Bible (Jewish Publication Society 1917)/Jeremiah

 

ירמיה

JEREMIAH

1The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, ²to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. ³It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

⁴And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

⁵Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,

And before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;

I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.

⁶Then said I: 'Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child.' ⁷But the Lord said unto me:

Say not: I am a child;

For to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go,

And whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak.

⁸Be not afraid of them;

For I am with thee to deliver thee,

Saith the Lord.

⁹Then the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth; and the Lord said unto me:

Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth;

¹⁰See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,

To root out and to pull down,

And to destroy and to overthrow;

To build, and to plant.

¹¹Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: 'Jeremiah, what seest thou?' And I said: 'I see a rod of an ^[1]almond-tree.' ¹²Then said the Lord unto me: 'Thou hast well seen; for I ^[2]watch over My word to perform it.'

¹³And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying: 'What seest thou?' And I said: 'I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is from the north.' ¹⁴Then the Lord said unto me: 'Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. ¹⁵For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. ¹⁶And I will utter My judgments against them touching all their wickedness; in that they have forsaken me, and have offered unto other gods, and worshipped the work of their own hands. ¹⁷Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee; be not dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee before them. ¹⁸For, behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. ¹⁹And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.'

2And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord:

I remember for thee the affection of thy youth,

The love of thine espousals;

How thou wentest after Me in the wilderness,

In a land that was not sown.

³Israel is the Lord's hallowed portion,

His first-fruits of the increase;

All that devour him shall be held guilty,

Evil shall come upon them,

Saith the Lord.

 

⁴Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob,

And all the families of the house of Israel;

⁵Thus saith the Lord:

What unrighteousness have your fathers found in Me,

That they are gone far from Me,

And have walked after things of nought, and are become nought?

⁶Neither said they:

'Where is the Lord that brought us up

Out of the land of Egypt;

That led us through the wilderness,

Through a land of deserts and of pits,

Through a land of drought and of the shadow of death,

Through a land that no man passed through,

And where no man dwelt?'

⁷And I brought you into a land of fruitful fields,

To eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof;

But when ye entered, ye defiled My land,

And made My heritage an abomination.

⁸The priests said not: 'Where is the Lord?'

And they that handle the law knew Me not,

And the rulers transgressed against Me;

The prophets also prophesied by Baal,

And walked after things that do not profit.

⁹Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord,

And with your children's children will I plead.

¹⁰For pass over to the isles of the Kittites, and see,

And send unto Kedar, and consider diligently,

And see if there hath been such a thing.

¹¹Hath a nation changed its gods,

Which yet are no gods?

But My people hath changed its glory

For that which doth not profit.

¹²Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this,

And be horribly afraid, be ye exceeding amazed,

Saith the Lord.

¹³For My people have committed two evils:

They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,

And hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns,

That can hold no water.

 

¹⁴Is Israel a servant?

Is he a home-born slave?

Why is he become a prey?

¹⁵The young lions have roared upon him,

And let their voice resound;

And they have made his land desolate,

His cities are laid waste,

Without inhabitant.

¹⁶The children also of Noph and Tahpanhes

Feed upon the crown of thy head.

¹⁷Is it not this that doth cause it unto thee,

That thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God,

When He led thee by the way?

 

¹⁸And now what hast thou to do in the way to Egypt,

To drink the waters of Shihor?

Or what hast thou to do in the way to Assyria,

To drink the waters of the River?

¹⁹Thine own wickedness shall correct thee,

And thy backslidings shall reprove thee:

Know therefore and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing,

That thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God,

Neither is My fear in thee,

Saith the Lord God of hosts.

 

²⁰For of old time I have broken thy yoke,

And burst thy bands,

And thou saidst: 'I will not transgress';

Upon every high hill

And under every leafy tree

Thou didst recline, playing the harlot.

²¹Yet I had planted thee a noble vine,

Wholly a right seed;

How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant

Of a strange vine unto Me?

²²For though thou wash thee with nitre,

And take thee much soap,

Yet thine iniquity is marked before Me,

Saith the Lord God.

 

²³How canst thou say: 'I am not defiled,

I have not gone after the Baalim'?

See thy way in the Valley,

Know what thou hast done;

Thou art a swift young camel traversing her ways;

²⁴A wild ass used to the wilderness,

That snuffeth up the wind in her desire;

Her lust, who can hinder it?

All they that seek her will not weary themselves;

In her month they shall find her.

²⁵Withhold thy foot from being unshod,

And thy throat from thirst;

But thou saidst: 'There is no hope;

No, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.'

 

²⁶As the thief is ashamed when he is found,

So is the house of Israel ashamed;

They, their kings, their princes,

And their priests, and their prophets;

²⁷Who say to a stock: 'Thou art my father',

And to a stone: 'Thou hast brought us forth',

For they have turned their back unto Me, and not their face;

But in the time of their trouble they will say:

'Arise, and save us.'

²⁸But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee?

Let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble;

For according to the number of thy cities

Are thy gods, O Judah.

 

²⁹Wherefore will ye contend with Me?

Ye all have transgressed against Me,

Saith the Lord.

³⁰In vain have I smitten your children—

They received no correction;

Your sword hath devoured your prophets,

Like a destroying lion.

³¹O generation, see ye the word of the Lord:

Have I been a wilderness unto Israel?

Or a land of thick darkness?

Wherefore say My people: 'We roam at large;

We will come no more unto Thee'?

³²Can a maid forget her ornaments,

Or a bride her attire?

Yet My people have forgotten Me

Days without number.

 

³³How trimmest thou thy way

To seek love!

Therefore—even the wicked women

Hast thou taught thy ways;

³⁴Also in thy skirts is found the blood

Of the souls of the innocent poor;

Thou didst not find them breaking in;

Yet for all these things

³⁵Thou saidst: 'I am innocent;

Surely His anger is turned away from me'—

Behold, I will enter into judgment with thee,

Because thou sayest: 'I have not sinned.'

 

³⁶How greatly dost thou cheapen thyself

To change thy way?

Thou shalt be ashamed of Egypt also,

As thou wast ashamed of Asshur.

³⁷From him also shalt thou go forth,

With thy hands upon thy head;

For the Lord hath rejected them in whom thou didst trust,

And thou shalt not prosper in them.

 

3⁠. . . saying:

If a man put away his wife,

And she go from him,

And become another man's,

May he return unto her again?

Will not that land be greatly polluted?

But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers;

And wouldest thou yet return to Me?

Saith the Lord.

²Lift up thine eyes unto the high hills, and see:

Where hast thou not been lain with?

By the ways hast thou sat for them,

As an Arabian in the wilderness;

And thou hast polluted the land

With thy harlotries and with thy wickedness.

³Therefore the showers have been withheld,

And there hath been no latter rain;

Yet thou hadst a harlot's forehead,

Thou refusedst to be ashamed.

⁴Didst thou not just now cry unto Me: 'My father,

Thou art the friend of my youth.

⁵Will He bear grudge for ever?

Will He keep it to the end?'

Behold, thou hast spoken, but hast done evil things,

And hast had thy way.

⁶And the Lord said unto me in the days of Josiah the king: 'Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel did? she went up upon every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and there played the harlot. ⁷And I said: After she hath done all these things, she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸And I saw, when, forasmuch as backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorcement, that yet treacherous Judah her sister feared not; but she also went and played the harlot; ⁹and it came to pass through the lightness of her harlotry, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks; ¹⁰and yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord—¹¹even the Lord said unto me—backsliding Israel hath proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. ¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:

Return, thou backsliding Israel,

Saith the Lord;

I will not frown upon you;

For I am merciful, saith the Lord,

I will not bear grudge for ever.

¹³Only acknowledge thine iniquity,

That thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God,

And hast scattered thy ways to the strangers

Under every leafy tree,

And ye have not hearkened to My voice,

Saith the Lord.

¹⁴Return, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am a lord unto you, and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion; ¹⁵and I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶And it shall come to pass, when ye are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more: The ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they make mention of it; neither shall they miss it; neither shall it be made any more. ¹⁷At that time they shall call Jerusalem The throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.'

¹⁹But I said: 'How would I put thee among the sons,

And give thee a pleasant land,

The goodliest heritage of the nations! '

And I said: 'Thou shalt call Me, My father;

And shalt not turn away from following Me.'

²⁰Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband,

So have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,

Saith the Lord.

 

²¹Hark! upon the high hills is heard

The suppliant weeping of the children of Israel;

For that they have perverted their way,

They have forgotten the Lord their God.

 

²²Return, ye backsliding children,

I will heal your backslidings.—

'Here we are, we are come unto Thee;

For Thou art the Lord our God.

²³Truly vain have proved the hills,

The uproar on the mountains;

Truly in the Lord our God

Is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴But the shameful thing hath devoured

The labour of our fathers from our youth;

Their flocks and their herds,

Their sons and their daughters.

²⁵Let us lie down in our shame,

And let our confusion cover us;

For we have sinned against the Lord our God,

We and our fathers,

From our youth even unto this day;

And we have not hearkened

To the voice of the Lord our God.'

 

4If thou wilt return, O Israel,

Saith the Lord,

Yea, return unto Me;

And if thou wilt put away thy detestable things out of My sight,

And wilt not waver;

²And wilt swear: 'As the Lord liveth'

In truth, in justice, and in righteousness;

Then shall the nations bless themselves by Him,

And in Him shall they glory.

 

³For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem:

Break up for you a fallow ground,

And sow not among thorns.

⁴Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,

And take away the foreskins of your heart,

Ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;

Lest My fury go forth like fire,

And burn that none can quench it,

Because of the evil of your doings.

 

⁵Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem,

And say: 'Blow ye the horn in the land';

Cry aloud and say:

'Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.'

⁶Set up a standard toward Zion;

Put yourselves under covert, stay not;

For I will bring evil from the north,

And a great destruction.

⁷A lion is gone up from his thicket,

And a destroyer of nations

Is set out, gone forth from his place;

To make thy land desolate,

That thy cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

⁸For this gird you with sackcloth,

Lament and wail;

For the fierce anger of the Lord

Is not turned back from us.

⁹And it shall come to pass at that day,

Saith the Lord,

That the heart of the king shall fail,

And the heart of the princes;

And the priests shall be astonished,

And the prophets shall wonder.

¹⁰Then said I: 'Ah, Lord God! surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.'

¹¹At that time shall it be said of this people and of Jerusalem;

A hot wind of the high hills in the wilderness

Toward the daughter of My people,

Not to fan, nor to cleanse;

¹²A wind too strong for this shall come for Me;

Now will I also utter judgments against them.

¹³Behold, he cometh up as clouds,

And his chariots are as the whirlwind;

His horses are swifter than eagles.—

'Woe unto us! for we are undone.'—

¹⁴O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness,

That thou mayest be saved.

How long shall thy baleful thoughts

Lodge within thee?

¹⁵For hark! one declareth from Dan,

And announceth calamity from the hills of Ephraim:

¹⁶'Make ye mention to the nations:

Behold—publish concerning Jerusalem—

Watchers come from a far country,

And give out their voice against the cities of Judah.'

¹⁷As keepers of a field

Are they against her round about;

Because she hath been rebellious against Me,

Saith the Lord.

¹⁸Thy way and thy doings have procured

These things unto thee;

This is thy wickedness; yea, it is bitter,

Yea, it reacheth unto thy heart.

 

¹⁹My bowels, my bowels! I writhe in pain!

The chambers of my heart!

My heart moaneth within me!

I cannot hold my peace!

Because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the horn,

The alarm of war.

²⁰Destruction followeth upon destruction,

For the whole land is spoiled;

Suddenly are my tents spoiled,

My curtains in a moment.

²¹How long shall I see the standard,

Shall I hear the sound of the horn?

 

²²For My people is foolish,

They know Me not;

They are sottish children,

And they have no understanding;

They are wise to do evil,

But to do good they have no knowledge.

 

²³I beheld the earth,

And, lo, it was waste and void;

And the heavens, and they had no light.

²⁴I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled,

And all the hills moved to and fro.

²⁵I beheld, and, lo, there was no man,

And all the birds of the heavens were fled.

²⁶I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness,

And all the cities thereof were broken down

At the presence of the Lord,

And before His fierce anger.

 

²⁷For thus saith the Lord:

The whole land shall be desolate;

Yet will I not make a full end.

²⁸For this shall the earth mourn,

And the heavens above be black;

Because I have spoken it, I have purposed it,

And I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.

²⁹For the noise of the horsemen and bowmen

The whole city fleeth;

They go into the thickets,

And climb up upon the rocks;

Every city is forsaken,

And not a man dwelleth therein.

³⁰And thou, that art spoiled, what doest thou,

That thou clothest thyself with scarlet,

That thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold,

That thou enlargest thine eyes with paint?

In vain dost thou make thyself fair;

Thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life.

³¹For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail,

The anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child,

The voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath,

That spreadeth her hands:

'Woe is me, now! for my soul fainteth

Before the murderers.'

 

5Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,

And see now, and know,

And seek in the broad places thereof,

If ye can find a man,

If there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth;

And I will pardon her.

²And though they say: 'As the Lord liveth',

Surely they swear falsely.

³O Lord, are not Thine eyes upon truth?

Thou hast stricken them, but they were not affected;

Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction;

They have made their faces harder than a rock;

They have refused to return.

⁴And I said: 'Surely these are poor,

They are foolish, for they know not the way of the Lord,

Nor the ordinance of their God; ⁵I will get me unto the great men,

And will speak unto them;

For they know the way of the Lord,

And the ordinance of their God.'

But these had altogether broken the yoke,

And burst the bands.

⁶Wherefore a lion out of the forest doth slay them,

A wolf of the deserts doth spoil them,

A leopard watcheth over their cities,

Every one that goeth out thence is torn in pieces;

Because their transgressions are many,

Their backslidings are increased.

 

⁷Wherefore should I pardon thee?

The children have forsaken Me,

And sworn by no-gods;

And when I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery,

And assembled themselves in troops at the harlots' houses.

⁸They are become as well-fed horses, lusty stallions;

Every one neigheth after his neighbour's wife.

⁹Shall I not punish for these things?

Saith the Lord;

And shall not My soul be avenged

On such a nation as this?

 

¹⁰Go ye up into her rows, and destroy,

But make not a full end;

Take away her shoots;

For they are not the Lord's.

¹¹For the house of Israel and the house of Judah

Have dealt very treacherously against Me,

Saith the Lord.

¹²They have belied the Lord,

And said: 'It is not He,

Neither shall evil come upon us;

Neither shall we see sword nor famine;

¹³And the prophets shall become wind,

And the word is not in them;

Thus be it done unto them.'

¹⁴Wherefore thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts:

Because ye speak this word,

Behold, I will make My words in thy mouth fire,

And this people wood, and it shall devour them.

¹⁵Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far,

O house of Israel, saith the Lord;

It is an enduring nation,

It is an ancient nation,

A nation whose language thou knowest not,

Neither understandest what they say.

¹⁶Their quiver is an open sepulchre,

They are all mighty men.

¹⁷And they shall eat up thy harvest, and thy bread,

They shall eat up thy sons and thy daughters,

They shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds,

They shall eat up thy vines and thy fig-trees;

They shall batter thy fortified cities,

Wherein thou trusteth, with the sword.

¹⁸But even in those days, saith the Lord,

I will not make a full end with you.

¹⁹And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say: 'Wherefore hath the Lord our God done all these things unto us?' then shalt Thou say unto them: 'Like as ye have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.'

²⁰Declare ye this in the house of Jacob,

And announce it in Judah, saying:

²¹Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding,

That have eyes, and see not,

That have ears, and hear not:

²²Fear ye not Me? saith the Lord;

Will ye not tremble at My presence?

Who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea,

An everlasting ordinance, which it cannot pass;

And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail;

Though they roar, yet can they not pass over it.

²³But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart;

They are revolted, and gone.

²⁴Neither say they in their heart:

'Let us now fear the Lord our God,

That giveth the former rain, and the latter in due season;

That keepeth for us

The appointed weeks of the harvest.'

²⁵Your iniquities have turned away these things,

And your sins have withholden good from you.

²⁶For among My people are found wicked men;

They pry, as fowlers lie in wait;

They set a trap, they catch men.

²⁷As a cage is full of birds,

So are their houses full of deceit;

Therefore they are become great, and waxen rich;

²⁸They are waxen fat, they are become sleek;

Yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness;

They plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless,

That they might make it to prosper;

And the right of the needy do they not judge.

²⁹Shall I not punish for these things?

Saith the Lord;

Shall not My soul be avenged

On such a nation as this?

 

³⁰An appalling and horrible thing

Is come to pass in the land:

³¹The prophets prophesy in the service of falsehood,

And the priests bear rule at their beck;

And My people love to have it so;

What then will ye do in the end thereof?

 

6Put yourselves under covert, ye children of Benjamin,

Away from the midst of Jerusalem,

And blow the horn in Tekoa,

And set up a signal on Beth-cherem;

For evil looketh forth from the north,

And a great destruction.

²The comely and delicate one,

The daughter of Zion, will I cut off.

³Shepherds with their flocks come unto her;

They pitch their tents against her round about;

They feed bare every one what is nigh at hand.

⁴'Prepare ye war against her;

Arise, and let us go up at noon! '

'Woe unto us! for the day declineth,

For the shadows of the evening are stretched out! '

⁵'Arise, and let us go up by night,

And let us destroy her palaces.'

 

⁶For thus hath the Lord of hosts said:

Hew ye down her trees,

And cast up a mound against Jerusalem;

This is the city to be punished;

Everywhere there is oppression in the midst of her.

⁷As a cistern welleth with her waters,

So she welleth with her wickedness;

Violence and spoil is heard in her;

Before Me continually is sickness and wounds.

⁸Be thou corrected, O Jerusalem,

Lest My soul be alienated from thee,

Lest I make thee desolate,

A land not inhabited.

 

⁹Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

They shall thoroughly glean as a vine

The remnant of Israel;

Turn again thy hand

As a grape-gatherer upon the shoots.

¹⁰To whom shall I speak and give warning,

That they may hear?

Behold, their ear is dull,

And they cannot attend;

Behold, the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach,

They have no delight in it.

¹¹Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord,

I am weary with holding in:

Pour it out upon the babes in the street,

And upon the assembly of young men together;

For even the husband with the wife shall be taken,

The aged with him that is full of days.

¹²And their houses shall be turned unto others,

Their fields and their wives together;

For I will stretch out My hand upon the inhabitants of the land,

Saith the Lord.

¹³For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them

Every one is greedy for gain;

And from the prophet even unto the priest

Every one dealeth falsely.

¹⁴They have healed also the hurt of My people lightly,

Saying: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace.

¹⁵They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination;

Yea, they are not at all ashamed,

Neither know they how to blush;

Therefore they shall fall among them that fall,

At the time that I punish them they shall stumble,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹⁶Thus saith the Lord:

Stand ye in the ways and see,

And ask for the old paths,

Where is the good way, and walk therein,

And ye shall find rest for your souls.

But they said: 'We will not walk therein.'

¹⁷And I set watchmen over you:

'Attend to the sound of the horn',

But they said: 'We will not attend.'

¹⁸Therefore hear, ye nations,

And know, O congregation, what is against them.

¹⁹Hear, O earth:

Behold, I will bring evil upon this people,

Even the fruit of their thoughts,

Because they have not attended unto My words,

And as for My teaching, they have rejected it.

²⁰To what purpose is to Me the frankincense that cometh from Sheba,

And the sweet cane, from a far country?

Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable,

Nor your sacrifices pleasing unto Me.

²¹Therefore thus saith the Lord:

Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people,

And the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them,

The neighbour and his friend, and they shall perish.

 

²²Thus saith the Lord:

Behold, a people cometh from the north country,

And a great nation shall be roused from the uttermost parts of the earth.

²³They lay hold on bow and spear,

They are cruel, and have no compassion;

Their voice is like the roaring sea,

And they ride upon horses;

Set in array, as a man for war,

Against thee, O daughter of Zion.

 

²⁴'We have heard the fame thereof, our hands wax feeble,

Anguish hath taken hold of us,

And pain, as of a woman in travail.'

²⁵Go not forth into the field,

Nor walk by the way;

For there is the sword of the enemy,

And terror on every side.

²⁶O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth,

And wallow thyself in ashes;

Make thee mourning, as for an only son,

Most bitter lamentation;

For the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.

 

²⁷I have made thee a tower and a fortress among My people;

That thou mayest know and try their way.

²⁸They are all grievous revolters,

Going about with slanders;

They are brass and iron;

They all of them deal corruptly.

²⁹The bellows blow fiercely,

The lead is consumed of the fire;

In vain doth the founder refine,

For the wicked are not separated.

³⁰Refuse silver shall men call them,

Because the Lord hath rejected them.

7The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. ³Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. ⁴Trust ye not in lying words, saying: 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these.' ⁵Nay, but if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbour; ⁶if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt; ⁷then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. ⁸Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. ⁹Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, ¹⁰and come and stand before Me in this house, whereupon My name is called, and say: 'We are delivered', that ye may do all these abominations? ¹¹Is this house, whereupon My name is called, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, saith the Lord. ¹²For go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. ¹³And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spoke unto you, speaking betimes and often, but ye heard not, and I called you, but ye answered not; ¹⁴therefore will I do unto the house, whereupon My name is called, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. ¹⁵And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me; for I will not hear thee. ¹⁷Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke Me. ¹⁹Do they provoke Me? saith the Lord; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? ²⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, Mine anger and My fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the land; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh. ²²For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices; ²³but this thing I commanded them, saying: 'Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people; and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.' ²⁴But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in their own counsels, even in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward, ²⁵even since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day; and though I have sent unto you all My servants the prophets, sending them daily betimes and often, ²⁶yet they hearkened not unto Me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff; they did worse than their fathers.

²⁷And thou shalt speak all these words unto them, but they will not hearken to thee; thou shalt also call unto them, but they will not answer thee. ²⁸Therefore thou shalt say unto them:

This is the nation that hath not hearkened

To the voice of the Lord their God,

Nor received correction;

Faithfulness is perished,

And is cut off from their mouth.

 

²⁹Cut off thy hair, and cast it away,

And take up a lamentation on the high hills;

For the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.

³⁰For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight, saith the Lord; they have set their detestable things in the house whereon My name is called, to defile it. ³¹And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into My mind. ³²Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, for lack of room. ³³And the carcasses of this people shall be food for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away. ³⁴Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall be desolate. 8¹At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; ²and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped; they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. ³And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts.

⁴Moreover thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord:

Do men fall, and not rise up again?

Doth one turn away, and not return?

⁵Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back

By a perpetual backsliding?

They hold fast deceit,

They refuse to return.

⁶I attended and listened,

But they spoke not aright;

No man repenteth him of his wickedness,

Saying: 'What have I done?'

Every one turneth away in his course,

As a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle.

⁷Yea, the stork in the heaven

Knoweth her appointed times;

And the turtle and the swallow and the crane

Observe the time of their coming;

But My people know not

The ordinance of the Lord.

⁸How do ye say: 'We are wise,

And the Law of the Lord is with us'?

Lo, certainly in vain hath wrought

The vain pen of the scribes.

⁹The wise men are ashamed,

They are dismayed and taken;

Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord;

And what wisdom is in them?

 

¹⁰Therefore will I give their wives unto others,

And their fields to them that shall possess them;

For from the least even unto the greatest

Every one is greedy for gain,

From the prophet even unto the priest

Every one dealeth falsely.

¹¹And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people lightly,

Saying: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace.

¹²They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination;

Yea, they are not at all ashamed,

Neither know they how to blush;

Therefore shall they fall among them that fall,

In the time of their visitation they shall stumble,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹³I will utterly consume them, saith the Lord;

There are no grapes on the vine,

Nor figs on the fig-tree,

And the leaf is faded;

And I gave them that which they transgress.

¹⁴'Why do we sit still?

Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities,

And let us be cut off there;

For the Lord our God hath cut us off,

And given us water of gall to drink,

Because we have sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵We looked for peace, but no good came;

And for a time of healing, and behold terror! '

¹⁶The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan;

At the sound of the neighing of his strong ones

The whole land trembleth;

For they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it,

The city and those that dwell therein.

¹⁷For, behold, I will send serpents, basilisks, among you,

Which will not be charmed;

And they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

 

¹⁸Though I would take comfort against sorrow,

My heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people

From a land far off:

'Is not the Lord in Zion?

Is not her King in her?'—

'Why have they provoked Me with their graven images,

And with strange vanities?'—

²⁰'The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

And we are not saved.'

²¹For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I seized with anguish;

I am black, appalment hath taken hold on me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is not the health

Of the daughter of my people recovered?

²³Oh that my head were waters,

And mine eyes a fountain of tears,

That I might weep day and night

For the slain of the daughter of my people!

 

9Oh that I were in the wilderness,

In a lodging-place of wayfaring men,

That I might leave my people,

And go from them!

For they are all adulterers,

An assembly of treacherous men.

²And they bend their tongue, their bow of falsehood;

And they are grown mighty in the land, but not for truth;

For they proceed from evil to evil,

And Me they know not,

Saith the Lord.

³Take ye heed every one of his neighbour,

And trust ye not in any brother;

For every brother acteth subtly,

And every neighbour goeth about with slanders.

⁴And they deceive every one his neighbour,

And truth they speak not;

They have taught their tongue to speak lies,

They weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁵Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit;

Through deceit they refuse to know Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

⁶Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Behold, I will smelt them, and try them;

For how else should I do,

Because of the daughter of My people?

⁷Their tongue is a sharpened arrow,

It speaketh deceit;

One speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth,

But in his heart he layeth wait for him.

⁸Shall I not punish them for these things?

Saith the Lord;

Shall not My soul be avenged

On such a nation as this?

 

⁹For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing,

And for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation,

Because they are burned up, so that none passeth through,

And they hear not the voice of the cattle;

Both the fowl of the heavens and the beast

Are fled, and gone.

¹⁰And I will make Jerusalem heaps,

A lair of jackals; And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,

Without an inhabitant.

 

¹¹Who is the wise man, that he may understand this?

And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it?

Wherefore is the land perished

And laid waste like a wilderness, so that none passeth through?

¹² And the Lord saith:

Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them,

And have not hearkened to My voice, neither walked therein;

¹³ But have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart,

And after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them.

¹⁴Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood,

And give them water of gall to drink.

¹⁵I will scatter them also among the nations,

Whom neither they nor their fathers have known;

And I will send the sword after them,

Till I have consumed them.

 

¹⁶Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come;

And send for the wise women, that they may come;

¹⁷let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us,

That our eyes may run down with tears,

And our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁸For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion:

'How are we undone!

We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land,

Because our dwellings have cast us out.'

¹⁹Yea, hear the word of the Lord, O ye women,

And let your ear receive the word of His mouth,

And teach your daughters wailing,

And every one her neighbour lamentation:

²⁰'For death is come up into our windows,

It is entered into our palaces,

To cut off the children from the street,

And the young men from the broad places.—

²¹Speak: Thus saith the Lord—

And the carcasses of men fall

As dung upon the open field,

And as the handful after the harvestman,

Which none gathereth.'

 

²²Thus saith the Lord:

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,

Neither let the mighty man glory in his might,

Let not the rich man glory in his riches;

²³But let him that glorieth glory in this,

That he understandeth, and knoweth Me,

That I am the Lord who exercise mercy,

Justice, and righteousness, in the earth;

For in these things I delight,

Saith the Lord.

²⁴Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all them that are circumcised in their uncircumcision: ²⁵Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair polled, that dwell in the wilderness;

For all the nations are uncircumcised,

But all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

10Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel; ²thus saith the Lord:

Learn not the way of the nations,

And be not dismayed at the signs of heaven;

For the nations are dismayed at them.

³For the customs of the peoples are vanity;

For it is but a tree which one cutteth out of the forest,

The work of the hands of the workman with the axe.

⁴They deck it with silver and with gold,

They fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

⁵They are like a pillar in a garden of cucumbers, and speak not;

They must needs be borne, because they cannot go.

Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil,

Neither is it in them to do good.

 

⁶There is none like unto Thee, O Lord;

Thou art great, and Thy name is great in might.

⁷Who would not fear Thee, O king of the nations?

For it befitteth Thee;

Forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royalty,

There is none like unto Thee.

⁸But they are altogether brutish and foolish:

The vanities by which they are instructed are but a stock;

⁹Silver beaten into plates which is brought from Tarshish,

And gold from Uphaz,

The work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith;

Blue and purple is their clothing;

They are all the work of skilful men.

¹⁰But the Lord God is the true God,

He is the living God, and the everlasting King;

At His wrath the earth trembleth,

And the nations are not able to abide His indignation.

¹¹Thus shall ye say unto them: 'The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.'

¹²He that hath made the earth by His power,

That hath established the world by His wisdom,

And hath stretched out the heavens by His understanding;

¹³At the sound of His giving a multitude of waters in the heavens,

When He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth;

When He maketh lightnings with the rain,

And bringeth forth the wind out of His treasuries;

¹⁴Every man is proved to be brutish, without knowledge,

Every goldsmith is put to shame by the graven image,

His molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are vanity, a work of delusion;

In the time of their visitation they shall perish.

¹⁶Not like these is the portion of Jacob;

For He is the former of all things,

And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;

The Lord of hosts is His name.

 

¹⁷Gather up thy wares from the ground,

O thou that abidest in the siege.

¹⁸For thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.

¹⁹Woe is me for my hurt!

My wound is grievous;

But I said: 'This is but a sickness,

And I must bear it.'

²⁰My tent is spoiled,

And all my cords are broken;

My children are gone forth of me, and they are not;

There is none to stretch forth my tent any more,

And to set up my curtains.

²¹For the shepherds are become brutish,

And have not inquired of the Lord;

Therefore they have not prospered,

And all their flocks are scattered.

²²Hark! a report, behold, it cometh,

And a great commotion out of the north country,

To make the cities of Judah desolate,

A dwelling-place of jackals.

²³O Lord, I know that man's way is not his own;

It is not in man to direct his steps as he walketh.

²⁴O Lord, correct me, but in measure;

Not in Thine anger, lest Thou diminish me.

²⁵Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not,

And upon the families that call not on Thy name;

For they have devoured Jacob,

Yea, they have devoured him and consumed him,

And have laid waste his habitation.

11The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²'Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; ³and say thou unto them: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, ⁴which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying: Hearken to My voice, and do them, according to all which I command you; so shall ye be My people, and I will be your God; ⁵that I may establish the oath which I swore unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.' Then answered I, and said: 'Amen, O Lord.'

⁶And the Lord said unto me: 'Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. ⁷For I earnestly forewarned your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, forewarning betimes and often, saying: Hearken to My voice. ⁸Yet they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the stubbornness of their evil heart; therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not.'

⁹And the Lord said unto me: 'A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁰They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers. ¹¹Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto Me, I will not hearken unto them. ¹²Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer; but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. ¹³For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to offer unto Baal. ¹⁴Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto Me for their trouble.'

¹⁵What hath My beloved to do in My house,

Seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many,

And the hallowed flesh is passed from thee?

When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

¹⁶The Lord called thy name

A leafy olive-tree, fair with goodly fruit;

With the noise of a great tumult

He hath kindled fire upon it,

And the branches of it are broken.

¹⁷For the Lord of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have wrought for themselves in provoking Me by offering unto Baal.

¹⁸And the Lord gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it;

Then Thou showedst me their doings.

¹⁹But I was like a docile lamb that is led to the slaughter;

And I knew not that they had devised devices against me:

'Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof,

And let us cut him off from the land of the living,

That his name may be no more remembered.'

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously,

That triest the reins and the heart,

Let me see Thy vengeance on them;

For unto Thee have I revealed my cause.

²¹Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying: 'Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand'; ²²therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Behold, I will punish them;

The young men shall die by the sword,

Their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

²³And there shall be no remnant unto them;

For I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth,

Even the year of their visitation.

 

12Right wouldest Thou be, O Lord,

Were I to contend with Thee,

Yet will I reason with Thee:

Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?

Wherefore are all they secure that deal very treacherously?

²Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root;

They grow, yea, they bring forth fruit;

Thou art near in their mouth,

And far from their reins.

³But Thou, O Lord, knowest me,

Thou seest me, and triest my heart toward Thee;

Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,

And prepare them for the day of slaughter.

 

⁴How long shall the land mourn,

And the herbs of the whole field wither?

For the wickedness of them that dwell therein, the beasts are consumed, and the birds;

Because they said: 'He seeth not our end.'

 

⁵'If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee,

Then how canst thou contend with horses?

And though in a land of peace thou art secure,

Yet how wilt thou do in the thickets of the Jordan?

⁶For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father,

Even they have dealt treacherously with thee,

Even they have cried aloud after thee;

Believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.'

 

⁷I have forsaken My house,

I have cast off My heritage;

I have given the dearly beloved of My soul

Into the hand of her enemies.

⁸My heritage is become unto Me

As a lion in the forest;

She hath uttered her voice against Me;

Therefore have I hated her.

⁹Is My heritage unto Me as a speckled bird of prey?

Are the birds of prey against her round about?

Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field,

Bring them to devour.

¹⁰Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard,

They have trodden My portion under foot,

They have made My pleasant portion

A desolate wilderness.

¹¹They have made it a desolation,

It mourneth unto Me, being desolate;

The whole land is made desolate,

Because no man layeth it to heart.

¹²Upon all the high hills in the wilderness spoilers are come;

For the sword of the Lord devoureth

From the one end of the land even to the other end of the land,

No flesh hath peace.

¹³They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns;

They have put themselves to pain, they profit not;

Be ye then ashamed of your increase,

Because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

¹⁴Thus saith the Lord: As for all Mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit, behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. ¹⁵And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them; and I will bring them back, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. ¹⁶And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people to swear by My name: 'As the Lord liveth, 'even as they taught My people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of My people. ¹⁷But if they will not hearken, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, saith the Lord.

13Thus said the Lord unto me: 'Go, and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.' ²So I got a girdle according to the word of the Lord, and put it upon my loins.

³And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying: ⁴'Take the girdle that thou hast gotten, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Perath, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.' ⁵So I went, and hid it in Perath, as the Lord commanded me. ⁶And it came to pass after many days, that the Lord said unto me: 'Arise, go to Perath, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.' ⁷Then I went to Perath, 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.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

⁹Thus saith the Lord: After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem, ¹⁰even this evil people, that refuse to hear My words, that walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, that it be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing. ¹¹For 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 hearken.

¹²Moreover thou shalt speak unto them this word: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: 'Every bottle is filled with wine'; and when they shall say unto thee: 'Do we not know that every bottle is filled with wine?' ¹³Then shalt thou say unto them: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. ¹⁴And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.

¹⁵Hear ye, and give ear, be not proud;

For the Lord hath spoken.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God,

Before it grow dark,

And before your feet stumble

Upon the mountains of twilight,

And, while ye look for light,

He turn it into the shadow of death,

And make it gross darkness.

¹⁷But if ye will not hear it,

My soul shall weep in secret for your pride;

And mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears,

Because the Lord's flock is carried away captive.

 

¹⁸Say thou unto the king and to the queen-mother:

'Sit ye down low;

For your headtires are come down,

Even your beautiful crown.'

¹⁹The cities of the South are shut up,

And there is none to open them;

Judah is carried away captive all of it;

It is wholly carried away captive.

 

²⁰Lift up your eyes, and behold

Them that come from the north;

Where is the flock that was given thee,

Thy beautiful flock?

²¹What wilt thou say, when He shall set the friends over thee as head,

Whom thou thyself hast trained against thee?

Shall not pangs take hold of thee,

As of a woman in travail?

²²And if thou say in thy heart:

'Wherefore are these things befallen me?'—

For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts uncovered,

And thy heels suffer violence.

²³Can the Ethiopian change his skin,

Or the leopard his spots?

Then may ye also do good,

That are accustomed to do evil.

²⁴Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passeth away

By the wind of the wilderness.

²⁵This is thy lot, the portion measured unto thee from Me,

Saith the Lord;

Because thou hast forgotten Me,

And trusted in falsehood.

²⁶Therefore will I also uncover thy skirts upon thy face,

And thy shame shall appear.

²⁷Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy harlotry,

On the hills in the field have I seen thy detestable acts.

Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! thou wilt not be made clean!

When shall it ever be?

14The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.

²Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish,

They bow down in black unto the ground;

And the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

³And their nobles send their lads for water:

They come to the pits, and find no water;

Their vessels return empty;

They are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads.

⁴Because of the ground which is cracked,

For there hath been no rain in the land,

The plowmen are ashamed, they cover their heads.

⁵Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young,

Because there is no grass,

⁶And the wild asses stand on the high hills,

They gasp for air like jackals;

Their eyes fail, because there is no herbage.

⁷Though our iniquities testify against us,

O Lord, work Thou for Thy name's sake;

For our backslidings are many,

We have sinned against Thee.

⁸O Thou 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?

⁹Why shouldest thou be as a man overcome,

As a mighty man that cannot save?

Yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us,

And Thy name is called upon us;

Leave us not.

¹⁰Thus saith the Lord unto this people:

Even so have they loved to wander,

They have not refrained their feet;

Therefore the Lord doth not accept them,

Now will He remember their iniquity,

And punish their sins.

¹¹And the Lord said unto me: 'Pray not for this people for their good. ¹²When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offering and meal-offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.' ¹³Then said I: 'Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them: Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.' ¹⁴Then the Lord said unto me: 'The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I unto them; they prophesy unto you a lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their own heart. ¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord: As for the prophets that prophesy in My name, and I sent them not, yet they say: Sword and famine shall not be in this land, by sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed; ¹⁶and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters; for I will pour their evil upon them.'

¹⁷And thou shalt say this word unto them:

Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day,

And let them not cease;

For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach,

With a very grievous blow.

¹⁸If I go forth into the field,

Then behold the slain with the sword!

And if I enter into the city,

Then behold them that are sick with famine!

For both the prophet and the priest are gone about to a land, and knew it not.

 

¹⁹Hast Thou utterly rejected Judah?

Hath Thy soul loathed Zion?

Why hast Thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us?

We looked for peace, but no good came;

And for a time of healing, and behold terror!

²⁰We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness,

Even the iniquity of our fathers;

For we have sinned against Thee.

²¹Do not contemn us, for Thy name's sake,

Do not dishonour the throne of Thy glory;

Remember, break not Thy covenant with us.

²²Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain?

Or can the heavens give showers?

Art not Thou He, O Lord our God, and do we not wait for Thee?

For Thou hast made all these things.

15Then said the Lord unto me: 'Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. ²And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? then thou shall 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 captivity, to captivity. ³And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to drag, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. ⁴And I will cause them to be a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

⁵For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem?

Or who shall bemoan thee?

Or who shall turn aside to ask of thy welfare?

⁶Thou hast cast Me off, saith the Lord,

Thou art gone backward;

Therefore do I stretch out My hand against thee, and destroy thee;

I am weary with repenting.

⁷And I fan them with a fan in the gates of the land;

I bereave them of children, I destroy My people,

Since they return not from their ways.

⁸Their widows are increased to Me above the sand of the seas;

I bring upon them, against the mother, a chosen one,

Even a spoiler at noonday;

I cause anguish and terrors to fall upon her suddenly.

⁹She that hath borne seven languisheth;

Her spirit droopeth;

Her sun is gone down while it was yet day,

She is ashamed and confounded;

And the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies,

Saith the Lord.'

 

¹⁰Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me

A man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!

I have not lent, neither have men lent to me;

Yet every one of them doth curse me.

¹¹The Lord said: 'Verily I will release thee for good; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. ¹²Can iron break iron from the north and brass? ¹³Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. ¹⁴And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not; for a fire is kindled in My nostril, which shall burn upon you.'

¹⁵Thou, O Lord, knowest;

Remember me, and think of me, and avenge me of my persecutors;

Take me not away because of Thy long-suffering;

Know that for Thy sake I have suffered taunts.

¹⁶Thy words were found, and I did eat them;

And Thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart;

Because Thy name was called on me, O Lord God of hosts.

¹⁷I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced;

I sat alone because of Thy hand;

For Thou hast filled me with indignation.

¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual,

And my wound incurable, so that it refuseth to be healed?

Wilt Thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook,

As waters that fail?

 

¹⁹Therefore thus saith the Lord:

If thou return, and I bring thee back,

Thou shalt stand before Me;

And if thou bring forth the precious out of the vile,

Thou shalt be as My mouth;

Let them return unto thee,

But thou shalt not return unto them.

²⁰And I will make thee unto this people a fortified brazen wall;

And they shall fight against thee,

But they shall not prevail against thee;

For I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee,

Saith the Lord.

²¹And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked,

And I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

16The word of the Lord came also unto me, saying:

²Thou shalt not take thee a wife,

Neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

³For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them, and concerning their fathers that begot them in this land:

⁴They shall die of grievous deaths;

They shall not be lamented,

Neither shall they be buried,

They shall be as dung upon the face of the ground;

And they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine;

And their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven,

And for the beasts of the earth.

⁵For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away My peace from this people, saith the Lord, even mercy and compassion. ⁶Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried; neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; ⁷neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. ⁸And thou shalt not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink. ⁹For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place,

Before your eyes and in your days,

The voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,

The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. ¹⁰And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee: 'Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?' ¹¹then shalt thou say unto them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken Me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law; ¹²and ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that ye hearken not unto Me; ¹³therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye have not known, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; forasmuch as I will show you no favour.'

¹⁴Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said: 'As the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, '¹⁵but: 'As the Lord 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 back into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

¹⁶Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

¹⁷For Mine eyes are upon all their ways,

They are not hid from My face;

Neither is their iniquity concealed from Mine eyes.

¹⁸And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double;

Because they have profaned My land;

They have filled Mine inheritance

With the carcasses of their detestable things and their abominations.

 

¹⁹O Lord, my strength, and my stronghold,

And my refuge, in the day of affliction,

Unto Thee shall the nations come

From the ends of the earth, and shall say:

'Our fathers have inherited nought but lies,

Vanity and things wherein there is no profit.'

²⁰Shall a man make unto himself gods,

And they are no gods?

 

²¹Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know,

This once will I cause them to know

My hand and My might;

And they shall know that My name is the Lord.

 

17The sin of Judah is written

With a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond;

It is graven upon the tablet of their heart,

And upon the horns of your altars.

²Like the symbols of their sons are their altars,

And their Asherim are by the leafy trees,

Upon the high hills.

³O thou that sittest upon the mountain in the field,

I will give thy substance and all thy treasures for a spoil,

And thy high places, because of sin, throughout all thy borders.

⁴And thou, even of thyself, shalt discontinue from thy heritage

That I gave thee;

And I will cause thee to serve thine enemies

In the land which thou knowest not;

For ye have kindled a fire in My nostril,

Which shall burn for ever.

 

⁵Thus saith the Lord:

Cursed is the man that trusteth in man,

And maketh flesh his arm,

And whose heart departeth from the Lord.

⁶For he shall be like a tamarisk in the desert,

And shall not see when good cometh;

But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,

A salt land and not inhabited.

⁷Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,

And whose trust the Lord is.

⁸For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,

And that spreadeth out its roots by the river,

And shall not see when heat cometh,

But its foliage shall be luxuriant;

And shall not be anxious in the year of drought,

Neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

 

⁹The heart is deceitful above all things,

And it is exceeding weak—who can know it?

¹⁰I the Lord search the heart,

I try the reins,

Even to give every man according to his ways,

According to the fruit of his doings.

 

¹¹As the partridge that broodeth over young which she hath not brought forth,

So is he that getteth riches, and not by right;

In the midst of his days he shall leave them,

And at his end he shall be a fool.

 

¹²Thou throne of glory, on high from the beginning,

Thou place of our sanctuary,

¹³Thou hope of Israel, the Lord!

All that forsake Thee shall be ashamed;

They that depart from Thee shall be written in the earth,

Because they have forsaken the Lord,

The fountain of living waters.

 

¹⁴Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;

Save me, and I shall be saved;

For Thou art my praise.

¹⁵Behold, they say unto me:

'Where is the word of the Lord? let it come now.'

¹⁶As for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd after Thee;

Neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest it;

That which came out of my lips was manifest before Thee.

¹⁷Be not a ruin unto me;

Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.

¹⁸Let them be ashamed that persecute me, but let not me be ashamed;

Let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed;

Bring upon them the day of evil,

And destroy them with double destruction.

¹⁹Thus said the Lord unto me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; ²⁰and say unto them:

Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates; ²¹thus saith the Lord: Take heed for the sake of your souls, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; ²²neither 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; ²³but they hearkened not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction. ²⁴And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto Me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein; ²⁵then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall be inhabited for ever. ²⁶And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the Lowland, and from the mountains, and from the South, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meal-offerings, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, unto the house of the Lord. ²⁷But if ye will not hearken unto Me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

18The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²'Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words.' ³Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he was at his work on the wheels. ⁴And whensoever the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁶'O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel. ⁷At one instant I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; ⁸but if that nation turn from their evil, because of which I have spoken against it, I repent of the evil that I thought to do unto it. ⁹And at one instant I may speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; ¹⁰but if it do evil in My sight, that it hearken not to My voice, then I repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit it. ¹¹Now therefore do thou speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you; return ye now every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. ¹²But they say: There is no hope; but we will walk after our own devices, and we will do every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart.'

¹³Therefore thus saith the Lord:

Ask ye now among the nations,

Who hath heard such things;

The virgin of Israel hath done

A very horrible thing.

¹⁴Doth the snow of Lebanon fail

From the rock of the field?

Or are the strange cold flowing waters

Plucked up?

¹⁵For My people hath forgotten Me,

They offer unto vanity;

And they have been made to stumble in their ways,

In the ancient paths,

To walk in bypaths,

In a way not cast up;

¹⁶To make their land an astonishment,

And a perpetual hissing;

Every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished,

And shake his head.

¹⁷I will scatter them as with an east wind

Before the enemy;

I will look upon their back, and not their face,

In the day of their calamity.

 

¹⁸Then said they:

'Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah;

For instruction 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.'

¹⁹Give heed to me, O Lord,

And hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.

²⁰Shall evil be recompensed for good?

For they have digged a pit for my soul.

Remember how I stood before Thee

To speak good for them,

To turn away Thy wrath from them.

²¹Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,

And hurl them to the power of the sword;

And let their wives be bereaved of their children, and widows;

And let their men be slain of death,

And their young men smitten of the sword in battle.

²²Let 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.

²³Yet, Lord, Thou knowest

All their counsel against me to slay me;

Forgive not their iniquity,

Neither blot out their sin from Thy sight;

But let them be made to stumble before Thee;

Deal Thou with them in the time of Thine anger.

19Thus said the Lord: Go, and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests; ²and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee; ³and say: Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle; ⁴because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have offered in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah; and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; ⁵and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal; which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into My mind. ⁶Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter; ⁷and 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 carcasses will I give to be food for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; ⁸and I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof; ⁹and I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their life, shall straiten them. ¹⁰Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, ¹¹and 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 in Topheth, for want of room to bury. ¹²Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, even making this city as Topheth; ¹³and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses upon whose roofs they have offered unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods.

¹⁴Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, 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: ¹⁵'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have made their neck stiff, that they might not hear My words.'

20Now Pashhur the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord. ³And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashhur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him: 'The Lord hath not called thy name Pashhur, but ^[3]Magormissabib. ⁴For thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it; and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword. ⁵Moreover I will give all the store of this city, and all the gains thereof, and all the wealth thereof, yea, all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, who shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. ⁶And thou, Pashhur, and all that dwell in thy house shall go into captivity; and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there shalt thou be buried, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied falsely.'

⁷O Lord, Thou hast enticed me, and I was enticed,

Thou hast overcome me, and hast prevailed;

I am become a laughing-stock all the day,

Every one mocketh me.

⁸For as often as I speak, I cry out,

I cry: 'Violence and spoil';

Because the word of the Lord is made

A reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day.

⁹And if I say: 'I will not make mention of Him,

Nor speak any more in His name',

Then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire

Shut up in my bones,

And I weary myself to hold it in,

But cannot.

¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many,

Terror on every side:

'Denounce, and we will denounce him';

Even of all my familiar friends,

Them that watch for my halting:

'Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him,

And we shall take our revenge on him.'

¹¹But the Lord is with me as a mighty warrior;

Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail;

They shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not prospered,

Even with an everlasting confusion which shall never be forgotten.

¹²But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous,

That seest the reins and the heart,

Let me see Thy vengeance on them;

For unto Thee have I revealed my cause.

 

¹³Sing unto the Lord,

Praise ye the Lord;

For He hath delivered the soul of the needy

From the hand of evil-doers.

 

¹⁴Cursed be the day

Wherein I was born;

The day wherein my mother bore me,

Let it not be blessed.

¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought tidings

To my father, saying:

'A man-child is born unto thee';

Making him very glad.

¹⁶And let that man be as the cities

Which the Lord overthrew, and repented not;

And let him hear a cry in the morning,

And an alarm at noontide;

¹⁷Because He slew me not from the womb;

And so my mother would have been my grave,

And her womb always great.

¹⁸Wherefore came I forth out of the womb

To see labour and sorrow,

That my days should be consumed in shame?

21The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying: ²'Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; peradventure the Lord will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from us.'

³Then said Jeremiah unto them: Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: ⁴Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel:

Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, that besiege you without the walls, and I will gather them into the midst of this city. ⁵And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. ⁶And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence. ⁷And 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 compassion.

⁸And unto this people thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. ⁹He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out, and falleth away to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. ¹⁰For I have set My face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the Lord; it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

¹¹And unto the house of the king of Judah: Hear ye the word of the Lord; ¹²O house of David, thus saith the Lord:

Execute justice in the morning,

And deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor,

Lest My fury go forth like fire,

And burn that none can quench it,

Because of the evil of your doings.

 

¹³Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley,

And rock of the plain, saith the Lord;

Ye that say: 'Who shall come down against us?

Or who shall enter into our habitations?'

¹⁴And I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,

Saith the Lord;

And I will kindle a fire in her forest,

And it shall devour all that is round about her.

22Thus said the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, ²and say: Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates. ³Thus saith the Lord:

Execute ye justice and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; and do no wrong, do no violence, to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. ⁵But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by Myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. ⁶For thus saith the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:

Thou art Gilead unto Me,

The head of Lebanon;

Yet surely I will make thee a wilderness,

Cities which are not inhabited.

⁷And I will prepare destroyers against thee,

Every one with his weapons;

And they shall cut down thy choice cedars,

And cast them into the fire.

⁸And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour: 'Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city?' ⁹Then they shall answer: 'Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.'

¹⁰Weep ye not for the dead,

Neither bemoan him;

But weep sore for him that goeth away,

For he shall return no more,

Nor see his native country.

¹¹For thus saith the Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went forth out of this place: He shall not return thither any more; ¹²but in the place whither they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more.

¹³Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness,

And his chambers by injustice;

That useth his neighbour's service without wages,

And giveth him not his hire;

¹⁴That saith: 'I will build me a wide house

And spacious chambers',

And cutteth him out windows,

And it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.

¹⁵Shalt thou reign, because thou strivest to excel in cedar?

Did not thy father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness?

Then it was well with him.

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

Then it was well.

Is not this to know Me? saith the Lord.

¹⁷But thine eyes and thy heart

Are not but for thy covetousness,

And for shedding innocent blood,

And for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

¹⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

They shall not lament for him:

'Ah my brother! ' or: 'Ah sister! '

They shall not lament for him:

'Ah lord! ' or: 'Ah his glory! '

¹⁹He shall be buried with the burial of an ass,

Drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

 

²⁰Go up to Lebanon, and cry,

And lift up thy voice in Bashan;

And cry from Abarim,

For all thy lovers are destroyed.

²¹I spoke unto thee in thy prosperity,

But thou saidst: 'I will not hear.'

This hath been thy manner from thy youth,

That thou hearkenedst not to My voice.

²²The wind shall feed upon all thy shepherds,

And thy lovers shall go into captivity;

Surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded

For all thy wickedness.

²³O inhabitant of Lebanon,

That art nestled in the cedars,

How gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee,

The pain as of a woman in travail!

²⁴As 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; ²⁵and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them of whom thou art afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. ²⁶And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bore thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. ²⁷But to the land whereunto they long to return, thither shall they not return.

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised, broken image?

Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure?

Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed,

And are cast into the land which they know not?

²⁹O land, land, land,

Hear the word of the Lord.

³⁰Thus saith the Lord:

Write ye this man childless,

A man that shall not prosper in his days;

For no man of his seed shall prosper,

Sitting upon the throne of David,

And ruling any more in Judah.

 

23Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter

The sheep of My pasture! saith the Lord.

²Therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds that feed My people: Ye have scattered My flock, and driven them away, and have not taken care of them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. ³And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴And I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the Lord.

⁵Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will raise unto David a righteous shoot,

And he shall reign as king and prosper,

And shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

⁶In his days Judah shall be saved,

And Israel shall dwell safely;

And this is his name whereby he shall be called,

The Lord is our righteousness.

⁷Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say: 'As the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt'; ⁸but: 'As the Lord liveth, that brought up and that led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them'; and they shall dwell in their own land.

⁹Concerning the prophets.

My heart within me is broken,

All my bones shake;

I am like a drunken man,

And like a man whom wine hath overcome;

Because of the Lord,

And because of His holy words.

¹⁰For the land is full of adulterers;

For because of swearing the land mourneth,

The pastures of the wilderness are dried up;

And their course is evil,

And their force is not right.

¹¹For both prophet and priest are ungodly;

Yea, in My house have I found their wickedness,

Saith the Lord.

¹²Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness,

They shall be thrust, and fall therein;

For I will bring evil upon them,

Even the year of their visitation,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹³And I have seen unseemliness in the prophets of Samaria:

They prophesied by Baal,

And caused My people Israel to err.

¹⁴But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing:

They commit adultery, and walk in lies,

And they strengthen the hands of evil-doers,

That none doth return from his wickedness;

They are all of them become unto Me as Sodom,

And the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

¹⁵Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:

Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,

And make them drink the water of gall;

For from the prophets of Jerusalem

Is ungodliness gone forth into all the land.

 

¹⁶Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you,

They lead you unto vanity;

They speak a vision of their own heart,

And not out of the mouth of the Lord.

¹⁷They say continually unto them that despise Me:

'The Lord hath said: Ye shall have peace';

And unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say:

'No evil shall come upon you';

¹⁸For who hath stood in the council of the Lord,

That he should perceive and hear His word?

Who hath attended to His word, and heard it?

 

¹⁹Behold, a storm of the Lord is gone forth in fury,

Yea, a whirling storm;

It shall whirl upon the head of the wicked.

²⁰The anger of the Lord shall not return,

Until He have executed, and till He have performed the purposes of His heart;

In the end of days ye shall consider it perfectly.

²¹I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran;

I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

²²But if they have stood in My council,

Then let them cause My people to hear My words,

And turn them from their evil way,

And from the evil of their doings.

 

²³Am I a God near at hand, saith the Lord,

And not a God afar off?

²⁴Can 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.

²⁵I have heard what the prophets have said,

That prophesy lies in My name, saying:

'I have dreamed, I have dreamed.'

²⁶How long shall this be?

Is it in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies,

And the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?

²⁷That think to cause My people to forget My name

By their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour,

As their fathers forgot My name for Baal.

²⁸The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream;

And he that hath My word; let him speak My word faithfully.

What hath the straw to do with the wheat?

Saith the Lord.

²⁹Is not My word like as fire?

Saith the Lord;

And like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

³⁰Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal My words every one from his neighbour. ³¹Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use there tongues and say: 'He saith.' ³²Behold, I am against them that prophesy lying dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies, and by their wantonness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; neither can they profit this people at all, saith the Lord.

³³And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying: 'What is the burden of the Lord?' then shalt thou say unto them: 'What burden! I will cast you off, saith the Lord.' ³⁴And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say: 'The burden of the Lord', I will even punish that man and his house. ³⁵Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother: 'What hath the Lord answered?' and: 'What hath the Lord spoken?' ³⁶And the burden of the Lord shall ye mention no more; for every man's own word shall be his burden; and would ye pervert the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God? ³⁷Thus shalt thou say to the prophet: 'What hath the Lord answered thee?' and: 'What hath the Lord spoken?' ³⁸But if ye say: 'The burden of the Lord'; therefore thus saith the Lord: Because ye say this word: 'The burden of the Lord', and I have sent unto you, saying: 'Ye shall not say: The burden of the Lord'; ³⁹therefore, behold, I will utterly tear you out, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave unto you and to your fathers, away from My presence; ⁴⁰and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten

24The Lord showed me, and behold two baskets of figs 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 craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. ²One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. ³Then said the Lord unto me: 'What seest thou, Jeremiah?' And I said: 'Figs; the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad.' ⁴And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: ⁵'Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good. ⁶And I will set Mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. ⁷And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart. ⁸And as the bad figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad; surely thus saith the Lord: So will I make Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt; ⁹I will even make them a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. ¹⁰And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.'

25The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; ²which Jeremiah the prophet spoke unto all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:

³From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even unto this day, these three and twenty years, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, speaking betimes and often; but ye have not hearkened. ⁴And the Lord hath sent unto you all His servants the prophets, sending them betimes and often—but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear—⁵saying: ²⁴

'Return ye now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers, for ever and ever; ⁶and go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke Me not with the work of your hands, and I will do you no hurt.' ⁷Yet ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke Me with the work of your hands to your own hurt. ⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Because ye have not heard My words, ⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and I will send unto Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. ¹⁰Moreover I will cause to cease from among them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. ¹¹And this whole land shall be a desolation, and a waste; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹²And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it perpetual desolations. ¹³And I will bring upon that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴For many nations and great kings shall make bondmen of them also; and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their own hands.

¹⁵For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto me: Take this cup of the wine of fury at My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. ¹⁶And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be like madmen, because of the sword that I will send among them.—¹⁷Then took I the cup of the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me: ¹⁸Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them an appalment, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse; as it is this day; ¹⁹Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; ²⁰and all the mingled people; and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon; ²²and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that have the corners of their hair polled; ²⁴and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; ²⁶and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth.—And the king of ^[4]Sheshach shall drink after them. ²⁷And thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. ²⁸And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Ye shall surely drink. ²⁹For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city whereupon My name is called, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts.

³⁰Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them:

The Lord doth roar from on high,

And utter His voice from His holy habitation;

He doth mightily roar because of His fold;

He giveth a shout, as they that tread the grapes,

Against all the inhabitants of the earth.

³¹A noise is come even to the end of the earth;

For the Lord hath a controversy with the nations,

He doth plead with all flesh;

As for the wicked, He hath given them to the sword,

Saith the Lord.

 

³²Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Behold, evil shall go forth

From nation to nation,

And a great storm shall be raised up

From the uttermost parts of the earth.

³³And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the face of the ground.

³⁴Wail, ye shepherds, and cry;

And wallow yourselves in the dust, ye leaders of the flock;

For the days of your slaughter are fully come,

And I will break you in pieces,

And ye shall fall like a precious vessel.

³⁵And the shepherds shall have no way to flee,

Nor the leaders of the flock to escape.

³⁶Hark! the cry of the shepherds,

And the wailing of the leaders of the flock!

For the Lord despoileth their pasture.

³⁷And the peaceable folds are brought to silence

Because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

³⁸He hath forsaken His covert, as the lion;

For their land is become a waste

Because of the fierceness of the oppressing sword,

And because of His fierce anger.

26In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from the Lord, saying: ²'Thus saith the Lord: Stand in the court of the Lord's house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord's house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word. ³It may be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way; that I may repent Me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. ⁴And thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not hearken to Me, to walk in My law, which I have set before you, ⁵to hearken to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even sending them betimes and often, but ye have not hearkened; ⁶then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.'

⁷So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. ⁸Now 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 laid hold on him, saying: 'Thou shalt surely die. ⁹Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying: This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant?' And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

¹⁰When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house unto the house of the Lord; and they sat in the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house. ¹¹Then spoke the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying: 'This man is worthy of death; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears.' ¹²Then spoke Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying: 'The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. ¹³Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and hearken to the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He hath pronounced against you. ¹⁴But as for me, behold, I am in your hand; do with me as is good and right in your eyes. ¹⁵Only know ye for certain that, if ye put me to death, ye will bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof; for of a truth the Lord hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears.'

¹⁶Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets: 'This man is not worthy of death; for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.' ¹⁷Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying: ¹⁸'Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Zion shall be plowed as a field,

And Jerusalem shall become heaps,

And the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

¹⁹Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the Lord, and entreat the favour of the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which He had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our own souls.'

²⁰And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim; and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah; ²¹and when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Uriah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; ²²and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him, into Egypt; ²³and they fetched forth Uriah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the children of the people. ²⁴Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.

27In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²'Thus saith the Lord to me: Make thee bands and bars, and put them upon thy neck; ³and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers that come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; ⁴and give them a charge unto their masters, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say unto your masters: ⁵I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the face of the earth, by My great power and by My outstretched arm; and I give it unto whom it seemeth right unto Me. ⁶And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. ⁷And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land come; and then many nations and great kings shall make him their bondman. ⁸And it shall come to pass, that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I visit, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. ⁹But as for you, hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, that speak unto you, saying: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon; ¹⁰for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. ¹¹But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, that nation will I let remain in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.'

¹²And I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying: 'Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. ¹³Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴And hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy a lie unto you. ¹⁵For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, and they prophesy falsely in My name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.'

¹⁶Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying: 'Thus saith the Lord: Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying: Behold, the vessels of the Lord's house shall now shortly be brought back from Babylon; for they prophesy a lie unto you. ¹⁷Hearken not unto them; serve the king of Babylon, and live; wherefore should this city become desolate? ¹⁸But if they be prophets, and if the word of the Lord be with them, let them now make intercession to the Lord of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon. ¹⁹For thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city, ²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem; ²¹yea, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem: ²²They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until the day that I remember them, saith the Lord, and bring them up, and restore them to this place.'

28And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur the prophet, who was of Gibeon, spoke unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying: ²'Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. ³Within two full years will I bring back into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon; ⁴and I will bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went to Babylon, saith the Lord; for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.' ⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the Lord, ⁶even the prophet Jeremiah said: 'Amen! the Lord do so! the Lord perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring back the vessels of the Lord's house, and all them that are carried away captive, from Babylon unto this place! ⁷Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people: ⁸The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. ⁹The prophet that prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.'

¹⁰Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and broke it. ¹¹And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying: 'Thus saith the Lord: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from off the neck of all the nations within two full years.' And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. ¹²Then the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying: ¹³'Go, and tell Hananiah, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou shalt make in their stead bars of iron. ¹⁴For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him; and I have given him the beasts of the field also.' ¹⁵Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet: 'Hear now, Hananiah; the Lord hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. ¹⁶'Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will send thee away from off the face of the earth; this year thou shalt die, because thou hast spoken perversion against the Lord.' ¹⁷So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

29Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, ²after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen-mother, and the officers, and the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem; ³by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying:

⁴Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem unto Babylon:

⁵Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; ⁶take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply ye there, and be not diminished. ⁷And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

⁸For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Let not your prophets that are in the midst of you, and your diviners, beguile you, neither hearken ye to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. ⁹For they prophesy falsely unto you in My name; I have not sent them, saith the Lord.

¹⁰For thus saith the Lord: After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will remember you, and perform My good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. ¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. ¹²And ye shall call upon Me, and go, and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you. ¹³And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴And I will be found of you, saith the Lord, and I will turn your captivity, and gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you back unto the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive. ¹⁵For ye have said: 'The Lord hath raised us up prophets in Babylon.' ¹⁶For thus saith the Lord concerning the king that sitteth upon the throne of David, and concerning all the people that dwell in this city, your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity; ¹⁷thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. ¹⁸And I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will make them a horror unto all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them; ¹⁹because they have not hearkened to My words, saith the Lord, wherewith I sent unto them My servants the prophets, sending them betimes and often; but ye would not hear, saith the Lord. ²⁰Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon: ²¹Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie unto you in My name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall slay them before your eyes; ²²and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah that are in Babylon, saying: 'The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire'; ²³because they have wrought vile deeds in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken words in My name falsely, which I commanded them not; but I am He that knoweth, and am witness, saith the Lord.

²⁴And concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite thou shalt speak, saying: ²⁵Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Because thou hast sent letters in thine own name unto all the people that are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying: ²⁶'The Lord hath made thee priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest, that there should be officers in the house of the Lord for every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks and in the collar. ²⁷Now therefore, why hast thou not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who maketh himself a prophet to you, ²⁸forasmuch as he hath sent unto us in Babylon, saying: The captivity is long; build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them?' ²⁹And Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet. ³⁰Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying: ³¹Send to all them of the captivity, saying: Thus saith the Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because that Shemaiah hath prophesied unto you, and I sent him not, and he hath caused you to trust in a lie; ³²therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his seed; he shall not have a man to dwell among this people, neither shall he behold the good that I will do unto My people, saith the Lord; because he hath spoken perversion against the Lord.

30The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²'Thus speaketh the Lord, the God of Israel, saying: Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. ³For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will turn the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.'

⁴And these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah. ⁵For thus saith the Lord:

We have heard a voice of trembling,

Of fear, and not of peace.

⁶Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child;

Wherefore do I see every man

With his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail,

And all faces are turned into paleness?

⁷Alas! for that day is great,

So that none is like it;

And it is a time of trouble unto Jacob,

But out of it shall he be saved.

⁸And it shall come to pass in that day,

Saith the Lord of hosts,

That I will break his yoke from off thy neck,

And will burst thy bands;

And strangers shall no more make him their bondman;

⁹But they shall serve the Lord their God,

And David their king,

Whom I will raise up unto them.

 

¹⁰Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob My servant, saith the Lord;

Neither be dismayed, O Israel;

For, lo, I will save thee from afar,

And thy seed from the land of their captivity;

And Jacob shall again be quiet and at ease,

And none shall make him afraid.

¹¹For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee;

For I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee,

But I will not make a full end of thee;

For I will correct thee in measure,

And will not utterly destroy thee.

 

¹²For thus saith the Lord:

Thy hurt is incurable,

And thy wound is grievous.

¹³None deemeth of thy wound that it may be bound up;

Thou hast no healing medicines.

¹⁴All thy lovers have forgotten thee,

They seek thee not;

For I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy,

With the chastisement of a cruel one;

For the greatness of thine iniquity,

Because thy sins were increased.

¹⁵Why criest thou for thy hurt,

That thy pain is incurable?

For the greatness of thine iniquity, because thy sins were increased,

I have done these things unto thee.

¹⁶Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured,

And all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity;

And they that spoil thee shall be a spoil,

And all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey.

¹⁷For I will restore health unto thee,

And I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord;

Because they have called thee an outcast:

'She is ^[5]Zion, there is none that careth for her.'

 

¹⁸Thus saith the Lord:

Behold, I will turn the captivity of Jacob's tents,

And have compassion on his dwelling-places;

And the city shall be builded upon her own mound,

And the palace shall be inhabited upon its wonted place.

¹⁹And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving

And the voice of them that make merry;

And I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished,

I will also increase them, and they shall not dwindle away.

²⁰Their children also shall be as aforetime,

And their congregation shall be established before Me,

And I will punish all that oppress them.

²¹And 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 pledged his heart

To approach unto Me? saith the Lord.

²²And ye shall be My people,

And I will be your God.

 

²³Behold, a storm of the Lord is gone forth in fury,

A sweeping storm;

It shall whirl upon the head of the wicked.

²⁴The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return,

Until He have executed, and till He have performed

The purposes of His heart;

In the end of days ye shall consider it.

31At that time, saith the Lord,

Will I be the God of all the families of Israel,

And they shall be My people.

 

²Thus saith the Lord:

The people that were left of the sword

Have found grace in the wilderness,

Even Israel, when I go to cause him to rest.

³'From afar the Lord appeared unto me.'

'Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love;

Therefore with affection have I drawn thee.

⁴Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built,

O virgin of Israel;

Again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets,

And shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.

⁵Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria;

The planters shall plant, and shall have the use thereof.

⁶For there shall be a day,

That the watchmen shall call upon the mount Ephraim:

Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion,

Unto the Lord our God.'

 

⁷For thus saith the Lord:

Sing with gladness for Jacob,

And shout at the head of the nations;

Announce ye, praise ye, and say:

'O Lord, save Thy people,

The remnant of Israel.'

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country,

And gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth,

And with them the blind and the lame,

The woman with child and her that travaileth with child together;

A great company shall they return hither.

⁹They shall come with weeping,

And with supplications will I lead them;

I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters,

In a straight way wherein they shall not stumble;

For I am become a father to Israel,

And Ephraim is My first-born.

 

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations,

And declare it in the isles afar off, and say:

'He that scattered Israel doth gather him,

And keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.'

¹¹For the Lord hath ransomed Jacob,

And He redeemeth him from the hand of him that is stronger than he.

¹²And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,

And shall flow unto the goodness of the Lord,

To the corn, and to the wine, and to the oil,

And to the young of the flock and of the herd;

And their soul shall be as a watered garden,

And they shall not pine any more at all.

¹³Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance,

And the young men and the old together;

For I will turn their mourning into joy,

And will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

¹⁴And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness,

And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹⁵Thus saith the Lord:

A voice is heard in Ramah,

Lamentation, and bitter weeping,

Rachel weeping for her children;

She refuseth to be comforted for her children,

Because they are not.

 

¹⁶Thus saith the Lord:

Refrain thy voice from weeping,

And thine eyes from tears;

For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord;

And they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷And there is hope for thy future, saith the Lord;

And thy children shall return to their own border.

¹⁸I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself:

'Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised,

As a calf untrained;

Turn thou me, and I shall be turned,

For Thou art the Lord my God.

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned, I repented,

And after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh;

I was ashamed, yea, even confounded,

Because I did bear the reproach of my youth.'

²⁰Is Ephraim a darling son unto Me?

Is he a child that is dandled?

For as often as I speak of him,

I do earnestly remember him still;

Therefore My heart yearneth for him,

I will surely have compassion upon him, saith the Lord.

 

²¹Set thee up waymarks,

Make thee guide-posts;

Set thy heart toward the highway,

Even the way by which thou wentest;

Return, O virgin of Israel,

Return to these thy cities.

²²How long wilt thou turn away coyly,

O thou backsliding daughter?

For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth:

A woman shall court a man.

 

²³Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Yet again shall they use this speech

In the land of Judah and in the cities thereof,

When I shall turn their captivity:

'The Lord bless thee, O habitation of righteousness,

O mountain of holiness.'

²⁴And Judah and all the cities thereof

Shall dwell therein together:

The husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.

²⁵For I have satiated the weary soul,

And every pining soul have I replenished.

 

²⁶Upon this I awaked, and beheld;

And my sleep was sweet unto me.

²⁷Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. ²⁸And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord.

²⁹In those days they shall say no more:

'The fathers have eaten sour grapes,

And the children's teeth are set on edge.'

³⁰But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; ³²not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; forasmuch as they broke My covenant, although I was a lord over them, saith the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; ³⁴and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the Lord'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

³⁵Thus saith the Lord,

Who giveth the sun for a light by day,

And the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night,

Who stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar,

The Lord of hosts is His name:

³⁶If these ordinances depart from before Me,

Saith the Lord,

Then the seed of Israel also shall cease

From being a nation before Me for ever.

 

³⁷Thus saith the Lord:

If heaven above can be measured,

And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,

Then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel

For all that they have done, saith the Lord.

³⁸Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hananel unto the gate of the corner. ³⁹And the measuring line shall yet go out straight forward unto the hill Gareb, and shall turn about unto Goah. ⁴⁰And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.

32The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. ²Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was besieging Jerusalem; and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah's house. ³For 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; ⁴and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes; ⁵and he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I remember him, saith the Lord; though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper?'

⁶And Jeremiah said: 'The word of the Lord came unto me, saying: ⁷Behold, Hanamel, the son of Shallum thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying: Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is thine to buy it.' ⁸So Hanamel mine uncle's son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of the Lord, and said unto me: 'Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself.' Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. ⁹And I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel mine uncle's son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰And I subscribed the deed, and sealed it, and called witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. ¹¹So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open; ¹²and I delivered the deed of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel mine uncle['s son], and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the guard. ¹³And I charged Baruch before them, saying: ¹⁴'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase, both that which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel; that they may continue many days. ¹⁵For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land.'

¹⁶Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed unto the Lord, saying: ¹⁷'Ah Lord God! behold, Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and by Thy outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for Thee; ¹⁸who showest mercy unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them; the great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is His name; ¹⁹great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings; ²⁰who didst set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even unto this day, and in Israel and among other men; and madest Thee a name, as at this day; ²¹and didst bring forth Thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terror; ²²and gavest them this land, which Thou didst swear to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey; ²³and they came in, and possessed it; but they hearkened not to Thy voice, neither walked in Thy law; they have done nothing of all that Thou commandedst them to do; therefore Thou hast caused all this evil to befall them; ²⁴behold the mounds, they are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans that fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what Thou hast spoken is come to pass; and, behold, Thou seest it. ²⁵Yet Thou hast said unto me, O Lord God: Buy thee the field for money, and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.'

²⁶Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying: ²⁷'Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there any thing too hard for Me? ²⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it; ²⁹and the Chaldeans, that fight against this city, shall come and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses, upon whose roofs they have offered unto Baal, and poured out drink-offerings unto other gods, to provoke Me. ³⁰For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done that which was evil in My sight from their youth; for the children of Israel have only provoked Me with the work of their hands, saith the Lord. ³¹For this city hath been to Me a provocation of Mine anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even unto this day, that I should remove it from before My face; ³²because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ³³And they have turned unto Me the back, and not the face; and though I taught them, teaching them betimes and often, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction. ³⁴But they set their abominations in the house whereupon My name is called, to defile it. ³⁵And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to set apart their sons and their daughters unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My mind, that they should do this abomination; to cause Judah to sin. ³⁶And now therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say: It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: ³⁷Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, whither I have driven them in Mine anger, and in My fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them back unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely; ³⁸and they shall be My people, and I will be their God; ³⁹and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me for ever; for the good of them, and of their children after them; ⁴⁰and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me. ⁴¹Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land in truth with My whole heart and with My whole soul. ⁴²For thus saith the Lord: Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. ⁴³And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say: It is desolate, without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. ⁴⁴Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill-country, and in the cities of the Lowland, and in the cities of the South; for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord.'

33Moreover the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the guard, saying:

²Thus saith the Lord the Maker thereof,

The Lord that formed it to establish it,

The Lord is His name: ³Call unto Me, and I will answer thee,

And will tell thee great things, and hidden, which thou knowest not.

⁴For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down for mounds, and for ramparts; ⁵whereon they come to fight with the Chaldeans, even to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in Mine anger and in My fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid My face from this city: ⁶Behold, I will bring it healing and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth. ⁷And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. ⁸And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against Me, and whereby they have transgressed against Me. ⁹And this city shall be to Me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure unto it.

¹⁰Thus saith the Lord: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, whereof ye say: It is waste, without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, ¹¹the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say: 'Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for His mercy endureth for ever', even of them that bring offerings of thanksgiving into the house of the Lord. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, saith the Lord.

¹²Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. ¹³In the cities of the hill-country, in the cities of the Lowland, and in the cities of the South, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that counteth them, saith the Lord.

¹⁴Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah. ¹⁵In those days, and at that time,

Will I cause a shoot of righteousness to grow up unto David;

And he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

¹⁶In those days shall Judah be saved,

And Jerusalem shall dwell safely;

And this is the name whereby she shall be called,

The Lord is our righteousness.

¹⁷For thus saith the Lord: There shall not be cut off unto David a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; ¹⁸neither shall there be cut off unto the priests the Levites a man before Me to offer burnt-offerings, and to burn meal-offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.

¹⁹And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying: ²⁰Thus saith the Lord:

If ye can break My covenant with the day,

And My covenant with the night,

So that there should not be day and night in their season;

²¹Then may also My covenant be broken with David My servant,

That he should not have a son to reign upon his throne;

And with the Levites the priests, My ministers.

²²As the host of heaven cannot be numbered,

Neither the sand of the sea measured;

So will I multiply the seed of David My servant,

And the Levites that minister unto Me.

²³And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: ²⁴'Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying: The two families which the Lord did choose, He hath cast them off? and they contemn My people, that they should be no more a nation before them. ²⁵Thus saith the Lord: If My covenant be not with day and night, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; ²⁶then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David My servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have compassion on them.'

34The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the land of his dominion, and all the peoples, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying:

²Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire; ³and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. ⁴Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah: Thus saith the Lord concerning thee: Thou shalt not die by the sword; ⁵thou shalt die in peace; and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings that were before thee, so shall they make a burning for thee; and they shall lament thee: 'Ah lord! ' for I have spoken the word, saith the Lord.

⁶Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, ⁷when the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities.

⁸The word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people that were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them; ⁹that every man should let his man-servant, and every man his maid-servant, being a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free; that none should make bondmen of them, even of a Jew his brother; ¹⁰and all the princes and all the people hearkened, that had entered into the covenant to let every one his man-servant, and every one his maid-servant, go free, and not to make bondmen of them any more; they hearkened, and let them go; ¹¹but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids; ¹²therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:

¹³Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: ¹⁴'At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, that hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee'; but your fathers hearkened not unto Me, neither inclined their ear. ¹⁵And ye were now turned, and had done that which is right in Mine eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before Me in the house whereon My name is called; ¹⁶but ye turned and profaned My name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had let go free at their pleasure, to return; and ye brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. ¹⁷Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ye have not hearkened unto Me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbour; behold, I proclaim for you a liberty, saith the Lord, unto the sword, unto the pestilence, and unto the famine; and I will make you a horror unto all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸And I will give the men that have transgressed My covenant, that have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof; ¹⁹the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the officers, and the priests, and all the people of the land, that passed between the parts of the calf; ²⁰I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be for food unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth. ²¹And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, that are gone up from you. ²²Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

35The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: ²'Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.' ³Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; ⁴and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door; ⁵and I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites goblets full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them: 'Drink ye wine.' ⁶But they said: 'We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying: Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons, for ever; ⁷neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any; but all your days ye shall dwell in tents, that ye may live many days in the land wherein ye sojourn. ⁸And we have hearkened to the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters; ⁹nor to build houses for us to dwell in, neither to have vineyard, or field, or seed; ¹⁰but we have dwelt in tents, and have hearkened, and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us. ¹¹But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, that we said: Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for fear of the army of the Arameans; so we dwell at Jerusalem.'

¹²Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying: ¹³'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Go, and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Will ye not receive instruction to hearken to My words? saith the Lord. ¹⁴The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed, and unto this day they drink none, for they hearken to their father's commandment; but I have spoken unto you, speaking betimes and often, and ye have not hearkened unto Me. ¹⁵I have sent also unto you all My servants the prophets, sending them betimes and often, saying: Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers; but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto Me. ¹⁶Because the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father which he commanded them, but this people hath not hearkened unto Me; ¹⁷therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard, and I have called unto them, but they have not answered.'

¹⁸And unto the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because ye have hearkened to the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he commanded you; ¹⁹therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: There shall not be cut off unto Jonadab the son of Rechab a man to stand before Me for ever.'

36And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: ²'Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. ³It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way, and I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.'

⁴Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which He had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. ⁵And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying: 'I am detained, I cannot go into the house of the Lord; ⁶therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lord's house upon a fast-day; and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities. ⁷It may be they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way; for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people.' ⁸And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

⁹Now it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord, all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem. ¹⁰Then did Baruch read in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house, in the ears of all the people. ¹¹And when Micaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of the Lord, ¹²he went down into the king's house, into the scribe's chamber; and, lo, all the princes sat there, even Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the princes. ¹³Then Micaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people. ¹⁴Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying: 'Take in thy hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, and come.' So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came unto them. ¹⁵And they said unto him: 'Sit down now, and read it in our ears.' So Baruch read it in their ears. ¹⁶Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one toward another, and said unto Baruch: 'We will surely tell the king of all these words.' ¹⁷And they asked Baruch, saying: 'Tell us now: How didst thou write all these words at his mouth?' ¹⁸Then Baruch answered them: 'He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.' ¹⁹Then said the princes unto Baruch: 'Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah, and let no man know where ye are.' ²⁰And they went in to the king into the court; but they had deposited the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe; and they told all the words in the ears of the king. ²¹So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll; and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes that stood beside the king. ²²Now the king was sitting in the winter-house in the ninth month; and the brazier was burning before him. ²³And it came to pass, when Jehudi had read three or four columns, that he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. ²⁴Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. ²⁵Moreover Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had entreated the king not to burn the roll; but he would not hear them. ²⁶And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but the Lord hid them.

²⁷Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying: ²⁸'Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned. ²⁹And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast burned this roll, saying: Why hast thou written therein, saying: The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? ³⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. ³¹And I will visit upon him and his seed and his servants their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they hearkened not.'

³²Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and there were added besides unto them many like words.

37And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. ²But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the Lord, which He spoke by the prophet Jeremiah.

³And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying: 'Pray now unto the Lord our God for us.' ⁴Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people; for they had not put him into prison. ⁵And Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they broke up from Jerusalem. ⁶Then came the word of the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying: ⁷'Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto Me to inquire of Me: Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. ⁸And the Chaldeans shall return, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and burn it with fire. ⁹Thus saith the Lord: Deceive not yourselves, saying: The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not depart. ¹⁰For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet would they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.'

¹¹And it came to pass, that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army, ¹²then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people. ¹³And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 'Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.' ¹⁴Then said Jeremiah: 'It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans'; but he hearkened not to him; so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. ¹⁵And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.

¹⁶When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon-house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days; ¹⁷then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him; and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said: 'Is there any word from the Lord?' And Jeremiah said: 'There is.' He said also: 'Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.' ¹⁸Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah: 'Wherein have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison? ¹⁹Where now are your prophets that prophesied unto you, saying: The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land? ²⁰And now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be presented before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.' ²¹Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

38And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah spoke unto all the people, saying: ²'Thus saith the Lord: He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey, and he shall live. ³Thus saith the Lord: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.' ⁴Then the princes said unto the king: 'Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; forasmuch as he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words unto them; for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt.' ⁵Then Zedekiah the king said: 'Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not he that can do any thing against you.' ⁶Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the pit of Malchiah the king's son, that was in the court of the guard; and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the pit there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

⁷Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an officer, who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the pit; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin; ⁸Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spoke to the king, saying: ⁹'My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the pit; and he is like to die in the place where he is because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.' ¹⁰Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying: 'Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the pit, before he die.' ¹¹So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence worn clouts and worn rags, and let them down by cords into the pit to Jeremiah. ¹²And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah: 'Put now these worn clouts and rags under thine armholes under the cords.' And Jeremiah did so. ¹³So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the pit; and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

¹⁴Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that was in the house of the Lord; and the king said unto Jeremiah: 'I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me.' ¹⁵Then Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah: 'If I declare it unto thee, wilt thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken unto me.' ¹⁶So Zedekiah the king swore secretly unto Jeremiah, saying: 'As the Lord liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life.'

¹⁷Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah: 'Thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If thou wilt go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and thou shalt live, thou, and thy house; ¹⁸but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand.' ¹⁹And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah: 'I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me.' ²⁰But Jeremiah said: 'They shall not deliver thee. Hearken, I beseech thee, to the voice of the Lord, in that which I speak unto thee; so it shall be well with thee, and thy soul shall live. ²¹But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the Lord hath shown me: ²²Behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say:

Thy familiar friends have set thee on,

And have prevailed over thee;

Thy feet are sunk in the mire,

And they are turned away back.

²³And they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans; and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon; and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire.'

²⁴Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah: 'Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die. ²⁵But if the princes hear that I have talked with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee: Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to death; also what the king said unto thee; ²⁶then thou shalt say unto them: I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there.' ²⁷Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him; and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not reported. ²⁸So Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.

And it came to pass, when Jerusalem was taken—39¹in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it; ²in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city—³that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sarezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim ^[6]Rab-saris, Nergal-sarezer ^[6]Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon. ⁴And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls; and he went out the way of the Arabah. ⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he gave judgment upon him. ⁶Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes; also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. ⁷Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. ⁸And the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the house of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. ⁹Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, the deserters also, that fell away to him, with the rest of the people that remained. ¹⁰But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, that had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields in that day. ¹¹Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, saying: ¹²'Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee.' ¹³So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushazban Rab-saris, and Nergal-sarezer Rab-mag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon; ¹⁴they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home; so he dwelt among the people.

¹⁵Now the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court of the guard, saying: ¹⁶'Go, and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring My words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished before thee in that day. ¹⁷But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord; and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. ¹⁸For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee; because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord.'

40The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, that were carried away captive unto Babylon. ²And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him: 'The Lord thy God pronounced this evil upon this place; ³and the Lord hath brought it, and done according as He spoke; because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not hearkened to His voice, therefore this thing is come upon you. ⁴And now, behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which are upon thy hand. If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear; behold, all the land is before thee; whither it seemeth good and right unto thee to go, thither go.—⁵Yet he would not go back.—Go back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wheresoever it seemeth right unto thee to go.' So the captain of the guard gave him an allowance and a present, and let him go. ⁶Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land.

⁷Now when all the captains of the forces that were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poorest of the land, of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon; ⁸then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men. ⁹And Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore unto them and to their men, saying: 'Fear not to serve the Chaldeans; dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. ¹⁰As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans that may come unto us; but ye, gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that ye have taken.' ¹¹Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; ¹²then all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits in great abundance.

¹³Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, ¹⁴and said unto him: 'Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life?' But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. ¹⁵Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying: 'Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it; wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews that are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?' ¹⁶But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah: 'Thou shalt not do this thing; for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael.'

41Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. ²Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. ³Ishmael also slew all the Jews that were with him, even with Gedaliah, at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans that were found there, even the men of war.

⁴And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, ⁵that there came certain men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with meal-offerings and frankincense in their hand to bring them to the house of the Lord. ⁶And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went; and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them: 'Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.' ⁷And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him. ⁸But ten men were found among them that said unto Ishmael: 'Slay us not; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey.' So he forbore, and slew them not among their brethren. ⁹Now the pit wherein Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had slain by the side of Gedaliah was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasa king of Israel; the same Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled with them that were slain. ¹⁰Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon.

¹¹But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, ¹²then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. ¹³Now it came to pass, that when all the people that were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, then they were glad. ¹⁴So all the people that Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah cast about and returned, and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah. ¹⁵But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon.

¹⁶Then took Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after that he had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the men, even the men of war, and the women, and the children, and the officers, whom he had brought back from Gibeon; ¹⁷and they departed, and dwelt in Geruth Chimham, which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into Egypt, ¹⁸because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land.

42Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, ²and said unto Jeremiah the prophet: 'Let, we pray thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord thy God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us; ³that the Lord thy God may tell us the way wherein we should walk, and the thing that we should do.' ⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them: 'I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the Lord your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you.' ⁵Then they said to Jeremiah: 'The Lord be a true and faithful witness against us, if we do not even according to all the word wherewith the Lord thy God shall send thee to us. ⁶Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will hearken to the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God.'

⁷And it came to pass after ten days, that the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. ⁸Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, ⁹and said unto them: 'Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication before Him: ¹⁰If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I repent Me of the evil that I have done unto you. ¹¹Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saith the Lord; for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²And I will grant you compassion, that he may have compassion upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. ¹³But if ye say: We will not abide in this land; so that ye hearken not to the voice of the Lord your God; ¹⁴saying: No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the horn, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we abide; ¹⁵now therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there; ¹⁶then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you there in Egypt; and there ye shall die. ¹⁷So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. ¹⁸For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As Mine anger and My fury hath been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall My fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall enter into Egypt; and ye shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and ye shall see this place no more. ¹⁹The Lord hath spoken concerning you, O remnant of Judah: Go ye not into Egypt; know certainly that I have forewarned you this day. ²⁰For ye have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for ye sent me unto the Lord your God, saying: Pray for us unto the Lord our God; and according unto all that the Lord our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it; ²¹and I have this day declared it to you; but ye have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord your God in any thing for which He hath sent me unto you. ²²Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn there.'

43And it came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the Lord their God, wherewith the Lord their God had sent him to them, even all these words, ²then spoke Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah: 'Thou speakest falsely; the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say: Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there; ³but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death, and carry us away captives to Babylon.' ⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, hearkened not to the voice of the Lord, to dwell in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all the nations whither they had been driven to sojourn in the land of Judah: ⁶the men, and the women, and the children, and the king's daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah; ⁷and they came into the land of Egypt; for they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord; and they came even to Tahpanhes.

⁸Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying: ⁹'Take great stones in thy hand, and hide them in the mortar in the framework, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; ¹⁰and say unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. ¹¹And he shall come, and shall smite the land of Egypt; such as are for death to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword. ¹²And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives; and he shall fold up the land of Egypt, as a shepherd foldeth up his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. ¹³He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire.'

44The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews that dwelt in the land of Egypt, that dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying: ²'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein; ³because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke Me, in that they went to offer, and to serve other gods, whom they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. ⁴Howbeit I sent unto you all My servants the prophets, sending them betimes and often, saying: Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. ⁵But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to forbear offering unto other gods. ⁶Wherefore My fury and Mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day. ⁷Therefore now thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to leave you none remaining; ⁸in that ye provoke Me with the works of your hands, offering unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye are gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? ⁹Have ye forgotten the wicked deeds of your fathers, and the wicked deeds of the kings of Judah, and the wicked deeds of their wives, and your own wicked deeds, and the wicked deeds of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in My law, nor in My statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. ¹¹Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set My face against you for evil, even to cut off all Judah. ¹²And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. ¹³For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; ¹⁴so that none of the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for none shall return save such as shall escape.'

¹⁵Then all the men who knew that their wives offered unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: ¹⁶'As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. ¹⁷But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to offer unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. ¹⁸But since we let off to offer to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. ¹⁹And is it we that offer to the queen of heaven, and pour out drink-offerings unto her? did we make her cakes in her image, and pour out drink-offerings unto her, without our husbands?'

²⁰Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people that had given him that answer, saying: ²¹'The offering that ye offered in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into His mind? ²²So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. ²³Because ye have offered, and because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, nor walked in His law, nor in His statutes, nor in His testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.'

²⁴Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women: 'Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: ²⁵Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying: We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to offer to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her; ye shall surely establish your vows, and surely perform your vows. ²⁶Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by My great name, saith the Lord, that My name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt saying: As the Lord God liveth. ²⁷Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them. ²⁸And they that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose word shall stand, Mine, or theirs. ²⁹And this shall be the sign unto you, saith the Lord, that I will punish you in this place, that ye may know that My words shall surely stand against you for evil; ³⁰thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life.'

45The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: ²'Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning thee, O Baruch: Thou didst say:

³Woe is me now!

For the Lord hath added sorrow to my pain;

I am weary with my groaning,

And I find no rest.

⁴Thus shalt thou say unto him:

Thus saith the Lord:

Behold, that which I have built will I break down,

And that which I have planted I will pluck up;

And this in the whole land.

⁵And seekest thou great things for thyself?

Seek them not;

for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord; but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.'

46The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.

²Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh-neco king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

³Make ready buckler and shield,

And draw near to battle.

⁴Harness the horses, and mount, ye horsemen,

And stand forth with your helmets;

Furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail.

⁵Wherefore do I see them dismayed and turned backward?

And their mighty ones are beaten down,

And they are fled apace, and look not back;

Terror is on every side, saith the Lord.

⁶The swift cannot flee away,

Nor the mighty man escape;

In the north by the river Euphrates

Have they stumbled and fallen.

 

⁷Who is this like the Nile that riseth up,

Like the rivers whose waters toss themselves?

⁸Egypt is like the Nile that riseth up,

And like the rivers whose waters toss themselves;

And he saith: 'I will rise up, I will cover the earth,

I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof.'

⁹Prance, ye horses, and rush madly, ye chariots;

And let the mighty men go forth:

Cush and Put, that handle the shield,

And the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow.

 

¹⁰For the Lord God of hosts shall have on that day

A day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries;

And the sword shall devour and be satiate,

And shall be made drunk with their blood;

For the Lord God of hosts hath a sacrifice

In the north country by the river Euphrates.

¹¹Go up into Gilead, and take balm,

O virgin daughter of Egypt;

In vain dost thou use many medicines;

There is no cure for thee.

¹²The nations have heard of thy shame,

And the earth is full of thy cry;

For the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty,

They are fallen both of them together.

¹³The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon should come and smite the land of Egypt.

¹⁴Declare ye in Egypt, and announce in Migdol,

And announce in Noph and in Tahpanhes;

Say ye: 'Stand forth, and prepare thee,

For the sword hath devoured round about thee.'

¹⁵Why is thy strong one overthrown?

He stood not, because the Lord did thrust him down.

¹⁶He made many to stumble;

Yea, they fell one upon another,

And said: 'Arise, and let us return to our own people,

And to the land of our birth,

From the oppressing sword.'

¹⁷They cried there: 'Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise;

He hath let the appointed time pass by.'

¹⁸As I live, saith the King,

Whose name is the Lord of hosts,

Surely like Tabor among the mountains,

And like Carmel by the sea, so shall he come.

¹⁹O thou daughter that dwellest in Egypt,

Furnish thyself to go into captivity;

For Noph shall become a desolation,

And shall be laid waste, without inhabitant.

 

²⁰Egypt is a very fair heifer;

But the gadfly out of the north is come, it is come.

²¹Also her mercenaries in the midst of her

Are like calves of the stall,

For they also are turned back, they are fled away together,

They did not stand;

For the day of their calamity is come upon them,

The time of their visitation.

²²The sound thereof shall go like the serpent's;

For they march with an army,

And come against her with axes,

As hewers of wood.

²³They cut down her forest, saith the Lord,

Though it cannot be searched;

Because they are more than the locusts,

And are innumerable.

²⁴The daughter of Egypt is put to shame;

She is delivered into the hand of the people of the north.

²⁵The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saith: Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her kings; even Pharaoh, and them that trust in him; ²⁶and I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants; and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the Lord.

²⁷But fear not thou, O Jacob My servant,

Neither be dismayed, O Israel;

For, lo, I will save thee from afar,

And thy seed from the land of their captivity;

And Jacob shall again be quiet and at ease,

And none shall make him afraid.

²⁸Fear not thou, O Jacob My servant, saith the Lord,

For I am with thee;

For I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee,

But I will not make a full end of thee;

And I will correct thee in measure,

But will not utterly destroy thee.

47The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.

²Thus saith the Lord:

Behold, waters rise up out of the north,

And shall become an overflowing stream,

And they shall overflow the land and all that is therein,

The city and them that dwell therein;

And the men shall cry,

And all the inhabitants of the land shall wail.

³At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones,

At the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels,

The fathers look not back to their children

For feebleness of hands;

⁴Because of the day that cometh

To spoil all the Philistines,

To cut off from Tyre and Zidon

Every helper that remaineth;

For the Lord will spoil the Philistines,

The remnant of the isle of Caphtor.

⁵Baldness is come upon Gaza,

Ashkelon is brought to nought, the remnant of their valley;

How long wilt thou cut thyself?

⁶O thou sword of the Lord,

How long will it be ere thou be quiet?

Put up thyself into thy scabbard,

Rest, and be still.

⁷How canst thou be quiet?

For the Lord hath given it a charge;

Against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore,

There hath He appointed it.

48Of Moab.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled;

Kiriathaim is put to shame, it is taken;

Misgab is put to shame and dismayed.

²The praise of Moab is no more;

In Heshbon they have devised evil against her:

'Come, and let us cut her off from being a nation.'

Thou also, O Madmen, shalt be brought to silence;

The sword shall pursue thee.

³Hark! a cry from Horonaim,

Spoiling and great destruction!

⁴Moab is destroyed;

Her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.

⁵For by the ascent of Luhith

With continual weeping shall they go up;

For in the going down of Horonaim

They have heard the distressing cry of destruction.

⁶Flee, save your lives,

And be like a tamarisk in the wilderness.

 

⁷For, because thou hast trusted

In thy works and in thy treasures,

Thou also shalt be taken;

And Chemosh shall go forth into captivity,

His priests and his princes together.

⁸And the spoiler shall come upon every city,

And no city shall escape;

The valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed;

As the Lord hath spoken.

⁹Give wings unto Moab,

For she must fly and get away;

And her cities shall become a desolation,

Without any to dwell therein.

¹⁰Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord with a slack hand,

And cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.

¹¹Moab hath been at ease from his youth,

And he hath settled on his lees,

And hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel,

Neither hath he gone into captivity;

Therefore his taste remaineth in him,

And his scent is not changed.

¹²Therefore, behold, the days come,

Saith the Lord,

That I will send unto him them that tilt up,

And they shall tilt him up;

And they shall empty his vessels,

And break their bottles in pieces.

¹³And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh,

As the house of Israel was ashamed

Of Beth-el their confidence.

 

¹⁴How say ye: 'We are mighty men,

And valiant men for the war'?

¹⁵Moab is spoiled, and they are gone up into her cities,

And his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter,

Saith the King,

Whose name is the Lord of hosts.

¹⁶The calamity of Moab is near to come,

And his affliction hasteth fast.

¹⁷Bemoan him, all ye that are round about him,

And all ye that know his name;

Say: 'How is the strong staff broken,

The beautiful rod! '

¹⁸O thou daughter that dwellest in Dibon,

Come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst;

For the spoiler of Moab is come up against thee,

He hath destroyed thy strongholds.

¹⁹O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and watch;

Ask him that fleeth, and her that escapeth;

Say: 'What hath been done?'

²⁰Moab is put to shame, for it is dismayed;

Wail and cry;

Tell ye it in Arnon,

That Moab is spoiled.

²¹And judgment is come upon the country of the Plain; upon Holon, and upon Jahzah, and upon Mephaath; ²²and upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim; ²³and upon Kiriathaim, and upon Beth-gamul, and upon Beth-meon; ²⁴and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.

²⁵The horn of Moab is cut off,

And his arm is broken,

Saith the Lord.

²⁶Make ye him drunken,

For he magnified himself against the Lord;

And Moab shall wallow in his vomit,

And he also shall be in derision.

²⁷For was not Israel a derision unto thee?

Was he found among thieves?

For as often as thou speakest of him,

Thou waggest the head.

²⁸O ye that dwell in Moab,

Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock;

And be like the dove that maketh her nest

In the sides of the pit's mouth.

 

²⁹We have heard of the pride of Moab;

He is very proud;

His loftiness, and his pride, and his haughtiness,

And the assumption of his heart.

³⁰I know his arrogancy, saith the Lord,

That it is ill-founded;

His boastings have wrought nothing well-founded.

³¹Therefore will I wail for Moab;

Yea, I will cry out for all Moab;

For the men of Kir-heres shall my heart moan.

³²With more than the weeping of Jazer will I weep for thee,

O vine of Sibmah;

Thy branches passed over the sea,

They reached even to the sea of Jazer;

Upon thy summer fruits and upon thy vintage

The spoiler is fallen.

³³And gladness and joy is taken away

From the fruitful field, and from the land of Moab;

And I have caused wine to cease from the winepresses;

None shall tread with shouting;

The shouting shall be no shouting.

³⁴From the cry of Heshbon even unto Elealeh,

Even unto Jahaz have they uttered their voice,

From Zoar even unto Horonaim,

A heifer of three years old;

For the Waters of Nimrim also

Shall be desolate.

 

³⁵Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab,

Saith the Lord,

Him that offereth in the high place,

And him that offereth to his gods.

³⁶Therefore my heart moaneth for Moab

Like pipes, and my heart moaneth like pipes for the men of Kir-heres;

Therefore the abundance that he hath gotten is perished.

³⁷For every head is bald,

And every beard clipped;

Upon all the hands are cuttings,

And upon the loins sackcloth.

³⁸On all the housetops of Moab and in the broad places thereof

There is lamentation every where;

For I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure,

Saith the Lord.

³⁹'How is it broken down! ' wail ye!

'How hath Moab turned the back with shame! '

So shall Moab become a derision and a dismay

To all that are round about him.

 

⁴⁰For thus saith the Lord:

Behold, he shall swoop as a vulture,

And shall spread out his wings against Moab.

⁴¹The cities are taken,

And the strongholds are seized,

And the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day

Shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

⁴²And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people,

Because he hath magnified himself against the Lord.

⁴³Terror, and the pit, and the trap,

Are upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab,

Saith the Lord.

⁴⁴He that fleeth from the terror

Shall fall into the pit;

And he that getteth up out of the pit

Shall be taken in the trap;

For I will bring upon her, even upon Moab,

The year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

 

⁴⁵In the shadow of Heshbon the fugitives

Stand without strength;

For a fire is gone forth out of Heshbon,

And a flame from the midst of Sihon,

And it devoureth the corner of Moab,

And the crown of the head of the tumultuous ones.

⁴⁶Woe unto thee, O Moab!

The people of Chemosh is undone;

For thy sons are taken away captive,

And thy daughters into captivity.

⁴⁷Yet will I turn the captivity of Moab

In the end of days, saith the Lord.

Thus far is the judgment of Moab.

49Of the children of Ammon.

Thus saith the Lord:

Hath Israel no sons?

Hath he no heir?

Why then doth Malcam take possession of Gad,

And his people dwell in the cities thereof?

²Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will cause an alarm of war to be heard

Against Rabbah of the children of Ammon;

And it shall become a desolate mound,

And her daughters shall be burned with fire;

Then shall Israel dispossess them that did dispossess him,

Saith the Lord.

³Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai is undone;

Cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird you with sackcloth;

Lament, and run to and fro among the folds;

For Malcam shall go into captivity,

His priests and his princes together.

⁴Wherefore gloriest thou in the valleys,

Thy flowing valley, O backsliding daughter?

That didst trust in thy treasures:

'Who shall come unto me?'

⁵Behold, I will bring a terror upon thee,

Saith the Lord God of hosts,

From all that are round about thee;

And ye shall be driven out every man right forth,

And there shall be none to gather up him that wandereth.

⁶But afterward I will bring back the captivity of the children of Ammon,

Saith the Lord.

⁷Of Edom.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Is wisdom no more in Teman?

Is counsel perished from the prudent?

Is their wisdom vanished?

⁸Flee ye, turn back, dwell deep,

O inhabitants of Dedan;

For I do bring the calamity of Esau upon him,

The time that I shall punish him.

⁹If grape-gatherers came to thee,

Would they not leave some gleaning grapes?

If thieves by night,

Would they not destroy till they had enough?

¹⁰But I have made Esau bare,

I have uncovered his secret places,

And he shall not be able to hide himself;

His seed is spoiled, and his brethren,

And his neighbours, and he is not.

¹¹Leave thy fatherless children, I will rear them,

And let thy widows trust in Me.

¹²For thus saith the Lord: Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the cup shall assuredly drink; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink. ¹³For I have sworn by Myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes.

¹⁴I have heard a message from the Lord,

And an ambassador is sent among the nations:

'Gather yourselves together, and come against her,

And rise up to the battle.'

¹⁵For, behold, I make thee small among the nations,

And despised among men.

¹⁶Thy terribleness hath deceived thee,

Even the pride of thy heart,

O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock,

That holdest the height of the hill;

Though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle,

I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.

¹⁷And Edom shall become an astonishment;

Every one that passeth by it

Shall be astonished and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof.

¹⁸As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah

And the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord,

No man shall abide there,

Neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

¹⁹Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan

Against the strong habitation;

For I will suddenly make him run away from it,

And whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over it;

For who is like Me? and who will appoint Me a time?

And who is that shepherd that will stand before Me?

²⁰Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord,

That He hath taken against Edom;

And His purposes, that He hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman:

Surely the least of the flock shall drag them away,

Surely their habitation shall be appalled at them.

²¹The earth quaketh at the noise of their fall;

There is a cry, the noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea.

²²Behold, he shall come up and swoop down as the vulture,

And spread out his wings against Bozrah;

And the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day

Shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

²³Of Damascus.

Hamath is ashamed, and Arpad;

For they have heard evil tidings, they are melted away;

There is trouble in the sea;

It cannot be quiet.

²⁴Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee,

And trembling hath seized on her;

Anguish and pangs have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.

²⁵'How is the city of praise left unrepaired,

The city of my joy?'

²⁶Therefore her young men shall fall in her broad places,

And all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day,

Saith the Lord of hosts.

²⁷And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus,

And it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

²⁸Of Kedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote.

Thus saith the Lord:

Arise ye, go up against Kedar,

And spoil the children of the east.

²⁹Their tents and their flocks shall they take,

They shall carry away for themselves their curtains,

And all their vessels, and their camels;

And they shall proclaim against them a terror on every side.

³⁰Flee ye, flit far off, dwell deep,

O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the Lord;

For Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath taken counsel against you,

And hath conceived a purpose against you.

³¹Arise, get you up against a nation that is at ease,

That dwelleth without care, saith the Lord;

That have neither gates nor bars,

That dwell alone.

³²And their camels shall be a booty,

And the multitude of their cattle a spoil;

And I will scatter unto all winds them that have the corners polled;

And I will bring their calamity from every side of them, saith the Lord.

³³And Hazor shall be a dwelling-place of jackals,

A desolation for ever; no man shall abide there,

Neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

³⁴The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying:

³⁵Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

Behold, I will break the bow of Elam

The chief of their might.

³⁶And I will bring against Elam the four winds

From the four quarters of heaven,

And will scatter them toward all those winds;

And there shall be no nation whither the dispersed of Elam shall not come.

³⁷And I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies,

And before them that seek their life;

And I will bring evil upon them,

Even My fierce anger, saith the Lord;

And I will send the sword after them,

Till I have consumed them;

³⁸And I will set My throne in Elam,

And will destroy from thence king and princes, saith the Lord.

³⁹But it shall come to pass in the end of days,

That I will bring back the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord.

50The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

²Declare ye among the nations and announce,

And set up a standard;

Announce, and conceal not;

Say: 'Babylon is taken,

Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed;

Her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed.'

³For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her,

Which shall make her land desolate,

And none shall dwell therein;

They are fled, they are gone, both man and beast.

⁴In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord,

The children of Israel shall come,

They and the children of Judah together;

They shall go on their way weeping,

And shall seek the Lord their God.

⁵They shall inquire concerning Zion

With their faces hitherward:

'Come ye, and join yourselves to the Lord

In an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten.'

 

⁶My people hath been lost sheep;

Their shepherds have caused them to go astray,

They have turned them away on the mountains;

They have gone from mountain to hill,

They have forgotten their resting-place.

⁷All that found them have devoured them;

And their adversaries said: 'We are not guilty';

Because they have sinned against the Lord, the habitation of justice,

Even the Lord, the hope of their fathers.

 

⁸Flee out of the midst of Babylon,

And go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans,

And be as the he-goats before the flocks.

⁹For, lo, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon

An assembly of great nations from the north country;

And they shall set themselves in array against her,

From thence she shall be taken;

Their arrows shall be as of a mighty man that maketh childless;

None shall return in vain.

¹⁰And Chaldea shall be a spoil;

All that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord.

¹¹Because ye are glad, because ye rejoice,

O ye that plunder My heritage,

Because ye gambol as a heifer at grass,

And neigh as strong horses;

¹²Your mother shall be sore ashamed,

She that bore you shall be confounded;

Behold, the hindermost of the nations

Shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

¹³Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited,

But it shall be wholly desolate;

Every one that goeth by Babylon

Shall be appalled and hiss at all her plagues.

¹⁴Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about,

All ye that bend the bow,

Shoot at her, spare no arrows;

For she hath sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵Shout against her round about, she hath submitted herself;

Her buttresses are fallen, her walls are thrown down;

For it is the vengeance of the Lord, take vengeance upon her;

As she hath done, do unto her.

¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon,

And him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest;

For fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people,

And they shall flee every one to his own land.

 

¹⁷Israel is a scattered sheep,

The lions have driven him away;

First the king of Assyria hath devoured him,

And last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.

¹⁸Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land,

As I have punished the king of Assyria.

¹⁹And I will bring Israel back to his pasture,

And he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan,

And his soul shall be satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

²⁰In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord,

The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none,

And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found;

For I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant.

 

²¹Go up against the land of ^[7]Merathaim, even against it,

And against the inhabitants of ^[8]Pekod;

Waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the Lord,

And do according to all that I have commanded thee.

²²Hark! battle is in the land,

And great destruction.

²³How is the hammer of the whole earth

Cut asunder and broken!

How is Babylon become

A desolation among the nations!

²⁴I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,

And thou wast not aware;

Thou art found, and also caught,

Because thou hast striven against the Lord.

²⁵The Lord hath opened His armoury,

And hath brought forth the weapons of His indignation;

For it is a work that the Lord God of hosts

Hath to do in the land of the Chaldeans.

²⁶Come against her from every quarter, open her granaries,

Cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly;

Let nothing of her be left.

²⁷Slay all her bullocks, let them go down to the slaughter;

Woe unto them! for their day is come,

The time of their visitation.

²⁸Hark! they flee and escape out of the land of Babylon,

To declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,

The vengeance of His temple.

²⁹Call together the archers against Babylon,

All them that bend the bow;

Encamp against her round about,

Let none thereof escape;

Recompense her according to her work,

According to all that she hath done, do unto her:

For she hath been arrogant against the Lord,

Against the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰Therefore shall her young men fall in her broad places,

And all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day,

Saith the Lord.

 

³¹Behold, I am against thee, O thou most arrogant,

Saith the Lord God of hosts;

For thy day is come,

The time that I will punish thee.

³²And the most arrogant shall stumble and fall,

And none shall raise him up;

And I will kindle a fire in his cities,

And it shall devour all that are round about him.

 

³³Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together;

And all that took them captives hold them fast;

They refuse to let them go.

³⁴Their Redeemer is strong,

The Lord of hosts is His name;

He will thoroughly plead their cause,

That He may give rest to the earth,

And disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.

³⁵A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord,

And upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.

³⁶A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall become fools;

A sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed.

³⁷A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots,

And upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her,

And they shall become as women;

A sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed.

³⁸A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up;

For it is a land of graven images,

And they are mad upon things of horror.

³⁹Therefore the wild-cats with the jackals shall dwell there,

And the ostriches shall dwell therein; and it shall be no more inhabited for ever,

Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

⁴⁰As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah

And the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord;

So shall no man abide there,

Neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

 

⁴¹Behold, a people cometh from the north,

And a great nation, and many kings

Shall be roused from the uttermost parts of the earth.

⁴²They lay hold on bow and spear,

They are cruel, and have no compassion;

Their voice is like the roaring sea,

And they ride upon horses;

Set in array, as a man for war,

Against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon hath heard the fame of them,

And his hands wax feeble;

Anguish hath taken hold of him,

And pain, as of a woman in travail.

⁴⁴Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan

Against the strong habitation;

For I will suddenly make them run away from it,

And whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over it;

For who is like Me? and who will appoint Me a time?

And who is that shepherd that will stand before Me?

⁴⁵Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord,

That He hath taken against Babylon,

And His purposes, that He hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans:

Surely the least of the flock shall drag them away,

Surely their habitation shall be appalled at them.

⁴⁶At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth quaketh,

And the cry is heard among the nations.

51Thus saith the Lord:

Behold, I will raise up against Babylon,

And against them that dwell in ^[9]Lebkamai, a destroying wind.

²And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her,

And they shall empty her land;

For in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

³Let the archer bend his bow against her,

And let him lift himself up against her in his coat of mail;

And spare ye not her young men,

Destroy ye utterly all her host.

⁴And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,

And thrust through in her streets.

⁵For Israel is not widowed, nor Judah,

Of his God, of the Lord of hosts;

For their land is full of guilt

Against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Flee out of the midst of Babylon,

And save every man his life,

Be not cut off in her iniquity;

For it is the time of the Lord's vengeance;

He will render unto her a recompense.

⁷Babylon hath been a golden cup in Lord's hand,

That made all the earth drunken;

The nations have drunk of her wine,

Therefore the nations are mad.

⁸Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed,

Wail for her;

Take balm for her pain,

If so be she may be healed.

⁹We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed;

Forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country;

For her judgment reacheth unto heaven,

And is lifted up even to the skies.

¹⁰The Lord hath brought forth our victory;

Come, and let us declare in Zion

The work of the Lord our God.

 

¹¹Make bright the arrows,

Fill the quivers,

The Lord hath roused the spirit of the kings of the Medes;

Because His device is against Babylon, to destroy it;

For it is the vengeance of the Lord,

The vengeance of His temple.

¹²Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon,

Make the watch strong,

Set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes;

For the Lord hath both devised and done

That which He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³O thou that dwellest upon many waters,

Abundant in treasures,

Thine end is come,

The measure of thy covetousness.

¹⁴The Lord of hosts hath sworn by Himself:

Surely I will fill thee with men, as with the canker-worm,

And they shall lift up a shout against thee.

 

¹⁵He that hath made the earth by His power,

That hath established the world by His wisdom,

And hath stretched out the heavens by His discernment;

¹⁶At the sound of His giving a multitude of waters in the heavens,

He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth;

He maketh lightnings at the time of the rain,

And bringeth forth the wind out of His treasuries;

¹⁷Every man is proved to be brutish, for the knowledge—

Every goldsmith is put to shame by the graven image—

That his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸They are vanity, a work of delusion;

In the time of their visitation they shall perish,

¹⁹The portion of Jacob is not like these;

For He is the former of all things,

And [Israel] is the tribe of His inheritance;

The Lord of hosts is His name.

 

²⁰Thou art My maul and weapons of war,

And with thee will I shatter the nations,

And with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

²¹And with thee will I shatter the horse and his rider,

And with thee will I shatter the chariot and him that rideth therein;

²²And with thee will I shatter man and woman,

And with thee will I shatter the old man and the youth,

And with thee will I shatter the young man and the maid;

²³And with thee will I shatter the shepherd and his flock,

And with thee will I shatter the husbandman and his yoke of oxen,

And with thee will I shatter governors and deputies.

²⁴And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea

All their evil that they have done in Zion, in your sight;

Saith the Lord.

 

²⁵Behold, I am against thee,

O destroying mountain, saith the Lord,

Which destroyest all the earth;

And I will stretch out My hand upon thee,

And roll thee down from the rocks,

And will make thee a burnt mountain.

²⁶And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner,

Nor a stone for foundations;

But thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the Lord.

 

²⁷Set ye up a standard in the land,

Blow the horn among the nations,

Prepare the nations against her,

Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;

Appoint a marshal against her;

Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker-worm.

²⁸Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes,

The governors thereof, and all the deputies thereof,

And all the land of his dominion.

²⁹And the land quaketh and is in pain;

For the purposes of the Lord are performed against Babylon,

To make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

³⁰The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight,

They remain in their strongholds;

Their might hath failed, they are become as women;

Her dwelling-places are set on fire;

Her bars are broken.

³¹One post runneth to meet another,

And one messenger to meet an other,

To tell the king of Babylon

That his city is taken on every quarter;

³²And the fords are seized,

And the castles they have burned with fire,

And the men of war are affrighted.

 

³³For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor

At the time when it is trodden;

Yet a little while, and the time of harvest

Shall come for her.

³⁴Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me,

He hath crushed me,

He hath set me down as an empty vessel,

He hath swallowed me up like a dragon,

He hath filled his maw with my delicacies;

He hath washed me clean.

³⁵'The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon',

Shall the inhabitant of Zion say;

And: 'My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea',

Shall Jerusalem say.

 

³⁶Therefore thus saith the Lord:

Behold, I will plead thy cause,

And take vengeance for thee;

And I will dry up her sea,

And make her fountain dry.

³⁷And Babylon shall become heaps,

A dwelling-place for jackals,

An astonishment, and a hissing,

Without inhabitant.

³⁸They shall roar together like young lions;

They shall growl as lions' whelps.

³⁹With their poison I will prepare their feast,

And I will make them drunken, that they may be convulsed,

And sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake,

Saith the Lord.

⁴⁰I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,

Like rams with he-goats.

⁴¹How is Sheshach taken!

And the praise of the whole earth seized!

How is Babylon become an astonishment

Among the nations!

⁴²The sea is come up upon Babylon;

She is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

⁴³Her cities are become a desolation,

A dry land, and a desert,

A land wherein no man dwelleth,

Neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

⁴⁴And I will punish Bel in Babylon,

And I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up,

And the nations shall not flow any more unto him;

Yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵My people, go ye out of the midst of her,

And save yourselves every man

From the fierce anger of the Lord.

⁴⁶And let not your heart faint, neither fear ye,

For the rumour that shall be heard in the land;

For a rumour shall come one year,

And after that in another year a rumour,

And violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷Therefore behold, the days come,

That I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon,

And her whole land shall be ashamed;

And all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

⁴⁸Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein,

Shall sing for joy over Babylon;

For the spoilers shall come unto her

From the north, saith the Lord.

⁴⁹As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall,

So at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.

⁵⁰Ye that have escaped the sword,

Go ye, stand not still;

Remember the Lord from afar,

And let Jerusalem come into your mind.

⁵¹'We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach,

Confusion hath covered our faces;

For strangers are come

Into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house.'

 

⁵²Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

That I will do judgment upon her graven images;

And through all her land the wounded shall groan.

⁵³Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,

And though she should fortify the height of her strength,

Yet from Me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord.

⁵⁴Hark! a cry from Babylon,

And great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵For the Lord spoileth Babylon,

And destroyeth out of her the great voice;

And their waves roar like many waters,

The noise of their voice is uttered;

⁵⁶For the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon,

And her mighty men are taken,

Their bows are shattered;

For the Lord is a God of recompenses,

He will surely requite.

⁵⁷And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men,

Her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men;

And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake,

Saith the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

 

⁵⁸Thus saith the Lord of hosts:

The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown,

And her high gates shall be burned with fire;

And the peoples shall labour for vanity,

And the nations for the fire;

And they shall be weary.

⁵⁹The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was quartermaster. ⁶⁰And Jeremiah wrote in one book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. ⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: 'When thou comest to Babylon, then see that thou read all these words, ⁶²and say: O Lord, Thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. ⁶³And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates; ⁶⁴and thou shalt say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary.'

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

52Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ³For through the anger of the Lord did it come to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until He had cast them out from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. ⁴And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. ⁵So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. ⁶In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁷Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden—now the Chaldeans were against the city round about—and they went by the way of the Arabah. ⁸But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁹Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment upon him. ¹⁰And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah. ¹¹And he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

¹²Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem; ¹³and he burned the house of the Lord, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great man's house, burned he with fire. ¹⁴And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem round about. ¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest sort of the people, and the residue of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude. ¹⁶But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. ¹⁷And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases and the brazen sea that were in the house of the Lord, did the Chaldeans break in pieces, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon. ¹⁸The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the pans, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away. ¹⁹And the cups, and the fire-pans, and the basins, and the pots, and the candlesticks, and the pans, and the bowls—that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver—the captain of the guard took away. ²⁰The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve brazen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the brass of all these vessels was without weight. ²¹And as for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers; it was hollow. ²²And a capital of brass was upon it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates upon the capital round about, all of brass; and the second pillar also had like unto these, and pomegranates. ²³And there were ninety and six pomegranates on the outside; all the pomegranates were a hundred upon the network round about.

²⁴And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door; ²⁵and out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war; and seven men of them that saw the king's face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city. ²⁶And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. ²⁷And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

²⁸This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty; ²⁹in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar, from Jerusalem, eight hundred thirty and two persons; ³⁰in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons; all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.

³¹And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison. ³²And he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. ³³And he changed his prison garments, and did eat bread before him continually all the days of his life. ³⁴And for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him of the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

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1. Heb. shaked.
2. Heb. shoked.
3. That is, Terror on every side.
4. According to ancient tradition, a cipher for Babel.
5. With a play on the meaning, a dry land.
6. Titles of officers.
7. That is, Double rebellion.
8. That is, Visitation.
9. That is, The heart of them that rises up against Me. According to ancient tradition, a cipher for Casdim, that is Chaldea.