I will do so because these people have rejected me and have defiled this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children.

They have built places here for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

Listen, you who sit enthroned above the valley on a rocky plateau. I am opposed to you,' says the Lord. 'You boast, "No one can swoop down on us. No one can penetrate into our places of refuge."

He says, "I will build myself a large palace with spacious upper rooms." He cuts windows in its walls, panels it with cedar, and paints its rooms red.

I will look after their welfare and will restore them to this land. There I will build them up and will not tear them down. I will plant them firmly in the land and will not uproot them.

I also told them, "If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. Let them plead with him not to let the valuable articles that are still left in the Lord's temple, in the royal palace, and in Jerusalem be taken away to Babylon.

Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

I will make myself available to you,' says the Lord. 'Then I will reverse your plight and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,' says the Lord. 'I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.'

For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, "You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce."'"

For I, the Lord, affirm that the time will come when I will reverse the plight of my people, Israel and Judah,' says the Lord. 'I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors and they will take possession of it once again.'"

There is no one to plead your cause. There are no remedies for your wounds. There is no healing for you.

I will rebuild you, my dear children Israel, so that you will once again be built up. Once again you will take up the tambourine and join in the happy throng of dancers.

In the past I saw to it that they were uprooted and torn down, that they were destroyed and demolished. But now I will see to it that they are built up and firmly planted. I, the Lord, affirm it!"

"Indeed a time is coming," says the Lord, "when the city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt as my special city. It will be built from the Tower of Hananel westward to the Corner Gate.

Even now siege ramps have been built up around the city in order to capture it. War, starvation, and disease are sure to make the city fall into the hands of the Babylonians who are attacking it. Lord, you threatened that this would happen. Now you can see that it is already taking place.

This will happen because the people of this city have aroused my anger and my wrath since the time they built it until now. They have made me so angry that I am determined to remove it from my sight.

They built places of worship for the god Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they could sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. Such a disgusting practice was not something I commanded them to do! It never even entered my mind to command them to do such a thing! So Judah is certainly liable for punishment.'

Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will live a long time in the land that you wander about on.'

We have not built any houses to live in. We do not own any vineyards, fields, or crops.

If you will just stay in this land, I will build you up. I will not tear you down. I will firmly plant you. I will not uproot you. For I am filled with sorrow because of the disaster that I have brought on you.

The Lord told Jeremiah, "Tell Baruch, 'The Lord says, "I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth.

But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied! It will drink their blood until it is full! For the Lord God who rules over all will offer them up as a sacrifice in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

People will not praise Moab any more. The enemy will capture Heshbon and plot how to destroy Moab, saying, 'Come, let's put an end to that nation!' City of Madmen, you will also be destroyed. A destructive army will march against you.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah.

(Mem) But it happened due to the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who poured out in her midst the blood of the righteous.

(Nun) They wander blindly through the streets, defiled by the blood they shed, while no one dares to touch their garments.

Lay siege to it! Build siege works against it. Erect a siege ramp against it! Post soldiers outside it and station battering rams around it.

They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all of their heads will be shaved bald.

The Lord said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who plot evil and give wicked advice in this city.

They say, 'The time is not near to build houses; the city is a cooking pot and we are the meat in it.'

"'I passed by you and saw you kicking around helplessly in your blood. I said to you as you lay there in your blood, "Live!" I said to you as you lay there in your blood, "Live!"

"'Then I bathed you in water, washed the blood off you, and anointed you with fragrant oil.

And with all your abominable practices and prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, kicking around in your blood.

you built yourself a chamber and put up a pavilion in every public square.

"'How sick is your heart, declares the sovereign Lord, when you perform all of these acts, the deeds of a bold prostitute.

When you built your chamber at the head of every street and put up your pavilion in every public square, you were not like a prostitute, because you scoffed at payment.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness was uncovered in your prostitution with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children you have given to them,

He took one of the seedlings of the land, placed it in a cultivated plot; a shoot by abundant water, like a willow he planted it.

Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people.

"Suppose such a man has a violent son who sheds blood and does any of these things mentioned previously

Into his right hand comes the portent for Jerusalem -- to set up battering rams, to give the signal for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.

You will become fuel for the fire -- your blood will stain the middle of the land; you will no longer be remembered, for I, the Lord, have spoken.'"

Then say, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; the end of your years has come. Therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands.

"'See how each of the princes of Israel living within you has used his authority to shed blood.

Slanderous men shed blood within you. Those who live within you eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains; they commit obscene acts among you.

They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, declares the sovereign Lord.

Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey -- shedding blood and destroying lives -- so they can get dishonest profit.

For they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and their sons, whom they bore to me, they have passed through the fire as food to their idols.

But upright men will punish them appropriately for their adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

That army will pelt them with stones and slash them with their swords; they will kill their sons and daughters and burn their houses.

For her blood was in it; she poured it on an exposed rock; she did not pour it on the ground to cover it up with dust.

To arouse anger, to take vengeance, I have placed her blood on an exposed rock so that it cannot be covered up.

He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will build a siege wall against you, erect a siege ramp against you, and raise a great shield against you.

I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place where fishing nets are spread. You will never be built again, for I, the Lord, have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

They will live securely in it; they will build houses and plant vineyards. They will live securely when I execute my judgments on all those who scorn them and surround them. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.'"

"Son of man, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre. Every head was rubbed bald and every shoulder rubbed bare; yet he and his army received no wages from Tyre for the work he carried out against it.

I will drench the land with the flow of your blood up to the mountains, and the ravines will be full of your blood.

Therefore say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: You eat the meat with the blood still in it, pray to your idols, and shed blood. Do you really think you will possess the land?

So I poured my anger on them because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it.

"As for you, son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Tell every kind of bird and every wild beast: 'Assemble and come! Gather from all around to my slaughter which I am going to make for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel! You will eat flesh and drink blood.

You will eat the flesh of warriors and drink the blood of the princes of the earth -- the rams, lambs, goats, and bulls, all of them fattened animals of Bashan.

You will eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, at my slaughter which I have made for you.

Then he said to me: "Son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: These are the statutes of the altar: On the day it is built to offer up burnt offerings on it and to sprinkle blood on it,

You will take some of its blood, and place it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the border all around; you will cleanse it and make atonement for it.

When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate it -- even my house -- when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

"'But the Levitical priests, the descendants of Zadok who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, will approach me to minister to me; they will stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the sovereign Lord.

The priest will take some of the blood of the sin offering and place it on the doorpost of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the doorpost of the gate of the inner court.

The king uttered these words: "Is this not the great Babylon that I have built for a royal residence by my own mighty strength and for my majestic honor?"

So know and understand: From the issuing of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a prince arrives, there will be a period of seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will again be built, with plaza and moat, but in distressful times.

I looked up and saw a man clothed in linen; around his waist was a belt made of gold from Upaz.

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. They will have no strength to prevail.

Plead earnestly with your mother (for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior.

Although I trained and strengthened them, they plot evil against me!

Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning!

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built royal palaces, and Judah has built many fortified cities. But I will send fire on their cities; it will consume their royal citadels.

But Ephraim bitterly provoked him to anger; so he will hold him accountable for the blood he has shed, his Lord will repay him for the contempt he has shown.

I will produce portents both in the sky and on the earth -- blood, fire, and columns of smoke.

The sunlight will be turned to darkness and the moon to the color of blood, before the day of the Lord comes -- that great and terrible day!

Egypt will be desolate and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, because of the violence they did to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.

I will avenge their blood which I had not previously acquitted. It is the Lord who dwells in Zion!

"I destroyed your crops with blight and disease. Locusts kept devouring your orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees. Still you did not come back to me." The Lord is speaking!

Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.

I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

So they cried out to the Lord, "Oh, please, Lord, don't let us die on account of this man! Don't hold us guilty of shedding innocent blood. After all, you, Lord, have done just as you pleased."

Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; shave your foreheads as bald as an eagle, for they are taken from you into exile.

You build Zion through bloody crimes, Jerusalem through unjust violence.

Will the Lord accept a thousand rams, or ten thousand streams of olive oil? Should I give him my firstborn child as payment for my rebellion, my offspring -- my own flesh and blood -- for my sin?

Faithful men have disappeared from the land; there are no godly men left. They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; they hunt their own brother with a net.

Whatever you plot against the Lord, he will completely destroy! Distress will not arise a second time.

The chariot drivers will crack their whips; the chariot wheels will shake the ground; the chariot horses will gallop; the war chariots will bolt forward!

I will pelt you with filth; I will treat you with contempt; I will make you a public spectacle.

They mock kings and laugh at rulers. They laugh at every fortified city; they build siege ramps and capture them.

Because you robbed many countries, all who are left among the nations will rob you. You have shed human blood and committed violent acts against lands, cities, and those who live in them.

The one who builds his house by unjust gain is as good as dead. He does this so he can build his nest way up high and escape the clutches of disaster.

For you will pay in full for your violent acts against Lebanon; terrifying judgment will come upon you because of the way you destroyed the wild animals living there. You have shed human blood and committed violent acts against lands, cities, and those who live in them.

He is as bright as lightning; a two-pronged lightning bolt flashes from his hand. This is the outward display of his power.

Their wealth will be stolen and their houses ruined! They will not live in the houses they have built, nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted.

I will bring distress on the people and they will stumble like blind men, for they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dirt; their flesh will be scattered like manure.

Go up to the hill country and bring back timber to build the temple. Then I will be pleased and honored,' says the Lord.