-Table Of Contents-
~Jer Chapter 1 ~
1 The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who resided in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
2 to whom the Word of YAHWEH came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3 It also came in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, to the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4 Then the Word of YAHWEH was to me, saying,
5 I knew you before I formed you in the belly; and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
6 Then I said, Ah, Adonai YAHWEH! Behold, I do not know how to speak for I am a boy.
7 But YAHWEH said to me, Do not say, I am a boy; for you shall go to all that I shall send you. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says YAHWEH.
9 Then YAHWEH put out His hand and touched my mouth. And YAHWEH said to me, Behold, I have put My Words in your mouth.
10 Behold, I have today appointed you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to tear down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
11 And the Word of YAHWEH was to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see an almond rod.
12 Then YAHWEH said to me, You have seen well; for I will watch over My Word to perform it.
13 And the Word of YAHWEH came to me the second time, saying, What do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot; and its face is from the face of the north.
14 And YAHWEH said to me, Out of the north, evil will be set loose on all those living in the land.
15 For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, declares YAHWEH. And they shall come, and they will give to each his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against its walls all around, and against the cities of Judah.
16 And I will speak My judgments against them regarding all their evil, those who have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods, and have worshiped the works of their hands.
17 And you must gird up your loins, and rise up and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be terrified before their faces, that I not prostrate you before them.
18 For, behold, today I have made you a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against her princes, against her priests, and to the people of the land.
19 And they shall fight against you; but they shall not overcome you. For I am with you to deliver you, declares YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 2 ~
1 And was the Word of YAHWEH to me, saying,
2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, So says YAHWEH, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, your going after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holy to YAHWEH, the first-fruits of His increase. All that devour him become guilty; evil shall come on them, declares YAHWEH.
4 Hear the Word of YAHWEH, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel.
5 So says YAHWEH, What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they went far from Me and have walked after vanity, and have become vain?
6 Nor did they say, Where is YAHWEH who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and of pits, in a dry land and deep darkness, in a land that no man has passed through, and not a man has lived there?
7 And I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you went in, you defiled My land and made My inheritance an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, Where is YAHWEH? And they who handle the Torah did not know Me. And the shepherds rebelled against Me; and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things not profitable.
9 Therefore, I will contend with you, says YAHWEH, and I will contend with your sons’ sons.
10 For go to the isles of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar, and carefully consider and see if there is any like this.
11 Has a nation changed its Elohim, and they were not Elohim? But My people have changed their Glory without profiting.
12 Be amazed at this, O heavens, and be horrified; be completely desolated, declares YAHWEH.
13 For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
14 Is Israel a servant? Or is he a servant of the house? Why has he become a prey?
15 The young lions roared against him; they gave their voice. And they made his land a waste; his cities are ruined, without inhabitant.
16 Also the sons of Noph and Tahpanhes have fed on your crown.
17 Have you not done this to yourself by your forsaking YAHWEH your Elohim when He led you by the way?
18 And now what is for you toward the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? Or what for you toward Assyria, to drink the waters of the River Euphrates?
19 Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your apostasies shall reprove you. Know, then, and see that your forsaking YAHWEH your Elohim is evil and bitter; and My fear is not in you, declares Adonai YAHWEH of Hosts.
20 For long ago you broke your yoke and tore up your bonds. And you said, I will not transgress, when on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down like a harlot.
21 Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly a true seed. How then have you turned into the deteriorating shoots of a foreign vine to Me?
22 Though you wash yourself with potash, and multiply soap for yourself, your iniquity is stained before Me, declares Adonai YAHWEH.
23 How can you say, I am not defiled; I have not gone after Baals? See your way in the valley; know what you have done! You are a swift camel crisscrossing her ways;
24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness. In the passion of her desire she snuffs up the wind in her time. Who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not tire themselves; in her month they will find her.
25 Withhold your foot from being bare and your throat from thirst. But you said, It is hopeless! For I love strangers, and after them I will go.
26 As 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 are
27 saying to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You gave us birth. For they turned their back to Me, and not the face. But in the time of their evil, they will say, Arise, and save us!
28 But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your evil; for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.
29 Why do you contend with Me? All of you, you have rebelled against Me, says YAHWEH.
30 In vain I have stricken your sons; they received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
31 O generation, see the Word of YAHWEH. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? Why do My people say, We roam; we will come no more to You.
32 Can a virgin forget her ornaments, a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.
33 What? Do you trim your ways to seek love? For this reason you have even taught the evil women your ways.
34 Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents; I did not find them by breaking in, but on all these.
35 Yet you say, Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will judge with you, because you say, I have not sinned.
36 Why do you go about so much to change your way? You also shall be ashamed of Egypt, as you were ashamed of Assyria.
37 Yes, you shall go out from this place, and your hands on your head. For YAHWEH has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper by them.
~Jer Chapter 3 ~
1 They say, If a man lets go his wife, and she goes from him and will be for another man, will he return to her again? Would not that land be greatly defiled? But you play the harlot with many lovers; yet would you come back to Me, says YAHWEH.
2 Lift up your eyes on the bare heights and see. Where have you not been lain with? By the highways you have sat for them, like an Arab in the desert. And you have defiled the land with your fornications and with your evil.
3 And the showers are withheld, and there has been no latter rain. And the forehead of a woman, a harlot, was to you; you refused to be ashamed.
4 Have you not just now called to Me, saying, My father, You are the friend of my youth?
5 Will He keep His anger forever? Or will He guard it to the end? Behold, you have spoken, and you have done all the evil things that you could.
6 YAHWEH also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what the apostate Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree, and has fornicated there.
7 And after she had done all these, I said, She will return to Me; but she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I watched. When for all the causes for which the apostate Israel committed adultery, I sent her away and I gave the writ of her divorce to her. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and fornicated.
9 And it happened, from the wantonness of her harlotry she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with pieces of wood.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, says YAHWEH.
11 And YAHWEH said to me, The apostate Israel has justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
12 Go and cry these words toward the north, and say, Return, O apostate Israel, says YAHWEH. I will not cause My face to fall on you, for I am merciful, says YAHWEH; I will not keep anger forever.
13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against YAHWEH your Elohim and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, says YAHWEH.
14 Return, O apostate sons, declares YAHWEH; for I am Adonai over you. And I will take you, one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
15 And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16 And it will be, when you multiply and increase in the land in those days, says YAHWEH, they will no longer say, The ark of the covenant of YAHWEH! Nor shall it come to the heart, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor shall it be made any more.
17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of YAHWEH. And all nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of YAHWEH, to Jerusalem. And they shall not walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
18 In 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 to your fathers.
19 But I said, How gladly would I put you among the sons, and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful inheritance among the multitudes of nations! And I said, You shall call Me, My Father; and you shall not turn away from Me.
20 Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, declares YAHWEH.
21 A voice was heard weeping on the bare heights, pleadings of the sons of Israel; for they have perverted their way; they have forgotten YAHWEH their Elohim.
22 Return, O apostate sons; I will heal your apostasies. Behold, we come to You, for You are YAHWEH our Elohim.
23 Truly, for delusion comes from the hills, tumult on the mountains. Truly, in YAHWEH our Elohim is the salvation of Israel.
24 For the shameful thing has eaten up the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us. For we have sinned against YAHWEH our Elohim, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day. And we have not obeyed the voice of YAHWEH our Elohim.
~Jer Chapter 4 ~
1 If you will return, O Israel, says YAHWEH, return to Me. And if you will turn away from your hateful idols out of My face and will not waver,
2 and you will swear, As YAHWEH lives, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; even the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory.
3 For so says YAHWEH to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow to the thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to YAHWEH, and take away the foreskin of your heart, O men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, that My fury not go forth like fire and burn, so that no one can put it out; because of the evil of your doings.
5 Declare in Judah, and make it heard in Jerusalem, and say, Blow the ram’s horn in the land. Cry, the end and say, Assemble yourselves and go into the cities of defense.
6 Lift up a banner toward Zion. Flee for safety and do not wait. For I will bring evil from the north and a great ruin.
7 The lion has come up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will fall into ruins without one living in them.
8 Clothe yourselves with sackcloth for this, wail and howl. For the fierce anger of YAHWEH has not turned back from us.
9 And it will be on that day, says YAHWEH, the king’s heart and the heart of the rulers shall perish. And the priests shall be amazed; and the prophets shall be astounded.
10 Then I said, Ah, Adonai YAHWEH! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace, but the sword reaches to the soul.
11 At that time it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare hills in the desert toward the daughter of My people, not to sift nor to cleanse!
12 A wind more full than these shall come for Me. Now I also will speak judgments against them.
13 Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a windstorm. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are devastated!
14 O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart from evil so that you may be saved. Until when will your vain thoughts lodge within you?
15 For a voice announces from Dan, and proclaims evil from Mount Ephraim.
16 Tell it to the nations: Behold, proclaim against Jerusalem, Besiegers are coming from a distant land and will set their voice against the cities of Judah.
17 Like the ones watching a field, they are against her all around because she has rebelled against Me, says YAHWEH.
18 Your way and your doings have done these things to you; this is your evil, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart.
19 My bowels! My bowels! I convulse in pain. O walls of my heart! My heart is restless within me. I cannot be silent, for I have heard, O my soul, the sound of the ram’s horn, the alarm of war!
20 Call Out, Ruin upon ruin; for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are laid waste, my curtains in a moment.
21 How long must I see the banner and hear the sound of the ram’s horn?
22 For My people are foolish. They do not know Me. They are stupid children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but they do not know to do good.
23 I looked on the earth, and, behold! It was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I looked on the mountains, and, behold! They quaked, and all the hills were shaken.
25 I looked, and, behold! There was no man, and all the birds of the skies had fled.
26 I looked, and, behold! The fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down before the face of YAHWEH, before His glowing anger.
27 For so YAHWEH has said, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.
28 The earth shall mourn for this, and the heavens above shall grow black, because I have seen, I have purposed and I will not repent, nor will I turn back from it.
29 Every city shall flee from the noise of the horsemen and shooters of the bow. They shall go into thickets and go up in the rocks. Every city shall be forsaken, and not a man shall live in them.
30 And you, O desolate one, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, though you make large your eyes with paint, you beautify yourself in vain. Lovers despise you; they will seek your life.
31 For I have heard a voice as of a sick woman, the anguish as one bearing her first child, the voice of Zion’s daughter gasping and spreading her hands, saying, Woe is to me now, for my soul faints because of murderers.
~Jer Chapter 5 ~
1 Roam around in Jerusalem’s streets and see now, and know, and seek in her plazas if you can find a man, if there is one who does justice, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her.
2 And though they say, As YAHWEH lives, surely they swear falsely.
3 O YAHWEH, are not Your eyes for the truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You consumed them, yet they refused to take correction. They made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.
4 So I said, Surely they are poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of YAHWEH, the judgment of their Elohim.
5 I will go up for myself to the great men and will speak to them. For they have known the way of YAHWEH, the ordinances of their Elohim. Surely these have joined in breaking the yoke; they have torn off the bonds.
6 On account of this a lion out of the forest shall strike them; a wolf of the desert shall destroy them; a leopard is watching over their cities. Everyone who goes out from them shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many; their rebellions are multiplied.
7 Why should I pardon you for this? Your sons have forsaken Me and have sworn by ones who are Not Elohim. When I fed them to the full, they then committed adultery and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot’s house.
8 They were like lusty, well fed stallions in the morning, everyone neighing after the wife of his neighbor.
9 Shall I not judge for these things, says YAHWEH? And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 Go up on her vine rows and destroy, but do not make a full end. Take away her branches, for they are not of YAHWEH.
11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been very devious with Me, declares YAHWEH.
12 They have lied against YAHWEH and said, It is not He; and, No evil shall come on us; and, We shall not see sword or famine.
13 And the prophets shall become wind, and the Word is not in them; so it shall be done to them.
14 Therefore YAHWEH Elohim of Hosts says this: Because you spoke this word, behold! I will make My Words fire in your mouth, and these people wood; and it shall consume them.
15 Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, O house of Israel, declares YAHWEH. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor understand what they say.
16 Their quiver is as an open grave; they are all mighty men.
17 And they will eat up your harvest and your food, and they will devour your sons and your daughters. They will eat up your flocks and your herds; they will eat up your vines and your fig trees. One shall beat down your fortified cities with the sword, those in which you trust.
18 Yet even in those days, declares YAHWEH, I will not make a full end with you.
19 And it will be when you shall say, Why does YAHWEH our Elohim do all these things to us? Then you shall answer them, Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign Elohim in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
20 Declare this in the house of Jacob and cry it in Judah, saying,
21 Now hear this, O foolish people, even you without heart, who have eyes and do not see, who have ears and do not hear.
22 Do you not fear Me, declares YAHWEH? Will you not tremble before My face, that I have placed the sand as the limit for the sea by an eternal decree, so that it cannot cross over it? And though they toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though its waves roar, yet they cannot cross over it.
23 But to this people there is a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have turned and are gone.
24 And they do not say in their heart, Let us now fear YAHWEH our Elohim who gives both the former and the latter rain in its season; He keeps for us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
25 Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.
26 For among My people are found wicked ones. They lie in wait, as one who sets snares. They set a trap, they catch men.
27 Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of treachery. On account of this they have become great and grown rich.
28 They have become fat; they shine. Yes, they pass over the deeds of the evil; they do not judge the cause of the orphan, that they may prosper. And they do not vindicate the right of the needy.
29 Shall I not visit for these things, declares YAHWEH? Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30 There is an appalling and horrible thing that has happened in the land.
31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their hands; and My people love it so. And what will you do at the end of it?
~Jer Chapter 6 ~
1 O sons of Benjamin take refuge to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem. And blow the ram’s horn in Tekoa; and set up a signal over Beth-Haccerem. For evil appears out of the north, and great destruction.
2 I will destroy the daughter of Zion, the beautiful and tender one.
3 The shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch tents on her all around. They shall each one feed in his hand.
4 Consecrate war against her. Rise up and let us go up at noon. Woe to us, for the day wanes! For the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
5 Rise up and let us go up by night and destroy her palaces.
6 For so YAHWEH of Hosts has said, Cut down her trees and pour out a mound against Jerusalem. She is the city to be visited. In her midst is oppression, all of her.
7 As a cistern keeps fresh its waters, so she keeps fresh her evil. Violence and destruction are heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before My face.
8 O Jerusalem, take advice, that My soul not be alienated from you; that I not make you a ruin, a land with not one living in it.
9 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn back your hand as a grape gatherer over the tendrils.
10 To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are not circumcised, and they cannot listen. Behold, the Word of YAHWEH is a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.
11 And I am full of the fury of YAHWEH; I am weary with holding in. Pour it out on the child in the street and on the circle of the young men together. For even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the elder with fullness of days.
12 And their houses shall be turned to others, fields and wives together. For I will stretch out My hand on those living in the land, declares YAHWEH.
13 For everyone from the least of them even to the greatest of them cuts off a profit. And from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.
14 They have also healed the break of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they made an abomination? They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know to blush. So they shall fall among those who fall. At the time I visit them, they shall be cast down, says YAHWEH.
16 So says YAHWEH, Stand by the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk in it.
17 Also I raised watchmen over you, saying, Listen to the sound of the ram’s horn. But they said, We will not listen.
18 So hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, that which is coming on them.
19 Hear, O earth, behold! I will bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts. For they have not listened to My Words, and My Torah; they also rejected it.
20 Why is this to Me? Frankincense comes from Sheba, and the good cane from a far land? Your burnt offerings are not for acceptance, nor are your sacrifices sweet to Me.
21 So YAHWEH says this, Behold! I am giving stumbling blocks to this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall stumble on them; a neighbor and his friend shall perish.
22 So says YAHWEH, Behold! A people comes from the north country; and a great nation shall be stirred from the sides of the earth.
23 They shall lay hold on bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, arrayed like a man for the battle against you, O daughter of Zion.
24 We have heard the rumor of it. Our hands have dropped down; anguish has seized us, pain like one giving birth.
25 Do not go out into the field or walk by the way, because of the sword of the enemy and terror from every side.
26 O daughter of My people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Make mourning for yourself, as for an only son, most bitter mourning; for the ravager shall suddenly come on us.
27 I have given you as a tower, a fortress among My people, that you may know and examine their way.
28 They are all rebellious revolters, walkers in slander. All of them are as bronze and iron; they are corrupters.
29 The bellows blow, the lead is consumed from the fire, the refiner refines in vain; for the evil is not separated.
30 Men will call them reprobate silver, for YAHWEH has rejected them.
~Jer Chapter 7 ~
1 The Word that came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 Stand in the gate of the house of YAHWEH and call out there this Word, and say, Hear the Word of YAHWEH all Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship YAHWEH.
3 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you dwell in this place.
4 Do not trust yourself to lying words, saying, The sanctuary of YAHWEH! The sanctuary of YAHWEH! This is the sanctuary of YAHWEH!
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor;
6 if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; and do not pour out innocent blood in this place, or walk after other Elohim to your evil;
7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from forever and to forever.
8 Behold, you trust for yourself on lying words without being of use.
9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other Elohim whom you do not know?
10 And will you then come and stand before Me in this house on which My name is called, and say, We are delivered in order to do all those detestable things.
11 Has this house on which My name is called become a den of violent ones in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen, declares YAHWEH.
12 But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the evil of My people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says YAHWEH, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear. Yea, I called you, but you did not answer.
14 And I will do to the house on which My name is called, in which you are trusting, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you out from My face as I cast out all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.
16 And you, do not pray for this people; do not lift up cry or prayer for them. Do not intercede with Me, for I do not hear you.
17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me.
19 Do they provoke Me, says YAHWEH? Is it not themselves, to the shame of their own faces?
20 So Adonai YAHWEH says this: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and will not be put out.
21 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh.
22 For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out from the land of Egypt, concerning matters of burnt offerings and sacrifices.
23 But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your Elohim, and you shall be My people. Also, Walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.
24 But they did not listen nor bow their ear. But they walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending.
26 Yet they did not listen to Me nor bow their ear, but they stiffened their neck. They did more evil than their fathers.
27 And you shall speak all these Words to them, but they will not listen to you. And you will call to them, but they will not answer you.
28 But you shall say to them, This is the nation that does not obey the voice of YAHWEH their Elohim, nor receive instruction. Truth has perished, and it is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off your crown and throw it away, and lift up a dirge on the heights. For YAHWEH has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
30 For the sons of Judah have done evil in My eyes, says YAHWEH. They have set their idols in the house on which is called by My name, in order to defile it.
31 They have built the high places of Tophet in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart.
32 So, behold, the days come, declares YAHWEH, when it shall no more be called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they shall bury in Tophet from lack of a place.
33 And the bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth; and no one shall frighten them away.
34 Then I will cause the voice of gladness to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, even the voice of joy, and the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride. For the land shall become a waste.
~Jer Chapter 8 ~
1 At that time, declares YAHWEH, they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its rulers, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of those living in Jerusalem, out of their graves.
2 And they shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of the heavens whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be dung on the face of the ground.
3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, who remain there in all the places where I have driven them, says YAHWEH of Hosts.
4 And you shall say to them, So says YAHWEH, Shall they fall and not rise up? Or shall one turn away and not return?
5 Why has this people, Jerusalem, turned away to a never-ending apostasy? They hold fast to deceit. They refuse to return.
6 I listened and heard. They did not speak so. No man repented because of this evil, saying, What have I done? Everyone turned in their own courses, as a horse rushes into the battle.
7 Also the stork in the heavens knows her seasons, and the turtledove and the swallow and the thrush observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of YAHWEH.
8 How do you say, We are wise, and the Torah of YAHWEH is with us? Behold, the lying pen of the scribes has certainly worked deceit.
9 The wise are ashamed; they are terrified and are captured. Behold, they have rejected the Word of YAHWEH, and what wisdom is theirs?
10 So I will give their wives to others, their fields to those who shall inherit. For everyone from the least even to the greatest cuts off a profit. From the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace! And there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they had done hateful things? They were not even at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. So they shall fall among those who fall. In the time of their punishment they will wither, says YAHWEH.
13 I will utterly consume them, says YAHWEH. No grapes will be on the vine, or figs on the fig tree; even the leaf withers. And I will give to them those who pass over them.
14 Why do we sit still? Gather yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities; and let us be silent there. For YAHWEH our Elohim has made us silent there, and He has made us drink poisonous water, because we have sinned against YAHWEH.
15 We looked for peace, but no good came; for a time of healing, but, behold, terror!
16 The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; all the land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his stallions. For they come and devour the land and its fullness, the city and those who live in it.
17 For behold, I will send serpents among you, vipers for which there is no charm; and they will bite you, says YAHWEH.
18 My refreshing is beyond grief; my heart is sick within me.
19 Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land! Is not YAHWEH in Zion? Or is not her king in her? Why have they provoked Me with their carved images, with foreign vanities?
20 Harvest has passed; the summer has ended, and we are not delivered.
21 For the breaking of the daughter of my people, I am broken. I mourn; horror has taken hold on me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healer there? Why then has the healing of the daughter of my people not come?
~Jer Chapter 9 ~
1 Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh, that I had a lodging place for travelers in the wilderness, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous ones.
3 And they bend their tongues, their bow is a lie. And they are not mighty for the truth on the earth, for they go from evil to evil. They also do not know Me, says YAHWEH.
4 Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, and do not trust any brother. For every brother will supplant, and every neighbor will walk as a slanderer.
5 And everyone will deceive his neighbor, and they will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6 Your home is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me, says YAHWEH.
7 For this reason, so says YAHWEH of Hosts, Behold, I will refine them and test them. For what else can I do because of the daughter of My people?
8 Their tongue is a murdering arrow; it speaks deceit. One speaks peace with his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he sets his ambush.
9 Shall I not visit them for these things? says YAHWEH. Or shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains and a mourning for the pastures of the wilderness. For they are burned up, without a man passing through. Yea, they do not hear the voice of cattle. From the fowl of the heavens and to the beast, they have fled; they are gone.
11 And I will make Jerusalem ruins, a den of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.
12 Who is the wise man that can understand this? And he to whom the mouth of YAHWEH has spoken, that he may declare it? Why does the land perish? It is burned up like the wilderness, so that no one passes through.
13 And YAHWEH says, Because they have forsaken My Torah, which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it;
14 but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them;
15 so YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, says this: Behold, I will feed them, this people with wormwood, and make them drink poison waters.
16 I will also scatter them among the nations which they have not known, nor their fathers. And I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.
17 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Consider and call for the wailers, that they may come. And send for the wise women, that they may come.
18 And let them make haste and take up a lament over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and waters flow from our eyelids.
19 For the voice of lament is heard from Zion. How we are ravaged! We are greatly ashamed because we have forsaken the land; because they have thrown down our dwellings.
20 Yet hear the Word of YAHWEH, women. And let your ear receive the Word of His mouth, and teach your daughters a lament, and each one her neighbor a lamentation.
21 For death has come into our windows, entering into our fortresses, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the plazas.
22 Speak, So says YAHWEH, Even the bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the swath after the reaper, and no one shall gather them.
23 So says YAHWEH, Do not let the wise glory in his wisdom, and do not let the mighty glory in his might. Do not let the rich glory in his riches.
24 But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am YAHWEH, doing kindness, justice and righteousness in the earth; for I delight in these, says YAHWEH.
25 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that I will punish all the circumcised with foreskin:
26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and all those trimmed on the edges of their beards, who dwell in the wilderness. For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel, those uncircumcised of heart.
~Jer Chapter 10 ~
1 Hear the Word which YAHWEH speaks to you, O house of Israel.
2 So says YAHWEH, Do not learn the way of the nations; and do not be terrified at the signs of the heavens; for the nations were terrified at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vanity. For one cuts a tree out of the forest with the axe, the work of the hands of the craftsman.
4 They adorn it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it will not wobble.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, and they cannot speak; carrying they must be carried, because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.
6 There is none like You, O YAHWEH; You are great, and Your name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? For it is fitting to You, because there is none like You among all the wise of the nations, and in all their kingdoms.
8 But they are all together foolish and stupid; their tree is an instruction of vanities.
9 Silver beaten into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the craftsman and the hands of the goldsmith. Violet and purple is their clothing; they are all the works of skillful ones.
10 But YAHWEH is the true Elohim, He is the living Elohim and the ever-lasting King. At His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to stand His indignation.
11 So you shall say to them, The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.
12 It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and who stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
13 When He utters His voice, there is a noise of waters in the heavens. He causes the vapors to go up from the ends of the earth; He makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind out of His storehouses.
14 Every man is stupid from lack of knowledge; every refiner is put to shame by the carved image. For his molten image is a lie and no breath is in them.
15 They are vanity, the work of delusion. In the time of their judgment they shall perish.
16 The Portion of Jacob is not like these. For He is the Former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; YAHWEH of Hosts is His name.
17 Gather up your bundle from the ground, you who live under the siege.
18 For so says YAHWEH, Behold, I will sling out those living in the land at this time, and I will distress them so that they may find Me.
19 Woe to me for my breaking! My wound is grievous. But I said, Truly this is a malady, and I must bear it.
20 My tent is ravaged, and all my cords are broken. My sons went away from me and they are not. There is no stretching out my tent any more, or setting up my curtains.
21 For the pastors have become stupid, and they have not sought YAHWEH. Therefore, they shall not be blessed, and all their flock shall be scattered.
22 Behold, the sound of report! It comes, and a great commotion from the land of the north, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a den of jackals.
23 O YAHWEH, I know that his way does not belong to man; it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
24 O YAHWEH, correct me, only with judgment, not in Your anger, that You do not bring me to nothing.
25 Pour out Your fury on the nations who do not know You, and on the families who do not call on Your name. For they have eaten up Jacob. Yea, they have devoured him and have destroyed him, and they have made his dwelling place desolate.
~Jer Chapter 11 ~
1 The Word that came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 Hear the Words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah, and to those living in Jerusalem,
3 and say to them, So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, Cursed is the man who does not obey the Words of this covenant,
4 which I commanded your fathers in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey My voice and do them according to all that I command you, so that you shall be My people, and I will be your Elohim;
5 in order to establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered and said, Amein, O YAHWEH.
6 And YAHWEH said to me, Declare all these Words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear the Words of this covenant and do them.
7 For I solemnly warned your fathers in the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, to this day rising early and warning, saying, Obey My voice.
8 Yet they did not obey nor stretch out their ear, but each one walked in the stubbornness of their evil heart. And I will bring on them all the Words of this covenant which I commanded them to do, but they did not do.
9 And YAHWEH said to me, A plot is found among the men of Judah, and among those living in Jerusalem.
10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My Words. And they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I cut with their fathers.
11 So YAHWEH says this: Behold, I will bring evil on them from which they shall not be able to escape. And though they cry to Me, I will not listen to them.
12 Then the cities of Judah and those living in Jerusalem shall go and cry to the gods to whom they burned incense. But they are not at all able to save them in the time of their trouble.
13 For according to the number of your cities were your Elohim, O Judah; yea, according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
14 And you, do not pray for this people; and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them. For I will not hear in the time they cry to Me for their trouble.
15 What belongs to My beloved in My house, since she has committed her many evils? And has the holy flesh caused your evil to pass from you? How then do you exult?
16 YAHWEH called your name, a green olive tree, fair, with fine fruit. With the sound of a great roaring, He has set fire to it, and its branches are worthless.
17 And YAHWEH of Hosts, who planted you, has spoken evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah which they have done to themselves, to provoke Me to anger by burning incense to Baal.
18 And YAHWEH made me know. And I knew. Then You made me know their doings.
19 And I was like a docile lamb being brought to the slaughter; and I did not know that they had plotted schemes against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; and let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name may be remembered no more.
20 But, O YAHWEH of Hosts who judges with righteousness, who tries the reins and the heart, let me see Your vengeance on them. For to You I have laid open my cause.
21 For this reason, so says YAHWEH concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life, saying, Do not prophesy in the name of YAHWEH, that you do not die by our hand.
22 So YAHWEH of Hosts says this: Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine.
23 And there shall be no survivor of them, for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their punishment.
~Jer Chapter 12 ~
1 Righteous are You, O YAHWEH, when I might complain to You, yet let me speak with You of Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all those who deal treacherously at ease?
2 You planted them; yea, they take root, they grow, they even make fruit. You are near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
3 But You know me, O YAHWEH. You have seen me and tried my heart toward You. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and devote them to the day of slaughter.
4 Until when shall the land mourn, and the plant of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds are swept away, because they said, He will not see our last end.
5 If you have run with footmen, and they wore you out, then how can you compete with the horses? And if you feel secure in the land of peace, then how will you do in the swelling of Jordan?
6 For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; even they have fully called after you. Do not believe them, though they speak good things to you.
7 I have forsaken My house; I have left My inheritance. I have given the beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.
8 My inheritance has become as a lion in the forest to Me; she gave out her voice against Me; on account of this I hated her.
9 My inheritance is like a speckled bird to Me; the birds all around are against her. Come, gather all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour.
10 Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My portion under foot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
11 One has made it desolate; it mourns to Me. The whole land is a desolation, but no man lays it to heart.
12 The ravagers have come on all bare heights through the wilderness, for the sword of YAHWEH devours from one end of the land even to the other end of the land. There is no peace for any flesh.
13 They have sown wheat, but they have reaped thorns. They are worn out, but they do not profit. And they shall be ashamed of your harvests, because of the glow of the anger of YAHWEH.
14 So says YAHWEH against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will tear them from their land, and I will tear the house of Judah from among them.
15 And it shall be, after I have torn them out, I will return and have pity on them and will bring them again, each man to his inheritance and each man to his land.
16 And it shall be, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, As YAHWEH lives, as they taught My people to swear by Baal (Lord), then they will be built in the midst of My people.
17 But if they will not obey, then I will tear out that nation, I will tear and destroy it says YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 13 ~
1 So says YAHWEH to me, Go and buy for yourself a linen girdle, and put it on your loins, and do not put it in water.
2 So I bought a girdle according to the Word of YAHWEH and put it on my loins.
3 And the Word of YAHWEH came to me a second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle that you bought, which is on your loins, and rise up. Go to Euphrates and hide it there in the cleft of the rock.
5 So I went and hid it by Euphrates, as YAHWEH commanded me.
6 And it happened at the end of many days, YAHWEH said to me, Rise up, go to Euphrates and take the girdle from there, which I commanded you to hide there.
7 And I went to Euphrates and dug, and I took the girdle from the place, there where I had hidden it. And behold, the girdle was rotted! It was not useful for anything.
8 Then the Word of YAHWEH came to me, saying,
9 So says YAHWEH, So I will spoil the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people who refuse to hear My Words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them and to worship them, shall even be like this girdle which is not useful for anything.
11 For as this girdle holds fast to the loins of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, says YAHWEH, to be to Me for a people, and for a name, and for praise, and for glory; but they would not listen.
12 So you will speak to them this Word: So says YAHWEH, Elohim of Israel, Every skin shall be filled with wine. And they shall say to you, Do we not know full well that every skin shall be filled with wine?
13 Then you shall say to them, So says YAHWEH, Behold, I will fill all those living in this land, even the kings that sit on David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all those living in Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
14 And I will smash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, declares YAHWEH; I will not pity nor spare nor have compassion, to keep them from their destruction.
15 Hear and give ear; do not be proud, for YAHWEH has spoken.
16 Give glory to YAHWEH your Elohim before He brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains. Yea, while you look for light, He puts it into the shadow of death, setting up deep darkness.
17 But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. And my eye shall bitterly weep and run down with tears, because the flock of YAHWEH was captured.
18 Say to the king and to the queen mother, Humble yourselves, sit down. For the crown of your glory will come down from your head places.
19 The cities of the south have been shut up, and none are opening. Judah has been exiled; all of it has been peacefully exiled.
20 Lift up your eyes and see those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful flock?
21 What will you say when He visits you? For you taught them to be rulers over you for a head. Will not birth pangs seize you like a woman bearing?
22 And if you say in your heart, Why do these things come upon me? It is because of the greatness of your iniquity. Your skirts are bared; your heels suffer violence.
23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also may you do good who are accustomed to doing evil?
24 And I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away to the wilderness wind.
25 This is your lot, the share of your measure from Me, declares YAHWEH, because you have forgotten Me and have trusted in falsehood.
26 So I also have stripped off your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear.
27 I have seen your adulteries and your whinnying, the plot of your infidelity, your abominations on the hills, in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you not be made clean? Until when will it still be?
~Jer Chapter 14 ~
1 That which was the Word of YAHWEH to Jeremiah concerning the matter of droughts.
2 Judah mourns, and her gates droop. They put on mourning for the land, and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up.
3 And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters. They came to the cisterns; they found no water. They returned with their vessels empty. They were ashamed and confounded and covered their head.
4 Because the ground was cracked, for there was no rain in the land; the plowmen were ashamed; they covered their head.
5 For even the doe calved in the field and forsook it because there was no grass.
6 And the wild donkeys stood in the high places; they snuffed up the wind like jackals; their eyes failed because there was no grass.
7 O YAHWEH, though our iniquities testify against us, act for Your name’s sake; for our apostasies are many; we have sinned against You.
8 O Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the land, and as a traveler who turns aside to lodge?
9 Why should You be as one who is stunned, as a mighty warrior who cannot save? Yet You, O YAHWEH, are in our midst, and Your name is called on us. Do not leave us.
10 So says YAHWEH to this people: So they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet; therefore, YAHWEH does not accept them. He will now recall their iniquity and punish their sins.
11 Then YAHWEH said to me, Do not pray for good for this people.
12 I will not listen to their cry when they fast; and when they offer burnt offering and food offering I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, and by famine, and by the plague.
13 Then I said, Ah, O Adonai YAHWEH! Behold, the prophets are saying to them, You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place.
14 And YAHWEH said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I did not send them and I have not commanded them, nor did I speak to them. They prophesy to you a false vision, and a worthless divination, and the deceit of their heart.
15 So YAHWEH says this concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, and I did not send them; yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed.
16 And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. And none will bury them, either them, their wives, or their sons, or their daughters. For I will pour evil on them.
17 And you shall speak this Word to them: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and do not let them cease. For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great break, with a very grievous blow.
18 If I go out into the field, then I see those pierced with the sword. And if I enter into the city, then, behold, diseases of famine! Yes, both the prophet and the priest have gone around into a land that they do not know.
19 Have You completely rejected Judah? Or has Your soul hated Zion? Why have You stricken us and no healing is for us? We waited for peace, but nothing good came; and for a healing time, but, behold, terror!
20 We acknowledge our wickedness, O YAHWEH, the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against You.
21 For Your name’s sake, do not spurn us; do not dishonor the throne of Your glory. Remember, and do not break Your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the vanities of the nations, who make rain fall? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not You, O YAHWEH our Elohim? Then we will wait for You; for You do all these things.
~Jer Chapter 15 ~
1 Then YAHWEH said to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My soul could not be toward this people. Send them out from before My face; yea, let them go out.
2 And it will be, if they say to you, Where shall we go? Then you will tell them, So says YAHWEH, Those who are for death, go to death; and those for the sword, to the sword; and those for the famine, to the famine; and those for the captivity, to the captivity.
3 And I will set over them four kinds, says YAHWEH: the sword to kill, and the dogs to drag off, and the birds of the heaven and the beast of the earth to devour and destroy.
4 And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah; for what he did in Jerusalem.
5 For who shall have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who shall weep over you? Or who shall turn aside to ask your welfare?
6 You have forsaken Me, says YAHWEH. You have gone backward, so I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting.
7 And I will sift them with a fork in the gates of the land; I will bereave; I will destroy My people, for they do not turn from their ways.
8 Their widows are more numerous about Me than the sand of the seas. I have brought for them a ravager at noonday against the mother of a young man; I caused anguish and terror to fall on her suddenly.
9 She who bore seven now languishes; she has breathed out her life; her sun has gone down while it was still day. She has been ashamed and humiliated, and I will give the rest of them to the sword before their enemies, says YAHWEH.
10 Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not loaned, nor have they loaned to me; yet everyone curses me.
11 YAHWEH said, Truly, I will not free you for good. Truly I will cause the enemy to entreat you in the time of evil and in the time of distress.
12 Can one break iron, iron or bronze from the north?
13 Your wealth and your treasures I will give for prey, not for price, but for all your sins, even in all your borders.
14 And I will make you pass with your enemies into a land you do not know. For a fire has been kindled in My anger; it shall burn against you.
15 O YAHWEH, You know. Remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on those who seek to hurt me. Do not take me away in Your long-suffering; know that I bear reproach for You.
16 Your Words were found and I ate them; and Your Word was to me the joy and gladness of my heart. For I am called by Your name, O YAHWEH, Elohim of Hosts.
17 I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor exult. I sat alone because of Your hand; for You have filled me with indignation.
18 Why has my pain been continual and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You surely are to me like a false stream, whose waters cannot be trusted.
19 So YAHWEH says this: If you return, then I will restore you again; you shall stand before Me. And if you take the precious from the worthless, you shall be as My mouth. Let them turn back to you, but do not return to them.
20 And I will make you a fortified wall of bronze to this people. And they shall fight against you, but they shall not overcome you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you, says YAHWEH.
21 And I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the evil ones.
~Jer Chapter 16 ~
1 The Word of YAHWEH came to me, saying,
2 You shall not take a wife for yourself, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.
3 For so says YAHWEH concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who fathered them in this land:
4 They shall die of deadly diseases; they shall not be mourned nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the earth. And they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their bodies shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth.
5 For so says YAHWEH, Do not enter into the house of mourning. Do not go to weep or moan for them. For I have removed My peace with loving-kindness and compassions from this people says YAHWEH.
6 Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, nor shall men mourn for them, nor cut himself, nor shave himself bald for them.
7 Nor shall anyone break bread for them in mourning, to comfort him for ones who died. Nor shall they give them the cup of comfort to drink for one’s father or one’s mother.
8 Also you shall not go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and drink.
9 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts the Elohim of Israel: Behold I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes, and in your days, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
10 And it shall be, when you declare to this people all these Words, they will say to you, Why has YAHWEH spoken all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have committed against YAHWEH our Elohim?
11 Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says YAHWEH, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My Torah.
12 And you have done more evil than your fathers. For, behold, you each one walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, without listening to Me.
13 And I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, you nor your fathers. And there you shall serve other Elohim day and night, where I will not grant you favor.
14 So, behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that it shall no more be said, As YAHWEH lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
15 But rather, As YAHWEH lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands, there where He had banished them to. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16 Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says YAHWEH. And they shall fish them. And after this I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them, from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
17 For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face; their iniquity is not hidden from My eyes.
18 And first I will repay double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the bodies of their hateful things. Yea, their hateful idols have filled My inheritance.
19 O YAHWEH, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say, Our fathers have inherited only lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.<RX 19.18.11+1RX 19.28.7+2>
20 Can a man make gods to himself? But they are not Elohim!
21 Therefore, behold, I will make them know this time; I will cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 17 ~
1 The sin of Judah is engraved with an iron pen. It is carved on the tablet of their heart with the point of a diamond, and on the horns of your altars,
2 even while their sons remember their altars and their Asherahs by the green trees on the high hills.
3 O My mountain in the field! I will give your wealth, all your treasures, for prey, your high places for sin throughout all your borders.
4 And you, even through yourself, will let drop from your inheritance which I gave you. And I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in My anger; it will burn forever.
5 So says YAHWEH, Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and who makes flesh his arm, and who turns aside his heart from YAHWEH.
6 For he shall be like a juniper in the desert, and shall not see when good comes. But he shall live in dried places in the wilderness, in a salt land that is not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man who trusts in YAHWEH, and YAHWEH is his refuge.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters. It sends out its roots by the stream, and it will not fear when the heat comes; but its foliage will be green; and it is not anxious in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is incurable; who can know it?
10 I, YAHWEH, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
11 As a partridge broods and does not hatch, so is he who makes riches, and not by right; it will leave him in the middle of his days, and in his end he will be a fool.
12 A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
13 O YAHWEH, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken YAHWEH, the Fountain of living waters.
14 Heal me, O YAHWEH, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved; for You are my praise.
15 Behold, they say to me, Where is the Word of YAHWEH? Let it come now.
16 And I have not hurried away from shepherding after You, nor have I desired the woeful day. You surely know that the utterance of my lips was before Your face.
17 Do not be a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of evil.
18 Let those who persecute me be ashamed, but do not let me be ashamed. Let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified. Bring on them the day of evil, and break them with double breaking.
19 So said YAHWEH to me, Go and stand in the gate of the sons of the people, that by which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem.
20 And say to them, Hear the Word of YAHWEH, kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the residents of Jerusalem who enter in by these gates.
21 So says YAHWEH, Take heed for the sake of your lives, and do not carry a burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
22 And do not carry a burden from your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.
23 But they did not obey nor bow down their ear, but they made their neck stiff, not to hear, nor to receive instruction.
24 And it shall be, if you carefully listen to me, says YAHWEH, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy, to do no work in it,
25 even kings and rulers sitting on the throne of David shall enter into the gates of this city, riding on chariots and on horses, they and their rulers, the men of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem. And this city will be inhabited forever.
26 And they will come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the Shephelah, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and grain offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of YAHWEH.
27 But if you will not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy, and to not carry a burden and enter at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in her gates. And it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem; yea, it shall not be put out.
~Jer Chapter 18 ~
1 The Word which was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 Rise up and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My Words.
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was working a work on the wheel.
4 And the vessel that he made in clay was ruined in the hand of the potter. So repeating he made it, another vessel, as it seemed good in the potter’s eyes to make it.
5 And the Word of YAHWEH was to me, saying,
6 O house of Israel, can I not do to you as this potter? says YAHWEH. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
7 The instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, or to break down, or to destroy;
8 if that nation against whom I have spoken will turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to it.
9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
10 if it does evil in My eye, not to obey My voice, then I will repent of the good which I had said to do good to it.
11 Now then, please speak to the men of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem, saying, So says YAHWEH, Behold, I am forming evil against you, and devising a plan against you. Now each one turn from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.
12 And they say, It is hopeless. For we will walk after our own thoughts, and we will each one do according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.
13 Therefore YAHWEH says this: Ask now among the nations, Who has heard things like these? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon forsake from the rock of the field? Or are the cold flowing waters that come from another place uprooted?
15 But My people have forgotten Me. They have burned incense to vain idols; and they have caused them to stumble in their ways, from the old paths, to walk in bypaths, not on the highway;
16 to make their land a desolation, a hissing forever. Everyone who passes by will be amazed and will shake his head.
17 I will scatter them like an east wind before the enemy; I will make them see the back, and not the face in the day of their calamity.
18 Then they said, Come and let us plot schemes against Jeremiah. For the Torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not attend to any of his words.
19 O YAHWEH, pay attention to me, and pay attention to the voice of my adversaries.
20 Should evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember, I stood before You to speak good concerning them, to turn Your wrath from them.
21 Therefore give their sons to the famine, and make them run onto the hand of the sword. And let their wives be bereaved, and be widows, and let their men be the slain of death, their young men be those struck by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring a raiding band on them. For they have dug a pit to seize me, and have hidden snares for my feet.
23 Yet, O YAHWEH, You know all their counsel to death against me. Do not atone for their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your face, but let them be those made to stumble before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.
~Jer Chapter 19 ~
1 So says YAHWEH, Go and buy a potter’s earthen jar, and gather from the elders of the people, and from the elders of the priests.
2 And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom by the entry of Potsherd Gate. And there declare the Words that I will speak to you.
3 And say, Hear the Word of YAHWEH, O kings of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem. So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Behold, I will bring evil on this place by which all who hear it will have tingling ears.
4 Because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it to 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.
5 They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I never commanded nor spoke, nor did it come into My heart.
6 So, behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that this place shall be no more called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 And I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place. And I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. And I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the heavens, and for the animals of the earth.
8 And I will make this city a waste and a hissing. Everyone who passes by shall be amazed and shall hiss because of all its plagues.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. And they shall each one eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life shall oppress them.
10 And you shall break the jar before the eyes of the men who go with you,
11 and shall say to them, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks the potter’s vessel that cannot be restored again. And they shall bury in Tophet, since no place is left to bury.
12 I will do this to this place, says YAHWEH, and to those living in it, and give this place to be as Tophet.
13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the roofs of the houses on which they have burned incense to all the host of the heavens, and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.
14 Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where YAHWEH had sent him there to prophesy. And he stood in the court of the house of YAHWEH, and he said to all the people,
15 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Behold, I will bring to this city, and on all its towns, all the evil that I have spoken against it, because they have stiffened their necks in order not to hear My Words.
~Jer Chapter 20 ~
1 When Pashur the son of Immer, the priest (he also was chief officer in the house of YAHWEH), heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,
2 then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks in the upper Benjamin Gate, which was by the house of YAHWEH.
3 And it was on the next day that Pashur made Jeremiah go out from the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, YAHWEH has not called your name Pashur, but Terror from All Around.
4 For so says YAHWEH, Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. And they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall exile them into Babylon and kill them with the sword.
5 And I will give all the wealth of this city, and all its produce, and all its precious things, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah, even I will give them into the hand of their enemies who will strip them and take them, and carry them to Babylon.
6 And you, Pashur, and all who live in your house, shall go into captivity. And you shall come to Babylon; and you shall die there. And you shall be buried there, you and all those loving you to whom you have prophesied lies.
7 O YAHWEH, You have deceived me; yea, I was deceived. You are stronger than I, and You have prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long and everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I proclaim violence and ruin; for the Word of YAHWEH has been to me a reproach and mockery all day long.
9 And I said, I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name. But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was grieved of holding in, and I was not able to.
10 For I heard the slanders of many, Terror is all around! Expose! Yea, let us expose him! Every man of my peace watched for my fall, saying, Perhaps he will be lured away, and we shall prevail against him; and we shall take revenge on him.
11 But YAHWEH is with me like a mighty, awesome one. On account of this my persecutors shall stumble and will not prevail. And they shall be greatly ashamed. For they have not acted wisely; they are an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
12 But, O YAHWEH of Hosts, who tries the righteous, who sees the reins and the heart, let me see Your vengeance on them; for I have revealed my cause to You.
13 Sing to YAHWEH. Praise YAHWEH. For He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
14 Cursed is the day in which I was born; let not the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.
15 Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, A man child is born to you, making him very glad.
16 And let that man be as the cities which YAHWEH overthrew and did not repent. And let him hear a cry in the morning and the shouting at noontime;
17 because he did not kill me from the womb; and that my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great with me.
18 Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and my days consumed in shame?
~Jer Chapter 21 ~
1 The Word which was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, when King Zedekiah sent Pashur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest to him, saying,
2 Please inquire of YAHWEH for us. For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us. Perhaps YAHWEH will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that he may go up from us.
3 Then Jeremiah said to them, You shall say this to Zedekiah,
4 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war in your hand, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall. And I will gather them together in the middle of the city.
5 And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched arm and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath.
6 And I will strike the people of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great plague.
7 And afterward, says YAHWEH, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who remain in this city from the plague, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. And he shall strike them with the mouth of the sword; he shall not spare them, nor have pity, nor have compassion.
8 And you shall say to this people, So says YAHWEH, Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
9 He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the plague. But he who goes out and falls to the Chaldeans who are besieging you, he shall live, and his life shall be for a prize to him.
10 For I have set My face against this city for evil, and not for good, says YAHWEH. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
11 And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, Hear the Word of YAHWEH,
12 O house of David, so says YAHWEH: Do justice in the morning, and deliver the plundered one out of the hand of the oppressor, that My fury not go out like fire and burn so that none can put it out, because of the evil of your doings.
13 Behold, I am against you, one dwelling in the valley, rock of the plain, says YAHWEH, those who say, Who can come down against us? Or, Who can enter our dwellings?
14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says YAHWEH. And I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all things around it.
~Jer Chapter 22 ~
1 So says YAHWEH, Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak this Word there,
2 and say, Hear the Word of YAHWEH, O king of Judah who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
3 So says YAHWEH, Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one robbed from the oppressor’s hand. And do not oppress the foreigner, the widow, or the orphan, and do not do violence nor shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you indeed do this thing, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he and his servants and his people.
5 But if you will not hear these Words, I swear by Myself, says YAHWEH, that this house shall become a ruin.
6 For so says YAHWEH concerning the king of Judah’s house, You are Gilead to Me, the head of Lebanon; yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities not inhabited.
7 And I will consecrate destroyers against you, each one with his weapons; and they will cut down your choice cedars and make them fall into the fire.
8 And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall each say to one another, Why has YAHWEH done this to this great city?
9 Then they will answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of YAHWEH their Elohim and worshiped other gods and served them.
10 Weep not for the ones who died nor moan for him; weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more, nor see the land of his birth.
11 For so says YAHWEH concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in his father Josiah’s place, who went forth from this place: he shall not return there any more.
12 But he shall die there in the place where they have exiled him, and he will see this land no more.
13 Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice. His neighbor serves without pay, and he does not give him for his work;
14 who says, I will build myself a wide house and large upper rooms. And he cuts out windows for it and covers with cedar, and paints with vermilion.
15 Do you reign because you lust to excel in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well for him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was well. Was this not to know Me, says YAHWEH?
17 But your eyes and your heart lust for nothing but your unjust gain, and to shed innocent blood, and oppression, and to do violence.
18 So YAHWEH says this concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, They shall not mourn for him, saying, Ah, my brother! Or, Ah, sister! They shall not mourn for him, saying, Ah, master! Or, Ah, his glory!
19 He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn beyond the gates of Jerusalem and thrown out.
20 Go up to Lebanon and cry. And lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry out from the other side of the Jordan; for all those loving you are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed My voice.
22 Those feeding you shall feed the wind, and those loving you shall go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and will blush for all your wickedness.
23 One dwelling in Lebanon, nested in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come to you, the pain as of a woman in labor!
24 As I live, says YAHWEH, though Coniah (Jeconiah) the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah were the signet on My right hand, yet I would tear you out of there!
25 And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 And I will cast you and your mother who bore you into another country, there where you were not born; and there you shall die.
27 But concerning the land which they lift up with their soul, to return there, they shall not return there.
28 Is this man Coniah (Jeconiah) a despised, broken jar, or a vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they hurled, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they do not know?
29 O earth, earth, earth! Hear the Word of YAHWEH!
30 So says YAHWEH, Write this man childless, a man who will not prosper in his days. For not one from his seed will succeed, a man sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.
~Jer Chapter 23 ~
1 Woe to shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture, says YAHWEH.
2 Because of this, so says YAHWEH the Elohim of Israel against the shepherds who shepherd My people: You have scattered My flock, and have driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings, says YAHWEH.
3 And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the lands where I have driven them there, and I will bring them again to their fold. And they shall be fruitful and multiply.
4 And I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them. And they will fear no more, nor be terrified; nor will they be missing anything, says YAHWEH.
5 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and act wisely, and He shall do justice and righteousness in the earth.
6 In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is His name by which He shall be called, YAHWEH TZEDEKENU .
7 Behold, so the days come, says YAHWEH, that they shall no more say, As YAHWEH lives who brought the sons of Israel up out of the land of Egypt;
8 but, As YAHWEH lives who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the land of the north, and from all the lands where I have driven them there. And they shall dwell on their own land.
9 My heart within me is broken concerning the prophets; all my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man overcome by wine, because of YAHWEH, and because of the Words of His holiness.
10 For the land is full of adulterers. For the land mourns because of a curse. The pastures of the wilderness are dried up. And their course is evil, and their might is not right.
11 For both prophet and priest are wicked; yea, I have found their evil in My house, says YAHWEH.
12 So their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness; they shall be driven out and fall by it. For I will bring evil on them, the year of their judgment, says YAHWEH.
13 And I have seen folly among the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal and led astray My people Israel.
14 I have also seen a horrible thing among the prophets of Jerusalem; they commit adultery and walk in falsehood. And they make the hands of evildoers strong, so that not a man returns from his evil. They are all of them like Sodom to Me, and those living in her like Gomorrah.
15 So YAHWEH of Hosts says this concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water, for wickedness has gone forth from the prophets of Jerusalem into all the land.
16 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they make you vain; they speak a vision of their own heart, not out of the mouth of YAHWEH.
17 They say to those who despise Me, YAHWEH has said, You shall have peace. And they say to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, Evil shall not come on you.
18 For who has stood in the counsel of YAHWEH, and has seen and heard His Word? Who has listened to His Word and heard?
19 Behold, the whirlwind of YAHWEH has gone forth in fury, even a whirling storm. It will whirl on the head of the wicked.
20 The anger of YAHWEH shall not turn back until He has executed, and until He has set up the purposes of His heart. In latter days you shall understand it perfectly.
21 I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
22 But if they had stood in My counsel and had caused My people to hear My Words, then they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
23 I Am an Elohim near by, says YAHWEH, and not a Elohim from afar.
24 Or can a man hide himself in secret places so that I do not see him, says YAHWEH? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, says YAHWEH?
25 I have heard what the prophets said, those who prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
26 How long is this there in the heart of the prophets, the prophets of lies; yea, the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?
27 They plot to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell, each one to his neighbor, even as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal (Lord).
28 The prophet who has a dream, let him tell his dream. And he who has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What has the chaff to do with the wheat, says YAHWEH?
29 Is not My Word thus like fire, says YAHWEH, and like a hammer which breaks a rock in pieces?
30 Therefore, Behold, says YAHWEH, I am against the prophets who steal My Words, each one from his neighbor.
31 YAHWEH says, Behold, I am against the prophets who use their tongues and say, He says.
32 YAHWEH says, Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams, and tell them, and cause My people to go astray by their lies, and by their foolishness. Yet I did not send them nor command them. And they will not profit this people at all, says YAHWEH.
33 And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the utterance of YAHWEH? You shall then say to them, What utterance? I will even abandon you, says YAHWEH.
34 And the prophet, and the priest, and the people who shall say, The utterance of YAHWEH, I will even punish that man and his house.
35 And you shall say each one to his neighbor, and each one to his brother, What has YAHWEH answered? And what has YAHWEH spoken?
36 And you shall not mention the utterance of YAHWEH again, for each man’s word shall be his burden. But you have perverted the Words of the living Elohim, of YAHWEH of Hosts, our Elohim.
37 So you shall say to the prophet, What has YAHWEH answered you? And what has YAHWEH spoken?
38 But if you say, The utterance of YAHWEH, therefore so says YAHWEH: Because you say this word, the utterance of YAHWEH; and I have sent to you saying, You shall not say, The utterance of YAHWEH;
39 therefore, behold! I, even I will utterly forget you and cast you off and the city that I gave to you and your fathers, away from My face.
40 And I will put on you an everlasting reproach and never-ending disgrace on you, which shall not be forgotten.
~Jer Chapter 24 ~
1 YAHWEH caused me to see, and behold, two baskets of figs set before the sanctuary of YAHWEH, after Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon had exiled Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the rulers of Judah, and the craftsmen, and the smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.
2 One basket had very good figs, like first ripe figs. And the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten from their badness.
3 And YAHWEH said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so that they cannot be eaten from their badness.
4 Again the Word of YAHWEH came to me, saying,
5 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, Like these good figs, so I will acknowledge the exiles of Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for good.
6 For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. And I will build them and not tear down; and I will plant them, and will not pluck up.
7 And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am YAHWEH. And they shall be My people, and I will be their Elohim. For they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
8 And like the bad figs which cannot be eaten from badness, so says YAHWEH: So I shall make Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his rulers, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt;
9 I will even make them a horror among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, for a reproach, and a proverb, a gibe, and a curse, there in all places where I will drive them.
10 And I will send the sword, the famine, and the plague among them until they are consumed from being upon the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.
~Jer Chapter 25 ~
1 The Word that was to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah. It was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
2 This Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the residents of Jerusalem, saying,
3 From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, this twenty three years, the Word of YAHWEH has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.
4 And YAHWEH has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending, but you have not listened nor bowed your ear to hear,
5 saying, Now turn each one from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and live on the land which YAHWEH has given to you and to your fathers from forever even to forever.
6 And do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no harm.
7 Yet you have not listened to Me, says YAHWEH, so that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands, for evil to you.
8 So YAHWEH of Hosts says this: Because you have not obeyed My Words,
9 behold! I will send and take all the families of the north, says YAHWEH, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and I will bring them against this land, and against those living in it, and against all these nations all around. And I will completely destroy them, and make them a horror, and a hissing, and everlasting ruins.
10 And I will take from them the voice of rejoicing, 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.
11 And this whole land shall be a waste and a horror; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 And it shall be, when seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, and the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says YAHWEH; and I will make it everlasting ruins.
13 And I will bring on that land all My Words which I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.
14 For many nations and great kings will lay service on them, even they. And I will repay them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their own hands.
15 For so says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, to me. Take the wine cup of this wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I shall send you to drink it.
16 And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be maddened, because of the sword that I will send among them.
17 Then I took the cup from the hand of YAHWEH and made all the nations drink, those to whom YAHWEH had sent me:
18 Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and their kings, and their rulers, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;
19 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his servants, and his rulers, and all his people;
20 and all the mixed 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,
21 Edom, and Moab, and the sons of Ammon,
22 and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the coastal kings beyond the sea,
23 Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all who cut the corners of their beards,
24 and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the desert,
25 and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam , and all the kings of Media,
26 and all the kings of the north, far and near, each one to his brother, and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth; and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.
27 So you shall say to them, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Drink, and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and do not rise up, because of the sword which I will send among you.
28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, surely you shall drink.
29 For, behold, I begin to bring evil on the city on which is called My name, and shall you be found entirely without guilt? You shall not be without guilt. For I will call for a sword on all those living in the earth, says YAHWEH of Hosts.
30 And now you prophesy against them all these Words, and say to them, YAHWEH shall roar from on high and give forth His voice from His holy habitation; He shall mightily roar over His dwelling place. He answers with a shout, like those who tread out the grapes, against all those living in the earth.
31 A roaring will go to the ends of the earth, for YAHWEH has a controversy with the nations. He will enter into judgment with all flesh; He will give the wicked to the sword, says YAHWEH.
32 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Behold, evil is going from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be stirred up from the corners of the earth.
33 And the slain of YAHWEH shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be mourned, nor gathered, nor buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the earth.
34 Howl, O shepherds, and cry, and roll in ashes, O leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and of your scatterings are fulfilled, and you shall fall like a desirable vessel.
35 And refuge has perished from the shepherds, and escape from the leaders of the flock.
36 The sound of the cry of the shepherds, and the howling from the leaders of the flock will be heard. For YAHWEH is spoiling their pasture.
37 And the peaceful pastures are devastated, because of the glow of the anger of YAHWEH.
38 Like the young lion, He has left His den; for their land is a waste because of the glow of the oppressor, and because of His flowing anger.
~Jer Chapter 26 ~
1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this Word came from YAHWEH, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH, Stand in the court of the house of YAHWEH and speak to all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the house of YAHWEH, all the Words that I command you to speak to them. Do not keep back a word.
3 It may be that they will listen, and each man turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the evil which I plan to do to them because of the evil of their doings.
4 And you shall say to them, So says YAHWEH, If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My Torah which I have set before you,
5 to listen to the words of My servants the prophets whom I am sending to you, even rising up early and sending (but you have not listened),
6 then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
7 And the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of YAHWEH.
8 And it happened when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that YAHWEH had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, Surely, you shall die.
9 Why have you prophesied in the name of YAHWEH, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be wasted, without one living in it? And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of YAHWEH.
10 When the rulers of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king’s house to the house of YAHWEH and sat down in the entrance of the New Gate of YAHWEH.
11 And the priests and the prophets spoke to the rulers, and to all the people, saying, Let a death sentence be for this man, for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.
12 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the rulers and to all the people, saying, YAHWEH sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the Words that you have heard.
13 So now make good your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of YAHWEH your Elohim, and YAHWEH will repent toward the evil that He has spoken against you.
14 As for me, behold, I am in your hands; do with me as seems good and right to you.
15 But know for certain that if you put me to death, you shall surely bring innocent blood on yourselves, and on this city, and on those living in it. For truly YAHWEH has sent me to you, to speak all these Words in your ears.
16 Then the rulers, and all the people, said to the priests and to the prophets, There is not a sentence of death for this man, for he has spoken to us in the name of YAHWEH our Elohim.
17 Then some of the elders of the land rose up and spoke to all the assembly of the people, saying,
18 Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah. And he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, So says YAHWEH of Hosts: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house like the high places of a forest.
19 Did Hezekiah, king of Judah and all Judah indeed put him to death? Did he not fear YAHWEH and entreat the face of YAHWEH? And did not YAHWEH repent of the evil which He had spoken against them? So we are doing great evil against our souls.
20 And there was also a man who prophesied in the name of YAHWEH, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-Jearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to the words of Jeremiah.
21 And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the rulers, heard his words, the king tried to put him to death. But Urijah heard, and he was afraid, and fled, and went to Egypt.
22 And Jehoiakim the king sent men to Egypt, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and men with him into Egypt.
23 And they brought Urijah out of Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who struck him with the sword, and threw his dead body into the graves of the sons of the people.
24 But 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.
~Jer Chapter 27 ~
1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this Word came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH to me, Make bonds and yokes for yourself, and put them on your neck.
3 And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the sons of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who came to Jerusalem to Zedekiah, king of Judah.
4 And command them to go to their masters, saying, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: So you shall say to your masters,
5 I have made the earth, the man, and the animals on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm; and I have given it to whom it seemed right in My eyes.
6 And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchad-nezzar the king of Babylon, My servant. And I have also given him the beast of the field to serve him.
7 And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes; also it. And many nations and great kings shall serve him.
8 And it shall be, the nation and kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation, says YAHWEH, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the plague, until I have destroyed them by his hand.
9 As for you, do not listen to your prophets, or to those divining to you, or to your dreams, or to your sooth-sayers, or to your sorcerers, those who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon.
10 For they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, that I should drive you out, and you should perish.
11 But the nation that will bring its neck into the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, says YAHWEH, I will leave it on its own land, and it may work it and live in it.
12 I also spoke to Zedekiah, king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks into the king of Babylon’s yoke, and serve him and his people, and live.
13 Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague, as YAHWEH has spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
14 So then do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, You shall not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy a lie to you.
15 For I have not sent them, says YAHWEH. Yea, they prophesy a lie in My name, so that I might drive you out, and that you might perish, you and the prophets who prophesy to you.
16 Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, So says YAHWEH, Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the house of YAHWEH shall now be quickly brought again from Babylon. For they prophesy a lie to you.
17 Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this city be a waste?
18 But if they are prophets, and if the Word of YAHWEH is with them, let them now intercede with YAHWEH of Hosts that the vessels which are left in the house of YAHWEH, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.
19 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the rest of the vessels which remain in this city,
20 which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he exiled Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.
21 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of YAHWEH, and the house of the king of Judah, and Jerusalem:
22 They shall be brought to Babylon, and they shall be there until the day I visit them, says YAHWEH. Then I will bring them up and restore them back to this place.
~Jer Chapter 28 ~
1 And it happened in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah the son of Azur the prophet, of Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of YAHWEH, for the eyes of the priests and all the people, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
3 Within two years I will again bring into this place all the vessels of the house of YAHWEH which Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and brought them to Babylon.
4 And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the exiles of Judah who went into Babylon, says YAHWEH. For I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
5 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people who stood in the house of YAHWEH,
6 even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amein! May YAHWEH do so; may YAHWEH confirm your words which you have prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the house of YAHWEH, and all the exiles, from Babylon into this place.
7 But hear now this word that I speak in your ears and in the ears of all the people:
8 The prophets who have been before me and before you from times past prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of plague.
9 As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, the prophet shall be known as one whom YAHWEH has truly sent him.
10 Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the prophet Jeremiah’s neck and broke it.
11 And Hananiah spoke for the eyes of the people saying, So says YAHWEH, Even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the time of two years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.
12 Then the Word of YAHWEH came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
13 Go and tell Hananiah, saying, So says YAHWEH, You have broken yokes of wood, but you shall make instead of them yokes of iron.
14 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And they shall serve him. And I have given him the beasts of the field also.
15 Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah, YAHWEH has not sent you, but you have made this people trust in a lie.
16 So YAHWEH says this, Behold, I send you away from the face of the earth. You shall die this year, because you have spoken apostasy against YAHWEH.
17 And Hananiah died the same year in the seventh month.
~Jer Chapter 29 ~
1 And these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon
2 after Jeconiah the king, and the queen mother, and the eunuchs, the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, had gone out from Jerusalem.
3 He sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon, saying,
4 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have caused to be exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5 Build houses and live, and plant gardens, and eat their fruit.
6 Take wives, and father sons and daughters. And take wives for your sons; and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, and multiply there, and do not become few.
7 And seek the peace of the city, there where I have caused you to be exiled. And pray to YAHWEH for it; for in its peace you shall have peace.
8 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your divining ones in your midst deceive you. And do not listen to your dreams which you dream.
9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name. I have not sent them, says YAHWEH.
10 For so says YAHWEH, When according to My mouth seventy years have been fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you and confirm My good Word to you, to bring you back to this place.
11 For I know the purposes which I am planning for you, says YAHWEH; purposes of peace, and not for evil; to give you a future and a hope.
12 Then you shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 And you shall seek and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
14 And I will be found by you, says YAHWEH. And I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says YAHWEH. And I will bring you again into the place from which I sent you into exile, from there.
15 Because you have said, YAHWEH has raised up for us prophets in Babylon,
16 for so says YAHWEH to the king who sits on the throne of David, and to all the people who live in this city, your brothers who have not gone out with you into exile,
17 so says YAHWEH of Hosts, Behold, I am sending among them the sword, the famine, and the plague. And have given them up as figs that are vile, which cannot be eaten from badness.
18 And I will pursue them with the sword, with the famine, and with the plague. And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and a terror, and a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations, there where I have driven them.
19 For they have not listened to My Words, says YAHWEH, which I sent to them by My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending; but you would not hear, says YAHWEH.
20 And now you hear the Word of YAHWEH, all you exiles whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon.
21 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in My name: Behold, I will give them into the hand of Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon, and he shall strike them before your eyes.
22 And a curse shall be taken up from them for all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, May YAHWEH make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,
23 because they have committed disgraceful folly in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbor’s wives, and have spoken a lying word in My name, which I have not commanded them. For I am a witness and He who knows, says YAHWEH.
24 You shall also speak to Shemaiah the Nehelamite, saying,
25 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, saying, Because you have sent letters in your name to all the people in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, and to all the priests, saying,
26 YAHWEH has made you priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be officers in the house of YAHWEH, over every raving man who prophesies, that you should put him into the stocks and into the torture collar.
27 And now why have you not reproved Jeremiah of Anathoth, who prophesies to you?
28 On account of this he sent to us in Babylon, saying, This exile is long; build houses and live; and plant gardens and eat their fruit.
29 And Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the prophet.
30 Then the Word of YAHWEH came to Jeremiah, saying,
31 Send to all the exiles, saying, So says YAHWEH concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I did not send him; and he caused you to trust in a lie;
32 therefore so says YAHWEH, Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his seed. There shall not be to him a man living among this people; nor shall he behold the good which I shall do for My people, says YAHWEH, because he has uttered rebellion against YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 30 ~
1 The Word that came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 So speaks YAHWEH, Elohim of Israel, saying, Write for yourself all the Words that I have spoken to you in a book.
3 For, lo, the days come, says YAHWEH, that I will turn the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, says YAHWEH; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
4 And these are the Words that YAHWEH spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah:
5 For so says YAHWEH, We have heard a sound of trembling, of dread, and not of peace.
6 Ask now and see whether a male is giving birth? Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman giving birth, and all faces are turned to paleness?
7 Alas! For that day is great, for none is like it. And it is a time of Jacob’s trouble, but he will be saved out of it.
8 For it shall be in that day, says YAHWEH of Hosts, I will break his yoke from your neck, and I will burst your bonds. And strangers will not again enslave him;
9 but they shall serve YAHWEH their Elohim, and David their king, whom I will raise up to them.
10 And you, O My servant Jacob, do not fear, says YAHWEH. Do not be terrified, O Israel. For, lo, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. And Jacob shall return, and have quiet, and be untroubled, and no one will make him afraid.
11 For I am with you, says YAHWEH, to save you. Though I make a full end among all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a full end with you. But I will correct you justly, and I will not leave you unpunished.
12 For so says YAHWEH, Your break cannot be cured; your wound is grievous.
13 There is no one to judge your cause; for your ulcer there are no healing medicines for you.
14 All those loving you have forgotten you; they do not seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, because of the greatness of your iniquity. Your sins are many.
15 Why do you cry out over your crushing? Your pain is incurable, for the greatness of your iniquity; your sins are many, so I have done these things to you.
16 Therefore, all those who devour you shall be devoured. And all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity. And those plundering you I will give up to plunder, and all preying on you I will give up for prey.
17 For I will give health back to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says YAHWEH, because they called you, Outcast; saying, This is Zion; no one is seeking for her.
18 So says YAHWEH, Behold I will turn the captivity of Jacob’s tents and will have mercy on his dwelling places. And the city shall be built on her ruin heap; and the palace shall remain on its own divine place.
19 And out of them shall come thanksgiving and the voice of those who are merry. And I will multiply them, and they shall not be few. I also will honor them, and they shall not be small.
20 Also, his sons shall be as before, and his congregation shall be established before Me; and I will punish all who oppress them.
21 And his leader shall be from him, and his ruler shall come from among him. And I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach Me. For who is he who pledged his heart to come near to Me, says YAHWEH?
22 And you shall be My people, and I will be your Elohim.
23 Behold, the tempest of YAHWEH: fury goes forth, a sweeping whirlwind; it shall whirl on the head of the wicked.
24 The glow of the anger of YAHWEH will not turn back until He has executed, and until He has established the purposes of His heart. In latter days you will understand it.
~Jer Chapter 31 ~
1 At that time, says YAHWEH, I will be the Elohim of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.
2 So says YAHWEH, Israel, the people, the survivors of the sword, have found grace in the wilderness, I will go to give rest to him.
3 YAHWEH has appeared to me from far away, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love! On account of this, with loving kindness I have drawn you.
4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built again, O virgin of Israel. You will again put on your tambourines and go forth in the dance of those making merry.
5 You shall yet plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria, the planters shall plant and shall treat them as common.
6 For there shall be a day when the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall call out, Arise and let us go up to Zion, to YAHWEH our Elohim.
7 For so says YAHWEH, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the head of the nations. Cry out, give praise and say, O YAHWEH, save Your people, the remnant of Israel.
8 Behold! I will bring them from the North Country, and gather them from the recesses of the earth. Among them the blind, and the lame, the pregnant one, and the travailing one together, a great company shall return here.
9 They shall come with weeping, and I will lead them with prayers. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a right way; they will not stumble in it. For I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born.
10 Hear the Word of YAHWEH, O nations, and declare in the coastlands far away, and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd his flock.
11 For YAHWEH has redeemed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of the one stronger than him.
12 And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and be radiant over the goodness of YAHWEH, for grain, and for wine, and for oil, and for the sons of the flock and the herd. And their life shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not continue to languish any more.
13 Then the virgin shall rejoice in the dance, both young men and elders together. For I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
14 And I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness, and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says YAHWEH.
15 So says YAHWEH, A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing, bitter weeping: Rachel weeping for her sons; she refuses to be comforted for her sons for they are not here.
16 So says YAHWEH, Hold back your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears. For there will be a reward for your work, says YAHWEH, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
17 And there is hope for you in the end time, says YAHWEH, that your sons will come again to their own territory.
18 Hearing I have heard Ephraim moaning over himself, saying, You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bull not broken in. Turn me, and I shall be turned; for You are YAHWEH my Elohim.
19 For after I had turned away, I repented; and after I knew, I slapped on my thigh. I was ashamed; yea, I even blushed, because I bore the reproach of my youth.
20 Is Ephraim My dear son? Or is he a delightful child? For as often as I spoke against him, I will earnestly remember him still. So My bowels are groaning for him; surely, I will have pity on him, declares YAHWEH.
21 Set up road marks for yourself; make sign posts for yourself. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way you went. Turn again, O virgin of Israel; turn again to these cities of yours.
22 Until when will you turn to and fro, O faithless daughter? For YAHWEH has created a new thing in the land: a woman shall enclose a man.
23 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Again they will speak this Word in the land of Judah, and in its cities, when I turn again their captivity, saying, YAHWEH bless you, O home of righteousness, O holy mountain!
24 And Judah and all its cities shall live in it together, the tenant farmers and those who travel with flocks.
25 For I satisfy the weary soul, and I have filled every sorrowful soul.
26 On this I awoke and looked up, and my sleep was sweet to me.
27 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, even I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and the seed of animal.
28 And it shall be, as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to bring calamity; so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says YAHWEH.
29 In those days they shall not any more say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the sons are dull.
30 But every man will die in his iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be dull.
31 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
32 not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was to be a husband to them, says YAHWEH).
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, declares YAHWEH, I will put My Torah in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim, and they shall be My people.
34 And they shall no longer each man teach his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know YAHWEH. For they shall all know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them, declares YAHWEH. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
35 So says YAHWEH, who gives the sun for a light by day, the laws of the moon, and the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar, YAHWEH of Hosts is His name.
36 If these ordinances depart from before Me, says YAHWEH, the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.
37 So says YAHWEH, If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be searched out, I will also reject all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, declares YAHWEH.
38 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that the city will be built to YAHWEH, from the Tower of Hananeel to the Corner Gate.
39 And the measuring line shall yet go before it to the hill Gareb, and shall go around to Goath.
40 And the whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes and all the fields to the torrent Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate east, shall be holy to YAHWEH. It shall not be torn up, nor demolished any more, forever.
~Jer Chapter 32 ~
1 The Word that came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchad-nezzar.
2 For then the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. And Jeremiah the prophet was shut in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.
3 For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up, saying, Why do you prophesy and say, So says YAHWEH, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it?
4 And Zedekiah, king of Judah, shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but delivering shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with him mouth to mouth, and will see his eyes with his eyes.
5 And he shall lead Zedekiah into Babylon, and there he shall be until I visit him, says YAHWEH. Though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed.
6 And Jeremiah said, The Word of YAHWEH was to me saying,
7 Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum, your uncle, shall come to you, saying, Buy my field in Anathoth for yourself, for the right to redeem is yours, to buy it.
8 So Hanameel, my uncle’s son, came to me in the court of the guard, according to the Word of YAHWEH, and said to me, Please buy my field in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the right of redemption is yours. Buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the Word of YAHWEH.
9 And I bought the field in Anathoth from my uncle’s son, Hanameel, and weighed him the silver, seventeen shekels of silver.
10 And I wrote it in the document, and sealed it, and called witnesses, and weighed the silver on the scales.
11 So I took the document of the purchase, that which was sealed according to the law and the statutes, and the open copy.
12 And I gave the purchase document to Baruch the son of Neriah the son of Maaseiah, before the eyes of my uncle’s son, Hanameel, and before the eyes of the witnesses who wrote in the purchase document before the eyes of all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.
13 And I commanded Baruch before their eyes, saying,
14 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Take these books, the purchase document, the one sealed, and the open book, and put them in an earthen vessel so that they may stand many days.
15 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.
16 And after I gave the document of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to YAHWEH, saying,
17 Ah, Adonai YAHWEH! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and Your outstretched arm; nothing is too difficult for You,
18 who acts with loving-kindness to thousands, and repays the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their sons after them. The great, El, the mighty YAHWEH of Hosts, is His name.
19 He is great in counsel and mighty in work. For Your eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, to give to each man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
20 For You have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt until this day, and in Israel, and among men; and You have made a name for Yourself, as at this day.
21 And You have brought Your 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.
22 And You have given them this land which You swore to their fathers to give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
23 And they came in and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice nor did they walk in Your Torah. They have not done all that You commanded them to do, so You have caused all this evil to meet them.
24 Behold, the siege mounds have come to the city, to capture it. And the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, and the famine, and the plague. And what You have spoken has happened. And, behold, You see it.
25 O Adonai YAHWEH, And You have said to me, buy for yourself the field with silver, and call witnesses; for the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah, saying,
27 Behold, I am YAHWEH, the Elohim of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?
28 So YAHWEH says this: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take it.
29 And the Chaldeans who fight against this city shall enter and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses where they offered incense on their roofs to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke Me to anger.
30 For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have only done evil in My eyes from their youth. For the sons of Israel have only provoked Me to anger with the work of their hands, declares YAHWEH.
31 For this city has been to Me a cause of My anger and My wrath from the day that they built it even to this day, that I should remove it from My face;
32 because of all the evil of the sons of Israel and of the sons of Judah which they have done to provoke Me to anger, they, their kings, their rulers, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and those living in Jerusalem.
33 And they have turned the back to Me, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.
34 But they set their abominable idols in the house on which My name has been called, to defile it.
35 And they built the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My heart, that they should do this detestable thing, to cause Judah to sin.
36 And so now YAHWEH, Elohim of Israel, says this concerning this city, of which you say, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the plague;
37 Behold, I will gather them out of all the lands, there where I have driven them in My anger, and in My fury, and in great indignation. And I will bring them again to this place, and I will cause them to live in safety.
38 And they shall be My people, and I will be their Elohim.
39 And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me all the days, for good to them and to their sons after them.
40 And I will cut an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do good to them. But I will put My fear in their heart, that they shall not depart from Me.
41 And I will rejoice over them, to do good to them; and I will truly plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.
42 For so says YAHWEH: As I have brought this great evil on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I am speaking to them.
43 And fields will be bought in this land, of which you say, It is a desolation, without man or beast; it has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.
44 Men shall buy fields for silver, and write in a document, and seal it, and call witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the Shephelah and in the cities of the Negev. For I will cause their captivity to return, says YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 33 ~
1 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the guard, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH its Maker, YAHWEH who formed it in order to establish it; YAHWEH is His name:
3 Call to Me, and I will answer you; and I will tell you great and inaccessible things; you do not know them.
4 For so says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, Concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are torn down to defend against the siege mounds, and against the sword,
5 they come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men whom I have struck in My anger and in My wrath, and for whom I have hidden My face from this city, because of all their evil.
6 Behold, I will bring health and healing to it, and I will heal them and will show them the abundance of peace and truth.
7 And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.
8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity which they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities which they have sinned against Me, and which they have rebelled against Me.
9 And it shall be a name of joy to Me, a praise and a glory to all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do for them. And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the peace that I do for it.
10 So says YAHWEH, Again there shall be heard in this place, which you say shall be waste without man and without beast, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man, without one living in it, and without beast,
11 the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of those saying, Praise (Aleph/Tav) YAHWEH of Hosts, for YAHWEH is good, for His mercy endures forever; those who shall bring the sacrifice of thanks-giving into the house of YAHWEH. For I will bring back the captivity of the land, as at the first, says YAHWEH.
12 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Again in this place which is a waste without man or even beast, and in all its cities shall be a home of shepherds causing flocks to lie down.
13 In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negev, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks shall pass again under the hands of him who tallies, says YAHWEH.
14 Behold, the days come, says YAHWEH, that I will fulfill the good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 In those days, and at that time, I will cause a Branch of Righteousness to grow up to David. And He shall do judgment and righteousness in the land.
16 In those days Judah shall be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell in safety. And this is the name that shall be called on her: YAHWEH TZADEKENU .
17 For so says YAHWEH, Not a man sitting on the throne of the house of Israel will be cut off to David.<RX 42.3.3
18 And for the Levitical priests, they shall not have a man cut off before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle food offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.
19 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah, saying,
20 So says YAHWEH, If you can break My covenant of the day, and My covenant of the night, and there should not be day and night in their time,
21 then My covenant with My servant David may also be broken, that he should not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My attendants.
22 As the host of the heavens cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so I will multiply the seed of My servant David, and the Levites who minister to Me.
23 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah, saying,
24 Have you not observed what these people have spoken, saying, The two families that YAHWEH has chosen, has He also rejected them? And they despise My people, no more to be a nation before them.
25 So says YAHWEH, If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of the heavens and earth,
26 then I also will reject the seed of Jacob, and My servant David, not to take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will bring back their captivity and have pity on them.
~Jer Chapter 34 ~
1 The Word which was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth (because his hand rules), and all the peoples fought against Jerusalem, and against all its cities, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel: Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, So says YAHWEH, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.
3 And you shall not escape out of his hand, but surely shall be captured and delivered into his hand. And your eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak, his mouth with your mouth; and you shall go to Babylon.
4 Yet hear the Word of YAHWEH, O Zedekiah, king of Judah: So says YAHWEH concerning you, You shall not die by the sword.
5 You shall die in peace. And as the burnings of spices for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so they shall burn spices for you, saying, Ah, master! They will wail for you. For I have spoken the Word, says YAHWEH.
6 And Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these Words to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem,
7 when the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that remained; against Lachish, and against Azekah; for these fortified cities remained of the cities of Judah.
8 The Word that was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH after King Zedekiah had cut a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem, to proclaim freedom to them,
9 that each man should release his male slave, and each man his female slave, if a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, to go free, that not any should enslave a Jew, a man, his brother among them.
10 And all the rulers obeyed, and all the people who had entered into the covenant allowed them to go free, each man his male slave, and each man his female slave; so that not any should enslave among them any more; and they obeyed and let them go.
11 But afterward they turned and caused to return the male slaves and the female slaves whom they sent away. And they subjected them for male slaves and for female slaves.
12 For this reason the Word of YAHWEH came to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
13 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel: I cut a covenant with your fathers in the day I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying,
14 At the end of seven years each man should let go his brother who is a Hebrew, who has been sold to him. When he has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you. But your fathers did not listen to Me nor stretch out their ear.
15 And you had turned today, and you did right in My eyes, to call for freedom, each man to his neighbor. And you cut a covenant before Me in the house on which is called My name.
16 But you turned and profaned My name, and each man caused his male slave, and each man his female slave, to return whom you had sent away according to their desire. And you subjected them to be slaves and female slaves to you.
17 So YAHWEH says this: You have not listened to Me, to call for liberty, each man to his brother, and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I call for freedom to you, says YAHWEH: to the sword, to the plague, and to the famine. And I will give you for a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
18 And I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not stood on the words of the covenant which they have cut with Me when they cut the calf in two, and passed between its pieces,
19 the rulers of Judah and the rulers of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf;
20 I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those seeking their life. And their dead bodies shall be for food to the birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the earth.
21 And I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his rulers, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those seeking their life, even into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army that has gone up from you.
22 Behold, I will command and cause them to return to this city, says YAHWEH. And they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, so that no inhabitant can live in it.
~Jer Chapter 35 ~
1 The Word which was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
2 Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak to them, and bring them to the house of YAHWEH, into one of the rooms, and give them wine to drink.
3 Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his brothers, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites.
4 And I brought them into the house of YAHWEH, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a man of Elohim, which was near the room of the rulers, above the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold.
5 And I set bowls and cups full of wine before the sons of the house of the Rechabites. And I said to them, Drink wine.
6 But they said, We will not drink wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, commanded us, saying, You shall not drink wine, you nor your sons forever.
7 And you shall not build a house nor sow seed, nor plant a vineyard, nor shall there be anything to you; but all your days you shall live in tents, so that you may live many days on the face of the land where you are residing.
8 And we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, to all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, and our daughters,
9 nor to build houses for us for our dwelling; nor do we have a vineyard, or field, or seed.
10 But we live in tents, and we have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.
11 But it happened when Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, then we said, Come, and let us go to Jerusalem, because of the army of the Chaldeans and because of the army of the Syrians. And we live in Jerusalem.
12 Then the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah, saying,
13 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Go and tell the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction, to listen to My Words? says YAHWEH.
14 The words of Jonadab, the son of Rechab are done, in which he commanded his sons not to drink wine. And to this day they do not drink, but obey their father’s command. But I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking; and you did not listen to Me.
15 I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending, saying, Each man now turn back from his evil way, and amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and you shall live in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers. But you have not bowed your ear, nor listened to Me.
16 Because the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have stood on the command of their father which he gave them, but this people has not listened to Me,
17 so YAHWEH, Elohim of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, says this, Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem all the evil that I have spoken against them because I have spoken to them, but they did not listen. Yea, I have called to them, but they did not answer.
18 And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Because you have obeyed your father Jonadab’s command, and have kept all his commands, and have done according to all that he has commanded you,
19 so YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, says this: Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not have a man cut off from standing before Me all the days.
~Jer Chapter 36 ~
1 And it happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this Word was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, saying,
2 Take a scroll of a book for yourself and write in it all the Words that I have spoken to you against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day.
3 It may be the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I plan to do to them, that they may each man turn from his evil way, and I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Neriah. And Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the Words of YAHWEH that He had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book.
5 And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I cannot go to the house of YAHWEH.
6 So you go and read in the scroll the Words of YAHWEH that you have written from my mouth, in the house of YAHWEH, in the ears of the people on the day of fasting . And also you shall read them in the ears of all Judah who come out from their cities.
7 Perhaps their pleading will fall before YAHWEH, and each man will turn from his evil way. For great is the anger and the wrath that YAHWEH has spoken against this people.
8 And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the Words of YAHWEH in the house of YAHWEH.
9 And it happened in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, they called a fast before YAHWEH, to all the people of Jerusalem, and to all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem.
10 And Baruch read in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of YAHWEH, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entrance to the New Gate of the house of YAHWEH, in the ears of all the people.
11 When Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard all the Words of YAHWEH out of the book,
12 then he went down into the king’s house, into the scribe’s room. And, behold, all the rulers were sitting there, 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 rulers.
13 And Micaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.
14 And all the rulers sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take the scroll in your hand, in which you have read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch, the son of Neriah, took the scroll in his hand and came to them.
15 And they said to him, Sit down now and read it in our ears. So Baruch read in their ears.
16 And it happened, when they had heard all the Words, they turned each man to his companion in fear. And they said to Baruch, We will surely tell all these words to the king.
17 And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, how did you write all these words? From his mouth?
18 And Baruch said to them, He spoke all these words to me from his mouth, and I wrote with ink on the book.
19 And the rulers said to Baruch, Go, hide yourselves, you and Jeremiah; and do not let any man know where you are.
20 And they went in to the king, into the court. But they laid up the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe. And they told all the words in the ear of the king.
21 And the king sent Jehudi to take the scroll. And he took it out of the room of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the king’s ears, and in the ears of all the rulers who stood beside the king.
22 And the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, and with the burning fire pan before him.
23 And it happened, when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire in the fire-pan, until all the scroll was burned up in the fire that was in the fire-pan.
24 Yet the king and all his servants who heard these Words were not afraid, nor did they tear their garments.
25 But Elnathan, and Delaiah, and Gemariah had pleaded with the king that he should not burn the scroll, but he would not listen to them.
26 And the king commanded Jerahmeel, the son of Hammelech, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But YAHWEH hid them.
27 Then the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah, after the king had burned the scroll and the Words which Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying,
28 Take for yourself another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned.
29 And you shall say to Jehoiakim the king of Judah, So says YAHWEH, You have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you written on it, saying, surely, the king of Babylon shall come and destroy this land, and shall cause man and beast to cease from there?
30 Therefore, so says YAHWEH of Jehoiakim, king of Judah: There shall not be one to him to sit on 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.
31 And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their sin. And I will bring on them, and on the people of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the evil that I have spoken against them. But they did not listen.
32 Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote in it from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned in the fire. And again, many words like them were added to them.
~Jer Chapter 37 ~
1 And King Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchad-nezzar, king of Babylon, made king in the land of Judah.
2 But he did not listen to the Words of YAHWEH, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, which He spoke by Jeremiah the prophet.
3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal, the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Pray now for us to YAHWEH our Elohim.
4 And Jeremiah came in and went out among the people, for they had not put him into prison.
5 And Pharaoh’s army had come forth out of Egypt. And when the Chaldeans who besieged Jerusalem heard news of them, they went up from Jerusalem.
6 And the Word of YAHWEH was to the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
7 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, You shall say this to the king of Judah who sent you to Me to inquire of Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.
8 And the Chaldeans shall come again and fight against this city, and they will capture it and burn it with fire.
9 So says YAHWEH, Do not deceive yourselves, saying, surely the Chaldeans will go from us, for they shall not leave.
10 For though you had stricken the entire army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, yet they would rise up, each man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.
11 And it happened, when the army of the Chaldeans went up from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army,
12 then Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem, to go into the land of Benjamin to receive a portion from there in the midst of the people.
13 And it happened, he being in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard was there, and his name was Irijah the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah. And he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are falling to the Chaldeans.
14 And Jeremiah said, A lie! I am not falling to the Chaldeans. But he did not listen to him. And Irijah took Jeremiah and brought him to the rulers.
15 And the rulers were angry with Jeremiah and struck him, and they put him in the prison house, the house of Jonathan the scribe. For they had made it into a prison house.
16 When Jeremiah had gone into the house of the pit, and into the cells, then Jeremiah remained there many days.
17 And Zedekiah the king sent and took him out. And the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there Word from YAHWEH? And Jeremiah said, There is. For He said, You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.
18 And Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, What have I sinned against you, or against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me into the prison house?
19 Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, or against this land?
20 And now hear, I beg you, O my master the king, please let my plea fall before you, so that you do not make me return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I not die there.
21 And Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guardhouse, and that they should give him a piece of bread out of the baker’s street daily, until all the bread of the city was gone. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guardhouse.
~Jer Chapter 38 ~
1 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jehucal, the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur, the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken to all the people, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH, He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague. But he who goes forth to the Chaldeans shall live; and his life shall be a prize; and he shall live.
3 So says YAHWEH, This city giving shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, and he shall capture it.
4 And the rulers said to the king, Please cause this man to die. For in this way he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking these words to them. For this man does not seek the peace of this people, but the evil.
5 And Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand. For the king cannot do anything against you.
6 And they took Jeremiah and threw him into the pit of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse. And they let Jeremiah down with ropes. But no water was in the pit, only mud. So Jeremiah sank into the mud.
7 And Ebed-Melech, the Ethiopian man, of the eunuchs in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the pit (the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin).
8 Ebed-Melech went out of the king’s house and spoke to the king, saying,
9 My master the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have thrown into the pit. And it will be that he has died in his place because of the famine, for there is no more food in the city.
10 And the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take in your hand thirty men from here and bring up Jeremiah the prophet out of the pit before he dies.
11 And Ebed-Melech took the men in his hand and went into the king’s house, to under the treasury. And he took worn out clothes and worn out rags from there. And he let them down by ropes into the pit to Jeremiah.
12 And Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Now put these worn out clothes and rags under the armpits of your hands, under the ropes. And Jeremiah did so.
13 And they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and brought him up out of the pit. And Jeremiah dwelt in the court of the guardhouse.
14 And Zedekiah the king sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to him, into the third entrance in the house of YAHWEH. And the king said to Jeremiah, I will ask you a thing; do not hide a thing from me.
15 And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, If I declare it to you, surely will you not cause me to die? And if I counsel you, you will not listen to me.
16 And Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, As YAHWEH lives, who made us this soul, I will not cause you to die, nor will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.
17 And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: If surely you will go out to the rulers of the king of Babylon, then your soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire. And you and your house shall live.
18 But if you will not go out to the rulers of the king of Babylon, even this city shall be given into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire. And you shall not escape out of their hand.
19 And Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews who have fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they give me into their hand and they abuse me.
20 And Jeremiah said, They will not give. Please obey the voice of YAHWEH which I am speaking to you, and it will be well with you and your soul will live.
21 But if you refuse to go out, this is the Word YAHWEH has made me see:
22 Even, behold, all the women who are left in the house of the king of Judah shall be brought out to the rulers of the king of Babylon. And they will say, The men who look after your welfare have seduced you and have prevailed against you; your feet have sunk in the mire, and they turned back.
23 And they shall bring out all your wives and your sons to the Chaldeans. And you shall not escape out of their hand, but shall be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon. And this city shall be burned with fire.
24 And Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, Let not a man know of these words, and you shall not die.
25 But if the rulers hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you and say to you, Now tell us what you said to the king; do not hide it from us and we will not put you to death; also, What did the king say to you?
26 Then you shall say to them, I was causing my plea to fall before the king, that he should not return me to the house of Jonathan, to die there.
27 And all the rulers came to Jeremiah and asked him. And he told them according to all these words that the king had ordered. And they were silent with him, for the matter was not heard.
28 And Jeremiah dwelt in the court of the guardhouse until the day Jerusalem was captured. And he was there when Jerusalem was captured.
~Jer Chapter 39 ~
1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.
2 In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth of the month, the city was breached.
3 And all the rulers of the king of Babylon came in and sat in the middle gate: Nergal-Sharezer, Samgar-Nebo, Sarsechim, chief of the eunuchs, Nergal-Sharezer, chief magician, and all the rest of the rulers of the king of Babylon.
4 And it happened when Zedekiah, king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and went out from the city by night, the way of the king’s garden, by the gate between the two walls. And he went the way of the Arabah.
5 But the Chaldean army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the Arabah of Jericho. And they took him and brought him up to Nebuchad-nezzar king of Babylon, to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he spoke judgment on him.
6 And the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah. Also the king of Babylon slaughtered all the rulers of Judah.
7 And he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in bronze fetters, to make him go to Babylon.
8 And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house and the houses of the people with fire. And they broke down the walls of Jerusalem.
9 Then the rest of the people who remained in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to him, even the rest of the people who remained, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, exiled to Babylon.
10 But Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, left some of the poor people, who had not a thing to themselves, in the land of Judah. And he gave to them vineyards and fields on that day.
11 And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon commanded concerning Jeremiah by the hand of Nebuzaradan the chief of the executioners, saying:
12 Take him and set your eyes on him. But do not do anything evil to him. But do with him even as he shall say to you.
13 And Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, and Nebushasban the chief of the eunuchs, and Nergal-Sharezer, chief magician, and all the rulers of the king of Babylon, sent,
14 even they sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guardhouse. And they gave him to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to cause him to go out to the house. And he lived among the people.
15 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guardhouse, saying,
16 Go and speak to Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Behold, I am bringing My Words on this city for evil, and not for good. And they shall be before you in that day.
17 But I will deliver you in that day, states YAHWEH, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men, of those whom you fear.
18 For surely I will deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but your life shall be a prize to you, because you have trusted in Me, states YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 40 ~
1 The Word that was to Jeremiah from YAHWEH, after Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, had sent him from Ramah, when he had taken him (and he was bound in chains, among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah being exiled to Babylon).
2 And the chief of the executioners took Jeremiah and said to him, YAHWEH your Elohim has spoken this evil against this place.
3 And YAHWEH has brought it and has done according as He has spoken, because you have sinned and have not obeyed His voice, even this thing has come upon you.
4 And now, behold! I free you today from the chains on your hand. If it is good in your eyes to come with me into Babylon, come. And I will set my eye on you. But if it is evil in your eyes to come with me into Babylon, stay. Behold, all the land is before you, to go to the good and to the right in your eyes, go there.
5 Even while he had not yet returned, he said, Or go back to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and live with him among the people. Or to all that is right in your eyes to go, go. And the chief of the executioners gave him ration and a reward, and sent him away.
6 And Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and he lived with him among the people remaining in the land.
7 And when all the commanders of the army who were in the field, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, over the land, and had appointed with him men, and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, of those who were not exiled to Babylon,
8 then 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 of Netopha, and Jezaniah the son of the Maachathite, they and their men.
9 And Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore to them and to their men, saying, Do not fear to serve the Chaldeans. Live in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.
10 As for me, behold, I will live at Mizpah to stand before the Chaldeans who have come to us. But you, go gather wine, and the harvest, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and live in your cities that you have taken.
11 And when all the Jews in Moab, and among the sons of Ammon, and in Edom, and in all the lands, 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,
12 even all the Jews returned out of all places where they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits in great abundance.
13 And Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the commanders of the army that were in the field, came to Gedaliah, to Mizpah.
14 And they said to him, surely you know that Baalis, the king of the sons of Ammon, has sent Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, to strike your soul. But Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, did not believe them.
15 And Johanan, the son of Kareah, spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Please let me go, and I will strike Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and a man shall not know. Why should he strike your soul, and all the Jews who are gathered to you be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?
16 But Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, said to Johanan, the son of Kareah, You shall not do this thing. For you speak falsely concerning Ishmael.
~Jer Chapter 41 ~
1 And it happened in the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal seed, and of the chief ones of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, to Mizpah. And they ate bread together there in Mizpah.
2 And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men with him rose up and struck Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword. And they killed him whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.
3 Ishmael also struck all the Jews who were with him, with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war.
4 And it happened, the second day after he had killed Gedaliah; and no one knew,
5 men from Shechem came from Shiloh, and from Samaria, eighty men, having their beards shaved, and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, and with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring to the house of YAHWEH.
6 And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, went out from Mizpah to meet them, walking as he walked and was weeping. And it happened, as he met them, he said to them, Come to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam.
7 And it happened when they came into the middle of the city, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, killed them, he and the men with him, throwing them into the middle of the pit.
8 But ten men were found among them who said to Ishmael, Do not kill us, for we have treasures in the field, of wheat, and barley, and oil, and honey. So he held back, not killing them with their brothers.
9 And the pit there in which Ishmael had thrown all the dead bodies of the men, whom he had struck because of Gedaliah, was the one which Asa the king had made from the face of Baasha, king of Israel. Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, filled it with the slain.
10 And Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king’s daughters, and all the people who stayed in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, had entrusted to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam. And Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, took captive and went to go over to the sons of Ammon.
11 But when Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army heads with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had done,
12 then they took all the men and went to fight with Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah. And they found him by the many waters that are in Gibeon.
13 And it happened when all the people with Ishmael saw Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army heads with him, then they were glad.
14 And all the people that Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah turned around and came back, and went to Johanan, the son of Kareah.
15 But Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the sons of Ammon.
16 Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army heads with him, took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah (after he had killed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam), mighty men of war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought again from Gibeon.
17 And they departed and lived in the inn of Chimham, which is by Bethlehem, to go to enter Egypt,
18 because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had struck Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed in the land.
~Jer Chapter 42 ~
1 And all the army heads, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah, the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least even to the greatest, came near.
2 And they said to Jeremiah the prophet, We beg you, let our plea fall before you; and pray for us to YAHWEH your Elohim, for all this remnant, (for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us),
3 that YAHWEH your Elohim may show us the way in which we may walk, and the thing that we may do.
4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have heard. Behold, I will pray to YAHWEH your Elohim according to your words; and it shall be, all the word YAHWEH shall answer, I will declare to you. I will not keep back a thing from you.
5 And they said to Jeremiah, Let YAHWEH be a true and faithful witness between us if not according to all things YAHWEH your Elohim shall send you to us, so we will do.
6 Whether it is good, or whether evil, we will obey the voice of YAHWEH our Elohim, to whom we send you; so that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of YAHWEH our Elohim.
7 And it happened at the end of ten days, the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah.
8 And he called Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army heads with him, and all the people, from the least even to the greatest.
9 And he said to them, So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, to whom you sent me to cause to fall your petition before Him.
10 If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you up, and will not tear you down. And I will plant you, and will not pluck you up. For I repent as to the evil that I have done to you.
11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not be afraid of his face, declares YAHWEH, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand.
12 And I will show mercies to you, so that he may have pity on you, and cause you to return to your own land.
13 But if you say, We will not live in this land or obey the voice of YAHWEH your Elohim,
14 saying, No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war or hear the sound of the ram’s horn, and we will not hunger for bread, and there we will live;
15 then hear now the Word of YAHWEH, O remnant of Judah, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: If you surely set your faces to go into Egypt, and go to live there,
16 then it shall be, the sword which you feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt. And the famine which you were anxious about shall cling to you there in Egypt, and you shall die there.
17 So it shall be to all the men who have set their faces to go into Egypt to reside there. They shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague. And none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.
18 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, As My anger and My fury has flowed out upon the people of Jerusalem, so shall My fury flow out on you when you enter Egypt. And you shall be a curse, and a horror, and a shame, and a reproach, and you shall not see this place anymore.
19 YAHWEH has spoken concerning you, O remnant of Judah. Do not go into Egypt. surely, know that I have testified against you today.
20 For you used deceit against your souls when you sent me to YAHWEH your Elohim, saying, Pray for us to YAHWEH our Elohim; and according to all that YAHWEH our Elohim shall say, so declare to us, and we will do it.
21 And I have declared it to you this day, but you have not obeyed the voice of YAHWEH your Elohim, or anything for which He has sent me to you.
22 And now know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague in the place where you desire to go to sojourn.
~Jer Chapter 43 ~
1 And it happened when Jeremiah had finished speaking to all the people all the Words of YAHWEH their Elohim, for which YAHWEH their Elohim had sent him to them, all these words,
2 Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, then spoke, saying to Jeremiah, You speak falsely. YAHWEH our Elohim has not sent you to say, Do not go to Egypt, to sojourn there.
3 But Baruch, the son of Neriah, is inciting you against us, to give us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they might cause us to die, or exile us to Babylon.
4 And Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army commanders, and all the people, did not obey the voice of YAHWEH, to live in the land of Judah.
5 But Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the army heads, took all the remnant of Judah who had returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to sojourn in the land of Judah:
6 men, and women, and children, and the king’s daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah.
7 And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of YAHWEH. And they came to Tahpanhes.
8 And the Word of YAHWEH was to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,
9 Take great stones to your hand and hide them in the mortar in the brickwork which is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah.
10 And say to them, So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, Behold I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden. And he shall spread his royal pavilion over them.
11 And when he comes, he shall strike the land of Egypt. And whoever is for death shall go to death; and whoever is for captivity shall go into captivity; and whoever is for the sword, to the sword.
12 And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt. And he shall burn them, and take them captive. And he shall adorn himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd covers himself with his robe. And he shall go forth from there in peace.
13 He shall also break the obelisks of The House of the Sun which is in the land of Egypt; and he shall burn the houses of the gods of the Egyptians with fire.
~Jer Chapter 44 ~
1 The Word which was to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who were living in the land of Egypt, those living at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the land of Pathros, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. And, behold! This day they are a ruin, and no one lives in them,
3 because of the evil which they have done, by provoking Me to anger, by going to burn incense, by serving other gods that they did not know, they, you nor your fathers.
4 And, I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending, saying, Oh, do not do this abominable thing which I hate!
5 But they did not listen nor bow their ear, to turn from their evil, not to burn incense to other gods.
6 For this reason My fury and My anger poured out and burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem. And they are for a waste and for a desolation as at this day.
7 And now so says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel: Why do you work great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, not leaving to yourselves a remnant,
8 to provoke Me to wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, there where you have gone to reside, that I might cut you off, and that you might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?
9 Have you forgotten the evilness of your fathers, and the evilness of the kings of Judah, and the evilness of his wives, and your own evilness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have done in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
10 They are not crushed to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in My Torah, nor in My statutes which I have set before you and before your fathers.
11 So YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel says this: Behold, I will set My face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah.
12 And I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt, to reside there; and they shall all be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt. They shall be consumed by the sword, and by the famine. They shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword, and by the famine, and they shall be a curse, a horror, and a shame, and a reproach.
13 For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague,
14 so that none of the remnant of Judah which has gone into the land of Egypt, to reside there, will be a refugee, or a survivor, or turn back to the land of Judah to which they are lifting up their soul to return back to live there, for none shall return, except those who escape.
15 Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah saying,
16 As for the Word that you have spoken to us in the name of YAHWEH, we will not listen to you.
17 But we will certainly do whatever thing goes out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings, and our rulers, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. And we had plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.
18 But when we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been devoured by the sword and by the famine.
19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, and did we also, without our men make her cakes to worship her image, and pour out drink offerings to her?
20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people; to the men, and to the women, and to all the people who were answering,
21 The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you, and your fathers, your kings, and your rulers, and the people of the land, did not YAHWEH remember them? Yea, it came into His heart.
22 And YAHWEH could no longer bear because of the evil of your doings, because of the detestable things you have committed. For this reason your land is a waste, and a horror, and a curse, without one living in it, as at this day.
23 Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against YAHWEH, and have not obeyed the voice of YAHWEH, in His Torah, or in His statutes; and because you did not walk in His testimonies, therefore this evil has happened to you, as at this day.
24 Jeremiah also said to all the people, and to all the women, Hear the Word of YAHWEH, all Judah in the land of Egypt.
25 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, saying: You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hands, saying, surely we will perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her. Certainly, you lift up your vows and certainly, you perform your vows.
26 So hear the Word of YAHWEH, all Judah who reside in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by My great name, says YAHWEH, that My name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, Adonai YAHWEH lives.
27 Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah in the land of Egypt shall be destroyed by the sword, and by the famine, until they come to an end.
28 And he who escapes the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number. And all the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt, to reside there, shall know whose word shall stand, theirs or Mine.
29 And this shall be a sign to you, says YAHWEH, that I will punish you in this place, so that you may know that My Words surely shall stand against you for evil:
30 So says YAHWEH, Behold, I am giving Pharaoh-Hophra, king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of those who seek his soul, even as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchad-nezzar, the king of Babylon, his enemy that sought his soul.
~Jer Chapter 45 ~
1 The Word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch, the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a writing from the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
2 So says YAHWEH, the Elohim of Israel, to you, O Baruch:
3 You said, Woe is me now, for YAHWEH has added grief to my pain; I fainted in my groaning, and I find no rest.
4 So you shall say to him, YAHWEH says this: Behold, I am tearing down what I have built; and I am pulling up what I have planted, even all the land itself to Me.
5 And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them. For, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh, declares YAHWEH. But I will give your soul to you for a prize, there on all the places where you go.
~Jer Chapter 46 ~
1 The Word of YAHWEH which was to Jeremiah the prophet against the nations:
2 against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
3 Set in order the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.
4 Harness the horses, and mount, O horsemen. Yea, stand with helmets, polish the spears, put on coats of armor.
5 Why have I seen that they are afraid and turned backward? And their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled for refuge, and do not look back. Terror is all around, says YAHWEH.
6 Do not let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. They stumbled and fell to the north, by the side of the river Euphrates.
7 Who is this rising up like the Nile, whose waters surge about like the rivers?
8 Egypt rises up like the Nile, and his waters surge about like the rivers. And he says, I will go up and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and its people.
9 Come up, horses; and rage, chariots! And let the mighty men come forth, the Ethiopians and the Libyans who handle the shield, and the Lydians who handle and tread the bow.
10 For this is the day of Adonai, YAHWEH of Hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself of His foes. And the sword shall devour, and be filled to satisfaction, and made drunk with their blood, for there is a sacrifice to Adonai, YAHWEH of Hosts in the north country by the river Euphrates.
11 Go up into Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt. In vain you shall use many remedies; healing is not for you.
12 The nations have heard of your shame, and your cry has filled the land. For the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty; they have fallen together, both of them.
13 The Word that YAHWEH spoke to Jeremiah the prophet of the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to strike the land of Egypt.
14 Declare it in Egypt, and make it heard in Migdol, and make it heard in Noph and in Tahpanhes; say, Stand fast and get yourself ready, for the sword shall devour all around you.
15 Why is your mighty one swept away? He did not stand because YAHWEH thrust him down.
16 He made many stumble; yea, one fell on his neighbor. And they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, away from the oppressing sword.
17 They cried there, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is an empty roar; he has passed the appointed time.
18 As I live, says the King whose name is YAHWEH of Hosts, Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel is by the sea, he shall come.
19 O daughter dwelling in Egypt, get ready to go into captivity. For Noph shall be a waste, and set afire, without inhabitant.
20 Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but coming a stinger comes out of the north.
21 Also her hired ones are in the midst of her like calves of the stall; for they also have turned back, fleeing together. They did not stand because the day of their calamity had come on them, the time of their punishment.
22 Its sound is like a serpent’s going, for they shall go in force, and come against her with axes, like woodcutters.
23 They have cut down her forest, says YAHWEH, though it cannot be searched, because they are more than the locusts, and there is no number to them.
24 The daughter of Egypt shall be ashamed. She shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.
25 YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, says, Behold, I am punishing the multitudes of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods and her kings, even Pharaoh and those who trust in him.
26 And I will deliver them into the hand of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants. And afterward it will be inhabited, as in the days of old, declares YAHWEH.
27 But you, do not fear, O My servant Jacob; and do not be afraid, O Israel. For, behold, I am saving you from afar off, and your seed from the land of their exile. And Jacob shall return and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make afraid.
28 You shall not fear, O Jacob My servant, says YAHWEH, for I am with you. For I will make a full end of all the nations there where I have driven you. But I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you justly, and by no means will I leave you unpunished.
~Jer Chapter 47 ~
1 The Word of YAHWEH that was to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before Pharaoh struck Gaza.
2 So says YAHWEH, Behold, waters rise up out of the north and shall become an overflowing torrent. And it shall overflow the land and all its fullness; the city, and those who dwell in it. Then the men shall cry, and all the people of the land shall wail.
3 At the noise of the stamping of the hooves of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their sons, because of feebleness of hands;
4 because of the day that comes to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every survivor who helps. For YAHWEH will plunder the Philistines, the rest of the coast of Caphtor.
5 Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is ruined. O remnant of their valley, until when will you cut off yourself?
6 O sword of YAHWEH, until when will you not be quiet? Put yourself into your sheath; rest, and be still.
7 How can you be quiet, since YAHWEH has given it a command? He has set it there against Ashkelon, and against the seashore.
~Jer Chapter 48 ~
1 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, against Moab:) Woe to Nebo, for it is ravaged! Kiriathaim is put to shame and captured. The fortress is put to shame and razed.
2 Moab shall not still be praised. In Heshbon they have plotted evil against it, saying, Come and let us cut it off as a nation. And you shall be silenced, O madmen; a sword will go after you,
3 a voice of crying from Horonaim, plundering and great ruin!
4 Moab is broken up; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.
5 For in the ascent to Luhith, they shall go up with great weeping. For in the descent to Horonaim, the enemies have heard a cry of ruin.
6 Flee! Save your lives, and be like a bare juniper in the wilderness.
7 For because you have trusted in your works and in your treasures, you shall also be captured. And Chemosh shall go into exile; both his priests and his rulers.
8 And a plunderer shall come on every city, and no city shall escape. Also the valley shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as YAHWEH has spoken.
9 Give wings to Moab, for it will fly away; and its cities shall be a desert, without an inhabitant in them.
10 Cursed is he who does the work of YAHWEH deceitfully, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from blood.
11 Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel. He has not gone into captivity. So his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed.
12 So, behold, the days come, declares YAHWEH, that I will send pourers to him, who shall pour him off, and shall empty his vessels, and break their jars in pieces.
13 And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of their confidence in Bethel.
14 How do you say, We are mighty and strong men for war?
15 Moab is ravaged, and her cities have come up. And his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter, says the King whose name is YAHWEH of Hosts.
16 The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his evil hurries fast.
17 All who are around him mourn for him. And all who know his name, say, How the strong staff is broken, the beautiful rod!
18 O dweller, daughter of Dibon, come down from glory and sit in thirst. For a ravager of Moab shall come on you; he has ruined your strongholds.
19 O dweller of Aroer, stand by the way and watch. Ask him who flees and her who escapes; say, What has happened?
20 Moab is put to shame, for it is torn down. Wail and cry! Tell it in Arnon that Moab is ravaged.
21 And judgment has come to the plain country, on Holon, and on Jahazah, and on Mephaath,
22 and on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth-Diblathaim,
23 and on Kiriathaim, and on Beth-Gamul, and on Beth-Meon,
24 and on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near.
25 The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says YAHWEH.
26 Make Him drunk, for he magnified himself against YAHWEH. Moab also shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be a mockery.
27 For was not Israel a mockery to you? Was he found among thieves? Forever since you spoke of him, you lamented.
28 Dwellers of Moab, leave the cities, and live in the rock, and be like the dove who makes her nest in the sides of the mouth of the pit.
29 We have heard the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogance, and his elevated heart.
30 I have known, declares YAHWEH, his wrath, and it is not so; his lie, they have not done so.
31 On account of this I will wail for Moab, and I will cry out for all Moab, and he shall mourn for the men of Kirheres.
32 O vine of Sibmah, I will weep for you more than the weeping of Jazer. Your plants have crossed the sea; they reach to the sea of Jazer. A ravager has fallen on your harvest, and on your grape crop.
33 And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab. And I have caused wine to cease from the winepresses. None shall tread the grapes with shouting; their shouting shall be no shouting.
34 From the city of Heshbon to Elealeh, to Jahaz, they have given their voice, from Zoar to Horonaim, like a heifer three years old. For the waters of Nimrim also shall be desolate.
35 Also I will cause him who offers in the high places to cease in Moab, says YAHWEH, and he who burns incense to his gods.
36 On account of this my heart shall mourn for Moab, like flutes; and my heart shall sound like flutes for the men of Kirheres, because the riches that he has gotten have perished.
37 For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped. On all the hands shall be cuttings, and sackcloth on the loins.
38 On all Moab’s housetops, and in its streets, is wailing for all. For I have broken Moab like a vessel; no pleasure is in it, says YAHWEH.
39 They shall howl, saying, How it is broken down! How has Moab turned his back in shame! So Moab shall be a mockery, and a terror to all those around him.
40 For so says YAHWEH: Behold, he shall fly like an eagle, and shall spread his wings toward Moab.
41 Kerioth is captured, and the strongholds are seized. And the mighty men’s hearts in Moab shall be at that day like the heart of a woman being distressed.
42 And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he has magnified himself against YAHWEH.
43 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, shall be on you, O one living in Moab, declares YAHWEH.
44 He who flees from the dread shall fall into the pit. And he who goes up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare. For I will bring it on Moab, the year of their punishment, declares YAHWEH.
45 Those who fled stood powerless in the shadow of Heshbon, for a fire shall come out of Heshbon, and a flame out of the midst of Sihon, and shall devour the corner of Moab, and the crown of the head of the sons of tumult.
46 Woe to you, Moab! The people of Chemosh have perished. For your sons are taken away into exile, and your daughters into exile.
47 But I will restore the prisoners of Moab in the end of the days, declares YAHWEH. So far is the judgment of Moab.
~Jer Chapter 49 ~
1 So says YAHWEH to the sons of Ammon: Has Israel no sons? Or has he no heir? Why does their king inherit Gad, and his people dwell in its cities?
2 So, behold, the days come, declares YAHWEH, that I will cause a shout of war to be heard in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. And it shall be a heap, a ruin, and her daughter villages shall be burned with fire. Then Israel shall inherit his inheritance, says YAHWEH.
3 Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled! Cry, daughters of Rabbah, gird yourselves with sackcloth; mourn, and run to and fro in the walls. For their king shall go into exile, his priests and his rulers together.
4 Why do you glory in your valleys, your flowing valley, O backsliding daughter? She trusted in her treasures, saying, Who shall come to me?
5 Behold, I will bring a dread on you, declares YAHWEH of Hosts, from all those who are around you. And you shall be driven out, each man before him. And there shall be none to gather up the runaways.
6 And after this I will bring again the prisoners of the sons of Ammon, declares YAHWEH.
7 So says YAHWEH of Hosts concerning Edom: Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?
8 Flee, turn back, go deep to dwell, O people of Dedan. For I will bring the calamity of Esau on him in the time I will visit him.
9 If the grape gatherers come to you, would they not leave gleanings? If thieves come by night, will they destroy until they have enough?
10 But I have stripped Esau, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself. His seed is ravaged, also his brothers and his neighbors, and he is not.
11 Leave your orphans, I will keep them alive. And let your widows trust in Me.
12 For so says YAHWEH: Behold, those whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, surely they have drunk. And are you to be entirely acquitted? You shall not be acquitted, but surely you shall drink.
13 For I have sworn by Myself, declares YAHWEH, that Bozrah shall become a ruin, a reproach, a waste, and a curse. And all its cities shall be wastes forever.
14 I have heard a message from YAHWEH, and a herald is sent to the nations: Gather together and come against her, and rise up to the battle.
15 For, behold, I will make you small among the nations, despised among men.
16 Your dreadfulness has deceived you, the pride of your heart, you who live in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill. Though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there, declares YAHWEH.
17 And Edom shall be a ruin, everyone who goes by it shall be amazed and shall hiss at all its plagues.
18 As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and its neighbor, declares YAHWEH, no man shall remain there, a son of man shall not live in it.
19 Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the home of the strong. But I will suddenly make him run away from it. And who is the chosen one I shall appoint over it? For who is like Me? And who will summon Me? And who then is a shepherd who will stand before Me?
20 So then, hear the counsel of YAHWEH which He has planned against Edom, and His purposes which He has purposed against those living in Teman: Surely they shall drag them, the least of the flock. Surely He shall make their dwellings desolate over them.
21 The earth is shaken at the noise of their fall. When they cried, the noise of it was heard in the Red Sea.
22 Behold, he shall come up and fly like the eagle and spread his wings over Bozrah. And at that day the heart of the mighty men of Edom shall be like the heart of a woman being distressed.
23 Concerning Damascus: Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, for they have heard bad news, they are melted; anxiety is in the sea, it cannot be quiet.
24 Damascus has become feeble; she has turned to flee, and trembling has seized her; anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman giving birth.
25 How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy!
26 So her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be silenced in that day, says YAHWEH of Hosts.
27 And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus; and it shall burn up the palaces of Ben-Hadad.
28 So says YAHWEH concerning Kedar, and concerning the kingdoms of Hazor which Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, struck: Rise up, go up to Kedar, and strip the sons of the east.
29 They shall take their tents and their flocks. They shall take their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels, to themselves. And they shall cry to them, Terror is all around.
30 Flee, go far away, go deep to dwell, ones living in Hazor, declares YAHWEH. For Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has taken counsel against you, and has plotted a scheme against you.
31 Rise up, go up to the nation at ease, who dwells securely, declares YAHWEH; neither gates nor bars are on it, and they dwell alone.
32 And their camels shall be a prize, and the multitude of their cattle a prey. And I will scatter them to all winds, those who cut the corners of their beards. And I will bring their calamity from all sides of it, says YAHWEH.
33 And Hazor shall be a dwelling for jackals, a ruin forever. No man shall live there, nor any son of man stay in it.
34 The Word of YAHWEH that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, saying,
35 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, Behold I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might.
36 And I will bring the four winds from the four ends of the heavens on Elam, and will scatter them toward all those winds. And there shall be no nation where the outcasts of Elam shall not come.
37 And I will cause Elam to be afraid before their enemies and before those seeking their life. And I will bring evil on them, the burning of My anger, declares YAHWEH. And I will send the sword after them until I have destroyed them.
38 And I will set My throne in Elam, and I will destroy the king and the rulers from there, declares YAHWEH.
39 But it shall happen in the latter days; I will turn back the captivity of Elam, declares YAHWEH.
~Jer Chapter 50 ~
1 The Word that YAHWEH spoke against Babylon, against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet:
2 Declare among the nations, and make them hear, and lift up a banner. Make them hear, do not hide it; say, Babylon is captured, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken in pieces, her images are put to shame, her idols are broken in pieces.
3 For a nation comes up against her from the north, which shall make her land a desert. Yea, no one shall dwell in it. They shall flee, they shall go, both man and animal.
4 In these days, and at that time, the sons of Israel shall come, declares YAHWEH, they and the sons of Judah together, going and weeping; they shall go and seek YAHWEH their Elohim.
5 They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces pointing there, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to YAHWEH in an everlasting covenant never to be forgotten.
6 My people are lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they turned them away on the mountains, they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.
7 All who have found them have devoured them. And their foes said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against YAHWEH, the habitation of righteousness, and YAHWEH, their fathers’ hope.
8 Flee from the midst of Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flocks.
9 For, behold, I am stirring up and bringing up a company of great nations from a northern land against Babylon. And they shall array themselves against her. She shall be captured there; their arrows shall be as those of a mighty, skillful man; they shall not return empty.
10 And Chaldea shall be a prize; all who plunder her shall be satisfied, declares YAHWEH.
11 Because you rejoice, because you exult, O destroyers of My inheritance, because you are fat like the heifer in grass, and neigh like strong ones,
12 your mother shall be deeply ashamed, she who bore you shall turn pale. Behold, the last of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
13 Because of the wrath of YAHWEH, it shall not be inhabited, but all of it shall be a waste. Everyone who goes by Babylon shall be amazed and hiss at all her plagues.
14 Put yourselves in order against Babylon all around. All you who tread a bow, shoot at her. Do not spare arrows, for she has sinned against YAHWEH.
15 Shout against her all around. She has given her hand, her foundations have fallen, her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of YAHWEH. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.
16 Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one handling the sickle in the time of harvest. They shall turn from a sword of the oppressor, each one to his people. And they shall flee, each one to his own land.
17 Israel is a scattered sheep, driven away by lions. First, the king of Assyria devoured him. And last, this King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon crunched his bones.
18 So YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, says this: Behold, I am punishing the king of Babylon and his land as I have punished the king of Assyria.
19 And I will again bring Israel to his home, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.
20 In those days, and at that time, states YAHWEH, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and it is not; and the sins of Judah, and they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.
21 Go up against the land of Merathaim, against it and against the dwellers of Pekod . Waste and destroy after them, says YAHWEH, and do according to all that I have commanded you.
22 A sound of battle is in the land and of great ruin.
23 How the hammer of all the earth is cut off and broken! How Babylon has become a ruin among the nations!
24 I have laid a trap for you, and you also are captured, Babylon, and you did not know. You were found and also caught, because you stirred up yourself against YAHWEH.
25 YAHWEH has opened His armory and has brought out the weapons of His fury. For this is a work of Adonai, YAHWEH of Hosts, in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come against her from the end, open her granaries, pile her up as heaps and utterly destroy her. Do not let a remnant be left.
27 Put the sword to all her bulls, let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their punishment.
28 The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon to declare in Zion the vengeance of YAHWEH our Elohim, the vengeance of His sanctuary.
29 Make the archers hear against Babylon. All you who tread a bow camp against it all around. Let none of them escape. Repay her according to her work, according to all that she has done, do to her. For she has been proud against YAHWEH, against the Holy One of Israel.
30 So her young men shall fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be silenced in that day, declares YAHWEH.
31 Behold, I am against you, O proud one, says Adonai YAHWEH of Hosts, for your day has come, the time I will punish you.
32 And the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up. And I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall burn up everything all around him.
33 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, The sons of Israel and the sons of Judah are oppressed together. Yea, all who captured them held them fast, they refused to let them go.
34 Their Redeemer is strong, YAHWEH of Hosts is His name. surely He shall plead their cause, so that He may give rest to the land, and make to tremble the dwellers of Babylon.
35 A sword is on the Chaldeans, states YAHWEH, and on those living in Babylon, and on her rulers, and on her wise men.
36 A sword is on the liars, and they shall become fools; a sword is on her mighty men, and they shall be broken.
37 A sword is on his horses and his chariots, and to all the mixed people in her midst. And they shall become as women. A sword is to her treasuries, and they shall be robbed.
38 A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up. For it is the land of idols, and they boast themselves in idols.
39 So the beasts of the desert shall dwell there with jackals. And the daughters of the ostrich shall dwell in her again. And it shall not again have anyone in it forever; it shall not be lived in from generation and generation.
40 As Elohim overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors, states YAHWEH, so no man shall live there, nor shall a son of man stay in it.
41 Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the farthest parts of the earth.
42 They lay hold of a bow and a javelin, they shall be cruel and will show no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea, and arrayed like a man for the battle, they shall ride on horses against you, O daughter of Babylon.
43 The king of Babylon has heard their report, and his hands became limp; anguish took hold of him, pangs like a woman giving birth.
44 Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the home of the brave. But I will make them suddenly run away from it. And who is a chosen one I will appoint over it? For who is like Me? And who will summon Me? And who is a shepherd who will stand before Me?
45 So hear the counsel of YAHWEH that He has planned against Babylon, and His purposes which He has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them, the least of the flock. Surely He will make their dwelling desolate over them.
46 At the sound of Babylon’s capture, the earth shall tremble, and a cry is heard among the nations.
~Jer Chapter 51 ~
1 So says YAHWEH, Behold, I am arousing a destroying wind against Babylon and against those dwelling in the heart of My foes.
2 And I will send foreigners to Babylon who will sift her and shall empty her land. For in the day of evil they shall be against her all around.
3 Do not let the one treading fully tread his bow, nor go up in his armor. And do not spare her young men; utterly destroy all her army.
4 So the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, yea, pierced through in her streets.
5 For neither Israel nor Judah has been widowed by his Elohim, by YAHWEH of Hosts, though their land was filled with guilt against the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from the midst of Babylon; yea, each man deliver his soul. Do not be silenced in her iniquity. For it is the time of the vengeance of YAHWEH. He will give her a just recompense. He will repay her.
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of YAHWEH, making all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine, therefore the nations are mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen, and it is broken. Wail for her, take balm for her pain, if perhaps she may be healed.
9 We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let us go, each one into his own country. For her judgment reaches to the heavens and is lifted up to the skies.
10 YAHWEH has brought forth our righteousness; come and let us declare in Zion the work of YAHWEH our Elohim.
11 Purify the arrows, fill the shields; YAHWEH has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes. For His plan is against Babylon, to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of YAHWEH, the vengeance of His sanctuary.
12 Lift up the banner upon Babylon’s walls, make the watch strong; set up the watches, prepare the ambushes. For YAHWEH has both planned and has done that which He spoke against the people of Babylon.
13 O you who live by many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your unjust gain and covetousness.
14 YAHWEH of Hosts has sworn by Himself, saying, Surely I will fill you with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a shout against you.
15 He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
16 When He gives His voice, a multitude of waters is in the heavens, and He causes the mists to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightnings for rain, and brings forth the wind out of His treasuries.
17 Every man is foolish in knowledge, every refiner is put to shame by idols. For his cast image is a lie, and no breath is in them.
18 They are vanity, the work of errors; in the time of their punishment they shall perish.
19 The Portion of Jacob is not like them, for He is the Former of all things, and He is the rod of His inheritance, YAHWEH of Hosts is His name.
20 You are My war club and weapons of war, for with you I will shatter nations and with you I will destroy kingdoms.
21 And with you I will shatter the horse and his rider, and with you I will shatter the chariot and his charioteer.
22 And I will shatter man and woman with you, and with you I will shatter old and young, and with you I will shatter the young man and the girl.
23 And I will shatter the shepherd and his flock with you. And I will shatter the farmer and his team with you, and with you I will shatter heads and rulers.
24 And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldea all the evil that they have done in Zion, before your eyes, declares YAHWEH.
25 Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, declares YAHWEH, who destroys all the earth. And I will stretch out My hand on you, and will roll you down from the rocks, and I will make you a burned mountain,
26 and they shall not take a stone from you for a corner, or a stone for foundations, but you shall be a waste forever, says YAHWEH.
27 Set up a banner in the land. Blow a rams horn among the nations; consecrate nations against her. Make to hear the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together against her, set a marshal against her. Cause the horses to come up like rough locusts.
28 Consecrate nations against her, with the kings of the Medes, her governors and all her rulers, and all the land of his dominion.
29 And the land trembles and writhes in pain. For every purpose of YAHWEH shall be done against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a waste without one living in it.
30 The mighty men of Babylon have stopped fighting. They have dwelt in their strongholds; their might has withered; they became as women; they have burned their houses, her bars are broken.
31 A runner shall run to meet a runner, and a herald to meet a herald, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city is captured from end to end,
32 and that the fords are captured. And they have burned the reeds with fire, and the men of war are terrified.
33 For so says YAHWEH of Hosts, the Elohim of Israel, The daughter of Babylon is like a grain floor, it is time to trample her. Yet a little while, and the time of her harvest will come.
34 Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has devoured us. He has crushed us. He has made us an empty vessel. He has swallowed us like a jackal. He has filled his belly with delicacies. He has thrown me out.
35 The violence done to me and to my flesh is on Babylon, the one living in Zion shall say. And Jerusalem shall say, My blood shall be on those living in Chaldea.
36 So YAHWEH says this: Behold, I will strive for you and take vengeance for you. And I will dry up her sea and make her well dry.
37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a home for jackals, a horror and a hissing, without even one inhabitant.
38 They shall roar together like lions, they shall growl like lions’ cubs.
39 In their heat, I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunk so that they rejoice and sleep a never ending sleep and never awaken, says YAHWEH.
40 I shall bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats.
41 How Sheshach is captured! And how the praise of all the earth is seized! How Babylon has become a ruin among the nations!
42 The sea has come up over Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of its waves.
43 Her cities have become a ruin, a dry land and a wilderness, a land in which no man dwells, nor does any son of man pass by it.
44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. And the nations shall not flow together any more to him; yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
45 My people, go out of her midst, and deliver each man his soul from the burning anger of YAHWEH.
46 And that your heart not faint, and you fear the report that shall be heard in the land, the report shall come in a year. And after that the report shall come in another year, and there shall be violence in the land, governor against governor.
47 So behold, the days come that I will punish on the idols of Babylon. And all her land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in her midst.
48 Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall shout for Babylon. For the plunderers shall come to her from the north, says YAHWEH.
49 As Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel, so for Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall.
50 You who have escaped the sword, go away. Do not stand still. Remember (Aleph/Tav) YAHWEH afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
51 We have turned pale because we have heard reproach, dishonor has covered our faces. For foreigners have come into the holy places of the house of YAHWEH.
52 So, behold, the days are coming, says YAHWEH, that I will punish on her idols, and through all her land the wounded shall groan.
53 Though Babylon should ascend up to the heavens, and though she should fortify her strong height, plunderers shall come from Me to her, states YAHWEH.
54 A sound of a cry from Babylon, and great ruin from the land of Chaldeans!
55 For YAHWEH is stripping Babylon, and the great voice will perish out of her. And her waves will roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is given.
56 Because the plunderer is coming on her, on Babylon, and her mighty men are captured, their bows are shattered; for YAHWEH the El of vengeance, surely shall repay.
57 And I will make her rulers drunk, also her wise ones, her governors, and her rulers, and her prefects; and they shall sleep a never-ending sleep, and not awaken, says the King whose name is YAHWEH of Hosts.
58 So says YAHWEH of Hosts, The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly laid bare, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. And the peoples shall labor as for vanity, and the peoples as for fire; and they shall be weary.
59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And Seraiah was a chief official.
60 So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, all these words that are written against Babylon.
61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon and shall see and shall cry all these words,
62 then you shall say, O YAHWEH, You have spoken against this place to cut it off so that none shall remain in it, from man to animal, but it shall be a ruin forever.
63 And it shall be, when you have finished calling out this book, you shall tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates.
64 And you shall say, In this way Babylon shall sink and shall not rise from the evil that I am bringing on her. And they shall be weary. So far are the words of Jeremiah.
~Jer Chapter 52 ~
1 Zedekiah was a son of twenty-one years when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother was Gametal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
2 And he did evil in the eyes of YAHWEH, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3 For it was because of the anger of YAHWEH in Jerusalem and Judah that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon, until YAHWEH had cast them out from His face.
4 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came, he and all his army against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built a siege wall against it all around.
5 And the city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6 And in the fourth month, in the ninth of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no food for the people of the land.
7 Then the city was breached, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. And the Chaldeans lay all around the city. And they went by the way of the Arabah.
8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the Arabah of Jericho. And all his army was scattered from him.
9 And they took the king and carried him up to the king of Babylon, to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgments against him.
10 And the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also slaughtered all the rulers of Judah in Riblah.
11 And he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah. And the king of Babylon bound him in bronze fetters and carried him to Babylon. And he put him in prison until the day of his death.
12 And in the fifth month, in the tenth of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchad-nezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.
13 And he burned the house of YAHWEH and the king’s house. And he burned all the houses of Jerusalem with fire, and all the houses of the great ones.
14 And all the army of the Chaldeans with the chief of the executioners broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.
15 Then Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, exiled some of the poor of the people, and the rest of the people who remained in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.
16 But Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, left some of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for farmers.
17 Also the Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in the house of YAHWEH, and the bases, and the bronze sea in the house of YAHWEH, and carried all the bronze from them to Babylon.
18 They also took away the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they served.
19 And the chief of the executioners took away the basins, and the fire-pans, and the bowls, and the pots, the lampstands, and the spoons, and the cups; what was gold, in gold, and what was silver, in silver,
20 the two pillars, one sea, and twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made in the house of YAHWEH. The weight of the bronze of all these vessels was not known.
21 And the pillars: the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a line of twelve cubits went around it, and its thickness was four fingers; it was hollow.
22 And a capital of bronze was on it; and the height of one capital was five cubits, with grating and pomegranates on the capitals all around, all of bronze. And like these was the second pillar, and the pomegranates.
23 And ninety-six pomegranates were on a side; all the pomegranates on the grating were a hundred all around.
24 And the chief of the executioners took Seraiah the head priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
25 He also took out of the city one eunuch who was in charge of the men of war, and seven men who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city, and the commander of the army’s scribe who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the middle of the city.
26 And Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, took them and led them to the king of Babylon, to Riblah.
27 And the king of Babylon struck them and slaughtered them in Riblah in the land of Hamath. And Judah was exiled from off his land.
28 This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar exiled: In the seventh year, three thousand and twenty three Jews;
29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred thirty two souls from Jerusalem;
30 in the twenty third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the executioners, exiled seven hundred forty five souls of the Jews. All the souls were four thousand and six hundred.
31 And it happened in the thirty seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty fifth of the month, Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, in the year of his reign lifted up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and brought him from the prison house.
32 And he spoke good to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon.
33 And he changed his prison garments, and he ate bread before his face continually all the days of his life.
34 And his allowance, in continual allowance, was given to him from the king of Babylon, the matter of a day in its day, until the day of his death, all the days of his life.