So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.

And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.

Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.

Listen and give heed, do not be haughty,
For the Lord has spoken.

Say to the king and the queen mother,
“Humble yourselves and take a lowly seat,
For your beautiful crown [the crown of your glory]
Has come down from your head.”

What wilt thou say, when he shall set over thee as head those whom thou hast thyself taught to be friends to thee? shall not sorrows take hold of thee, as of a woman in travail?

Therefore shall I turn thy clothes over thy head, and uncover thy thighs, that thy privates may be seen:

"Judah shall mourn, men shall not go much more through his gates: the land shall be no more had in reputation, and the cry of Jerusalem shall break out.

And their honourable ones have sent their little ones to the water, They have come unto ditches, They have not found water, They have turned back -- their vessels empty! They have been ashamed, And have blushed and covered their head.

Because the ground hath been broken, For there hath been no rain in the land, Ashamed have been husbandmen, They have covered their head.

I will scatter thee abroad with the fan on every side of the land: I will waste my people and destroy them, for they have had no lust to turn from their own ways.

I have let their widows be increased in number more than the sand of the seas: I have sent against them, against the mother and the young men, one who makes waste in the heat of the day, causing pain and fears to come on her suddenly.

Languisheth! she who had given birth to seven, She hath breathed out her life Her sun hath gone in, while yet it was day, She hath turned pale and hath turned red, - And the remnant of them, to the sword, will I deliver before their enemies, Declareth Yahweh.

When I had found thy words, I ate them up greedily: they have made my heart joyful and glad, for I call upon thy name, O LORD God of Hosts.

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].

Both great and small will die in this land without burial. No lament will be made for them, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

Then I said, "Lord, you give me strength and protect me. You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. Nations from all over the earth will come to you and say, 'Our ancestors had nothing but false gods -- worthless idols that could not help them at all.

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

Let my persecutors, turn pale, hut let not me, turn pale, Let, them, be terrified, but let not, me, be terrified, - Bring thou upon them a day of calamity, And with a double fracture, destroy them.

Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;

This is another communication that God had with Jeremiah, saying,

However, if that nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.

However, if it does what is evil in My sight by not listening to My voice, I will relent concerning the good I had said I would do to it.

So this is what the Lord has said: Make search among the nations and see who has had word of such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very shocking thing.

To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.

Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.

Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.

But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not pardon their crimes! Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! Let them be brought down in defeat before you! Deal with them while you are still angry!

Because they have given me up, and made this place a strange place, burning perfumes in it to other gods, of whom they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had no knowledge; and they have made this place full of the blood of those who have done no wrong;

Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD'S house; and said to all the people,

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

And when Pashhur son of Immer, the priest, who also was deputy-overseer in the house of Yahweh, heard that Jeremiah had prophesied these things,

So Pashhur had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate in the Lord’s temple.

A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.

Cursed be the man who made my father very glad when he brought him the news that a baby boy had been born to him!

Let it happen unto that man, as to the cities which the LORD turned upside down, when he had long heard the wicked rumor of them;

because he slew me not from the womb. Or would that my mother had been my grave, and her womb always great with me!

And I warred with you with a hand stretched out and with an arm of strength, and in anger and in heat and in great wrath.

For thus saith the LORD unto the king's house of Judah; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.

Does it make you any more of a king that you outstrip everyone else in building with cedar? Just think about your father. He was content that he had food and drink. He did what was just and right. So things went well with him.

Yea when he helped the oppressed and poor to their right, then prospered he well. From whence came this? But only because he had me before his eyes, sayeth the LORD.

“Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered jar?
Or is he an undesirable vessel?
Why have he and his descendants been hurled out
And cast into a land that they had not known?

And will gather together the remnant of my flock, from all lands that I had driven them unto, and will bring them again to their pastures, that they may grow and increase.

But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed. I tremble all over. I am like a drunk person, like a person who has had too much wine, because of the way the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated.

Even among the prophets of Samaria, had I seen a foolish thing, - They prophesied by Baal, And led astray my people Israel.

“But who has stood in the council of the Lord,
That he should see and hear His word?
Who has given heed to His word and listened?

Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.

But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

“I have heard what the prophets who prophesy a lie in My name have said, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’

Let the prophet who has had a dream go ahead and tell his dream. Let the person who has received my message report that message faithfully. What is like straw cannot compare to what is like grain! I, the Lord, affirm it!

Behold me! against such as prophesy the dreams of falsehood, Declareth Yahweh, who have related them and led astray my people, with their falsehoods and with their recklessness, - whereas, I, had not sent them nor commanded them, so that they could be of no, profit, to this people, Declareth Yahweh.

But, since ye keep on saying, The Oracle of Yahweh, therefore, Thus saith Yahweh, Because ye have said this word, The oracle of Yahweh, whereas I had sent unto you saying, Ye shall not say, The oracle of Yahweh

The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

Then took I the cup at the LORD'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:

the foreigners living in Egypt; all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the land of the Philistines, the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod;

The leaders will not be able to run away and hide. The shepherds of the flocks will not be able to escape.

The lion has come out of his secret place, for the land has become a waste because of the cruel sword, and because of the heat of his wrath.

Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing.

Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die.

Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh [after the ark of the Lord had been taken by our enemies] and this city [Jerusalem] will be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered around Jeremiah in the [outer area of the] house of the Lord.

Therefore amend your ways, and your advisements, and be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God: so shall the LORD repent of the plague, that he had devised against you.

“Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts,

“Zion will be plowed like a field,
And Jerusalem will become [heaps of] ruins,
And the mountain of the house [of the Lord—Mount Moriah, on which stands the temple, shall become covered not with buildings, but] like a densely wooded height.”’

Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls.

And there was another man who was a prophet of the Lord, Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; he said against this town and against this land all the words which Jeremiah had said:

Now when Jehoiakim the king with all the estate and princes had heard his words, the king went about to slay him. When Uriah perceived that, he was afraid, and fled, and departed into Egypt.

And they took Uriah out of Egypt and came back with him to Jehoiakim the king; who put him to death with the sword, and had his dead body put into the resting-place of the bodies of the common people.

Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, before the priests and all the people who had come into the house of the Lord,

the prophet who prophesied of peace when the word of the prophet was fulfilled, then was known the prophet, whom Yahweh had sent in truth.

Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the prophet, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;

(after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, had departed from Jerusalem);

The letter was sent by Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The letter stated:

And be working for the peace of the land to which I have had you taken away prisoners, and make prayer to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.

Then you will call on Me and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear [your voice] and I will listen to you.

I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

because they have committed infamy in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken words of falsehood in my name, which I had not commanded them: and I am he that knoweth, and am witness, saith Jehovah.

The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be an overseer in the house of the Lord for every man who is off his head and is acting as a prophet, to put such men in prison and in chains.

Send thou unto all them of the captivity, saying, Thus, saith Yahweh, Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, - Because Shemaiah, hath prophesied to you, when, I, had not sent him, And hath caused you to trust in falsehood,

All thy lovers have forgotten thee, and care nothing for thee. For I have given thee a cruel stroke, and chastened thee roughly: and that for the multitude of thy misdeeds, for thy sins have had the overhand.

And their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is he that hath had boldness to approach unto me? saith Jehovah.

Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked.

You will again plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria where planters had planted and defiled the fruit.

For thus saith Jehovah: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout at the head of the nations; publish ye, praise ye, and say, Jehovah, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.

For the Lord will rescue the descendants of Jacob. He will secure their release from those who had overpowered them.

Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.

Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years.

Upon this complaint, I thought thus by myself: Is not Ephraim my dear son? Is he not the child, with whom I have had all mirth and pastime? For since the time that I first communed with him, I have him ever in remembrance: therefore my very heart driveth me unto him; gladly and lovingly will I have mercy upon him, sayeth the LORD.

At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been most pleasant to me.

This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke even though I had married them”—the Lord’s declaration.

And gone out again hath the measuring line Over-against it, unto the height of Gareb, And it hath compassed to Goah.

and, then, the forces of the king of Babylon were besieging Jerusalem, - and, Jeremiah the prophet, had been shut up in the guard-court, which was in the house of the king of Judah;

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

“Then my cousin Hanamel came to the guard’s courtyard as the Lord had said and urged me, ‘Please buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you own the right of inheritance and redemption. Buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.