral meal, and you must not go to lament, and you must not show sympathy for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people," {declares} Yahweh, "the loyal love and the compassion.

Both the great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and they will not mourn for them, and no one will cut himself with a blade, and no one will shave himself for them.

For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "Look, I [am] about to cause to disappear from this place, before your eyes and in your days, [the] voice of jubilation, and [the] voice of joy, and [the] voice of [the] bridegroom, and [the] voice of [the] bride.

{And then} when you tell this people all these words and they ask you, '{Why} has Yahweh pronounced against us all this great evil, and what [is] our iniquity, and what [is] our sin that we have sinned against Yahweh our God?'

Then make thou them this answer: Because your fathers have forsaken me, sayeth the LORD, and have cleaved unto strange gods, whom they have honored and worshiped: but me have they forsaken, and have not kept my law.

So I will throw you from this land to the land that you have not known, you or your ancestors, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will not show you favor.

For this cause, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt.

Lo, I am sending for many fishers, An affirmation of Jehovah, And they have fished them, And after this I send for many hunters, And they have hunted them from off every mountain, And from off every hill, and from holes of the rocks.

"{Therefore} look, I [am] about to let them know, this time I am going to let them know my {power} and my might, and they will know that my name [is] Yahweh."

This is what the Lord has said: Cursed is the man who puts his faith in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart is turned away from the Lord.

This is what the Lord has said to me: Go and take your place in the doorway of Benjamin, where the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the doorways of Jerusalem;

and say unto them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all thou people of Judah, and all ye citizens of Jerusalem, that go through this gate!

This is what the Lord has said: See to yourselves, that you take up no weight on the Sabbath day, or take it in through the doors of Jerusalem;

"And it will happen, if you carefully listen to me," {declares} Yahweh, "to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the day of the Sabbath, but to declare holy the day of Sabbath, not to do on it any work,

then kings and officials who sit on the throne of David will enter through the gates of this city riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their officials, the people of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited {forever}.

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

Then this message from the LORD came to me:

"Like this potter, am I not able to do to you, O house of Israel?" {declares} Yahweh. "Look, like the clay in the hand of the potter, so [are] you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Now, then, say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am forming an evil thing against you, and designing a design against you: let every man come back now from his evil way, and let your ways and your doings be changed for the better.

But they say, 'No more of this, we will follow our own imaginations, and do every man according to the wilfulness of his own mind.'

"Therefore thus says Yahweh, 'Please ask among the nations, "Who has heard {the like of this}?" The virgin of Israel has done something very horrible.

For my people have put me out of their memory, burning perfumes to that which is nothing; and because of this, I will put a cause of falling in their ways, even in the old roads, and will make them go on side-roads, in a way not lifted up;

Then [my enemies] said, “Come and let us work out schemes against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest [as Jeremiah predicts], nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with our tongue [by making charges against him before the king], and let us ignore anything he says.”

For this cause, let their children be without food, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives be without children and become widows; let their men be overtaken by death, and their young men be put to the sword in the fight.

Yet LORD, thou knowest all their counsel that they have devised, to slay me. And therefore forgive them not their wickedness, and let not their sin be put out of thy sight: but let them be judged before thee as the guilty: This shalt thou do unto them in the time of thy indignation.

This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a potter's bottle made of earth, and take with you some of the responsible men of the people and of the priests;

And you shall say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: "Look, I [am] about to bring disaster upon this place so that {everyone who hears it}, his ears will ring.

Because they have forsaken me, and they have defaced this place, and they have made smoke offerings in it to other gods whom they have not known, they, nor their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah, and they have filled up this place [with the] blood of [the] innocent,

"{Therefore} look, days [are] about to come," {declares} Yahweh, "when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, {but} the Valley of the Slaughter.

And I will lay waste the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will bring them to ruin by the sword {before} their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life, and I will give their dead bodies as food to the birds of heaven and to the animals of the earth.

And I will make this city a horror, and [an object of] hissing, everyone [who] passes by it will be appalled, and will hiss because of all its wounds.

I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another."'"

And you shall say to them, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "So I will break this people and this city as one breaks the vessel of the potter, [so] that it is not able to be repaired again. And in Topheth they will bury {until there is no room to bury}.

Thus will I do to this place," {declares} Yahweh, "and to its inhabitants, to make this city like Topheth.

The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.'"

"Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Look, I [am] about to bring to this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their neck to not hear my words.'"

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.

And I will give all the wealth of this city, and all its acquisitions, and all its precious items, and all of the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies, and they will plunder them, and they will seize them, and they will bring them [to] Babylon.

For whenever I prophesy, I must cry out, "Violence and destruction are coming!" This message from the Lord has made me an object of continual insults and derision.

When I say, "I won't remember the LORD, nor will I speak in his name anymore, then there is this burning fire in my heart. It is bound up in my bones, I grow weary of trying to hold it in, and I cannot do it!

And Jehovah is with me as a strong terrible one: for this, they pursuing shall be weak, and they shall not prevail; they were greatly ashamed, for they prospered not; perpetual shame shall not be forgotten.

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,

Then Jeremiah said to them, This is what you are to say to Zedekiah:

'Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: "Look, I [am] about to turn back the weapons of war that [are] in your hands, [with] which you [are] fighting against them, the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are laying siege to you from outside the wall, and I will gather them into the center of this city.

And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both humankind and animal; by a great plague they will die.

And {afterward}," {declares} Yahweh, "I will give Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who remain in this city from the plague, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their lives, and he will strike them with [the] {edge} of [the] sword. He will not take pity on them, and he will not have compassion, nor will he show compassion." '

"And to this people you shall say, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Look, I [am] setting {before you} the way of life and the way of death.

He who stays in this city will die by the sword, or by the famine, or by the plague. And he who goes out and goes over to the Chaldeans who are laying siege to you will live, and his life will be to him as booty.

For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good," {declares} Yahweh. It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire." '

“And to the house of the king of Judah say this: ‘Hear the word of the Lord!

O family of David, this is what the Lord has said: Do what is right in the morning, and make free from the hands of the cruel one him whose goods have been violently taken away, or my wrath will go out like fire, burning so that no one may put it out, because of the evil of your doings.

Beware! I am against you,
you who sit above the valley,
you atop the rocky plateau—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you who say, “Who can come down against us?
Who can enter our hiding places?”

I will punish you according to what you have done—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will kindle a fire in its forest
that will consume everything around it.’”

Thus says Yahweh: "Go down [to] the house of the king of Judah and you must speak this word there.

Say: 'Listen, O king of Judah who follows in David's succession. You, your officials, and your subjects who pass through the gates of this palace must listen to what the Lord says.

Thus says Yahweh, "Act [with] justice and righteousness, and deliver [the] one who has been seized from the hand of [the] oppressor. And you must not oppress [the] immigrant, [the] orphan, and [the] widow. And you must not shed innocent blood in this place.

And if you indeed obey this word, then kings who sit for David on his throne will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.

But if you do not obey these words, I swear by myself," {declares} Yahweh, "that this house will become a site of ruins." '"

For this is what the Lord has said about the family of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the top of Lebanon: but, truly, I will make you waste, with towns unpeopled.

And many nations will pass by this city and they will say each one to his neighbor, '{Why} has Yahweh done in this manner to this great city?'

For thus says Yahweh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned as king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: "He will not return here again.

But in [the] place where they have deported him, there he will die, and he will not see this land again.

He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not this to know me? saith Jehovah.

So this is what the Lord has said about Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!

I spoke to you {in the times you were secure}, [and] you said, 'I will not listen!' This [was] your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed my voice.

You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!"

[Is] this man Coniah a despised, shattered vessel? Or a vessel [in which] there is no delight? Why are he and his offspring thrown far, and cast away to the land that they do not know?"

Land, land, land, listen to this message from the LORD!