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

This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.

For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.

And I will dash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together, saith Jehovah; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy so as not to destroy them.

Give glory to Yahweh your God {before} he brings darkness, and {before} your feet stumble on the mountains at twilight. And you will hope for light, but he makes it as gloom, he makes [it] as thick darkness.

But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no one to make them open: Judah is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is taken away as prisoners.

What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?

And when you ask yourself,
“Why have these things happened to me?”
It is because of your great guilt
that your skirts have been stripped off,
your body exposed.

For like as the man of Ethiopia may change his skin, and the cat of the mountains her spots: so may ye that be exercised in evil, do good.

Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.

“As for your adulteries and your lustful neighings,
The lewdness of your prostitution
On the hills in the field,
I have seen your abominations.
Woe to you, O Jerusalem!
How long will you remain unclean?”

[That] which came [as] the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah concerning the matter of the severe drought.

And the wild asses stood upon the naked hills, they panted after the wind as the jackals; their eyes failed because no grass.

O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?

Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.

Therefore, thus sayeth the LORD: As for those prophets that preach in my name, whom I nevertheless have not sent, and that say, 'Tush, there shall neither battle, nor hunger be in this land': With sword and with hunger shall those prophets perish,

‘If I go out into the field,
Then I gaze on those slaughtered with the sword!
And if I enter the city,
Then I gaze on [those tormented with] the diseases of famine!
For both prophet and priest [who should have guided the people]
Go about [bewildered and exiled] in a land (Babylon) that they do not know or understand.’”

And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.

For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?

The mother who had seven children will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. She will suffer shame and humiliation. I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies," says the Lord.

Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me
As a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land!
I have not lent, nor have men lent money to me,
Yet everyone curses me.

The Lord said, “Surely [it will go well for Judah’s obedient remnant for] I will set you free for good purposes;
Surely [Jeremiah] I will [intercede for you with the enemy and I will] cause the enemy to plead with you [for help]
In a time of disaster and a time of distress.

“Your [nation’s] riches and your treasures
I will give as plunder without price [to the Babylonians],
Because of all your sins
And within all your territories.

Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became to me as jubilation, even as the joy of my heart, for your name is called on me, Yahweh God of hosts.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

I will make you as strong as a wall to these people, a fortified wall of bronze. They will attack you, but they will not be able to overcome you. For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you," says the Lord.

For this is what the Lord says concerning sons and daughters born in this place as well as concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who father them in this land:

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

“For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed My peace from these people”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“as well as My faithful love and compassion.

Death will overtake great as well as small in the land: their bodies will not be put in a resting-place, and no one will be weeping for them or wounding themselves or cutting off their hair for them:

{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?'

Ye also have done evil above your fathers, And lo, ye are walking each after the stubbornness of his evil heart, So as not to hearken unto Me.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

but, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither he had driven them. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

Before I restore them I will punish them in full for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own with their detestable idols."

As their sons remember their altars and their shrines, By the green tree, by the high hills.

O [Jerusalem] My mountain in the countryside,
I will give [to the Babylonians, as the cost of your sin] your wealth and all your treasures as plunder,
And throughout your territory, your high places of sin.

You will lose your hold on the land which I gave to you as a permanent possession. I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For you have made my anger burn like a fire that will never be put out."

And he hath been as a naked thing in a desert, And doth not see when good cometh, And hath inhabited parched places in a wilderness, A salt land, and not inhabited.

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.

As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.

Let my persecutors be put to shame, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be put to shame. Let them be dismayed, {but as for me}, [do] not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of disaster, and [with] double destruction, destroy them.

The LORD told me, "Go, stand in the gate of the people, where the kings of Judah come in and go out, and in the other gates of Jerusalem as well.

As you stand in those places announce, 'Listen, all you people who pass through these gates. Listen, all you kings of Judah, all you people of Judah and all you citizens of Jerusalem. Listen to what the Lord says.

Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

Yet they did not listen, and they did not incline their ear, and they hardened their neck [so as] to not hear, nor to receive discipline.

And it hath been, if ye certainly hearken unto Me, An affirmation of Jehovah, So as not to bring in a burden By the gates of this city on the day of rest, And to sanctify the day of rest, So as not to do in it any work --

If you do this, then the kings and princes who follow in David's succession and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to enter through these gates, as well as their officials and the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. This city will always be filled with people.

And if ye do not hearken unto me to sanctify the day of rest, And so as not to bear a burden, And to come in at the gates of Jerusalem on the day of rest, Then I have kindled a fire in its gates, And it hath consumed the high places of Jerusalem, And it is not quenched!'

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

And it hath done the evil thing in Mine eyes, So as not to hearken to My voice, Then I have repented of the good That I have spoken of doing to it.

But they will say, ‘That is hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act in accordance with the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ask ye now among the heathen, who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

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.”

Should good be repaid with evil?
For they have dug a pit for me.
Remember how I stood before You
To speak good on their behalf,
So as to turn away Your wrath from them.

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 forsaken me, And have treated this as a foreign place, And have burned incense therein to other gods, which neither they, nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah, have known; And have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

and they have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire as burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it up into my mind:

And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their life, and their carcases will I give as food to the fowl of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth.

And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.

Thus will I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet:

And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.

“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.’”

For thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I am going to make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; and while your eyes look on, they will fall by the sword of their enemies. So I will give over all Judah to the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away as exiles to Babylon and will slay them with the sword.

I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder and carry it off to Babylon.

As for you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, you will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon. There you will die, and there you will be buried, you and all your friends that you prophesied falsely to.’”

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the word of Jehovah is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day.

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

For why? I heard so many derisions and blasphemies, yea even of my own companions, and such as were conversant with me: which went about, to make me afraid, saying, "Upon him; let us go upon him, to fear him, and make him hold his tongue: that we may overcome him, and be avenged of him."

But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.

And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;

because he slew me not, as soon as I came out of my mother's womb, and because my mother was not my grave herself, that the birth might not have come out, but remained still in her.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malkijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. Zedekiah sent them to Jeremiah to ask,

“Ask the Lord on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will perform for us something like all His past wonderful works so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.”

Then Jeremiah said to them, “You shall say to Zedekiah as follows:

And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.

He who remains in this city [of Jerusalem] will die by the sword and by famine and by virulent disease. But he who goes outside and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you will live, and his life will be like a prize of war to him.

And as to the house of the king of Judah, Hear ye a word of Jehovah;

O house of David, thus said Jehovah: Decide ye judgment at morning, And deliver the plundered from the hand of the oppressor, Lest My fury go forth as fire, And hath burned, and none is quenching, Because of the evil of your doings.

But I will punish you as your deeds deserve,' says the Lord. 'I will set fire to your palace; it will burn up everything around it.'"

If you are careful to obey these commands, then the kings who follow in David's succession and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to come through the gates of this palace, as will their officials and their subjects.

For thus says the Lord in regard to the house of the king of Judah:

“You are [as valuable] to Me as [the green pastures of] Gilead [east of the Jordan]
Or as the [plentiful] summit of Lebanon [west of the Jordan],
Yet most certainly [if you will not listen to Me] I will make you a wilderness,
And uninhabited cities.

“Many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why did the Lord do such a thing 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.

For he will die in the country where they took him as a captive. He will never see this land again."

“Do you think that you become a king because you have much more cedar [in your palace than Solomon]?
Did not your father [Josiah], as he ate and drank,
Do just and righteous acts [being upright and in right standing with God]?
Then all was well with him.

Nevertheless, as for thine eyes and thine heart, they look upon covetousness, to shed innocent blood, and to do wrong and violence.'"

And therefore, thus sayeth the LORD against Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king of Judah, "They shall not mourn for him as they used to do, 'Alas brother, alas sister.' Neither shall they say unto him, 'Alas sir, alas for that noble prince.'

He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

O inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain as of a woman in travail!

As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;

As for the land to which they are {longing} to return, they will not return.

Thus says the Lord,

‘Write this man [Coniah] down as childless,
A man who will not prosper (succeed) in his lifetime;
For not one of his descendants will succeed
In sitting on the throne of David
Or ruling again in Judah.’”

Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that they shall no more say, As Jehovah liveth, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;