Jeremiah 34-39

New Catholic Bible

The Fall of Jerusalem

Chapter 34

Zedekiah Condemned. ¹ While Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and his entire army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the people in the empire he ruled were waging war against Jerusalem and all its towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² Go forth to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and say to him: Thus says the Lord: I intend to hand over this city to the king of Babylon, and he will order that it be burned to the ground. ³ And you yourself will not escape his clutches, for there is no doubt that you will be captured and delivered into his hands. With your own eyes you will see the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you face to face. Then you will go to Babylon.

⁴ But even so, listen to the promise of the Lord to you, Zedekiah, king of Judah. This is what the Lord promises in your regard: You will not die by the sword. ⁵ Rather, you will die a peaceful death. And just as the people burned spices in honor of your ancestors, the kings who preceded you, so they will mourn your passing and burn spices for you, as they lament, “Alas, O king.” I myself have made this promise, says the Lord.

⁶ The prophet Jeremiah revealed all these things to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in Jerusalem ⁷ while the army of the king of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem and the remaining cities of Judah that were left, Lachish and Azekah,^[a] for these were the only fortified cities of Judah that were still standing.

The Broken Promise. ⁸ This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to issue a proclamation of freedom for their slaves. ⁹ Everyone who had Hebrew slaves, whether male or female, was to grant them freedom, and no one would be allowed to keep a fellow Jew in the state of slavery.

¹⁰ All of the officials and the people who entered into this agreement, swearing that they would set free their male and female slaves so that they would not again be enslaved, obeyed and granted them their freedom. ¹¹ Afterward, however, they changed their minds and once again forced back into slavery those to whom they had granted their freedom.

¹² Then this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, saying, ¹⁴ “Every seventh year each one of you must set free any Hebrew who has sold himself to you as a slave and has served you for six years.”

Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or obey me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight by proclaiming that freedom was to be given to your brethren and even making a covenant with me in the house that bears my name. ¹⁶ Now, however, you have renounced that agreement and profaned my name when each of you took back the male and female slaves to whom you had granted freedom and forced them once again to be your slaves.

¹⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord: Inasmuch as you have not obeyed me and refused to grant deliverance to your neighbors and kinsmen, now I will proclaim deliverance for you—deliverance to the sword, to plague, and to famine. I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ As for those who have violated my covenant and refused to observe the terms of the covenant to which they agreed in my presence, I will treat them like the calf which they cut in two and then passed between its pieces.^{[b] 19} The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf ²⁰ will be handed over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the animals of the earth.

²¹ As for Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his officials, I will hand them over to their enemies who seek their lives and to the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you. ²² I will issue the command, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will attack it and capture it and burn it to the ground. And I will turn the towns of Judah into a desolate wasteland where no one dwells.

Chapter 35

Faithfulness of the Rechabites. ¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah: ² Go forth to the clan of the Rechabites^[c] and speak to them. Have them accompany you into one of the rooms of the house of the Lord and offer them wine to drink.

³ Therefore, I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, his brothers and all his sons, the entire clan of the Rechabites, ⁴ and I brought them into the house of the Lord, to the room of the sons of Hanan, son of Igdaliah, the man of God. This room adjoins the chamber of the princes and is above the room of Maaserah, the son of Shallum, the guardian of the threshold.

⁵ Then I set pitchers full of wine and some cups before the Rechabites, and I said to them, “Have some wine to drink.” ⁶ However, they replied, “We never drink wine. Our ancestor Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave us this command, ‘Neither you nor your children will ever drink wine. ⁷ Nor will you build houses or sow seed or plant vineyards or even own them. Rather, you will dwell in tents all the days of your life, so that you may live for a long time on the land where you are sojourners.’

⁸ “We have carefully followed all the commands given to us by our ancestor Jonadab, the son of Rechab. Throughout our lives we have never consumed wine, nor have our wives, our sons, or our daughters. ⁹ We have not built houses to live in, and we have no vineyards or fields or seed. ¹⁰ On the contrary, we have lived in tents and scrupulously obeyed everything commanded by our father Jonadab. ¹¹ But when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, invaded this land, we said, ‘Let us go to Jerusalem so that we may escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’ That is the reason why we are living in Jerusalem.”

¹² Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Go forth and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Will you never come to your senses and obey my words? says the Lord. ¹⁴ The command of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, to his descendants never to drink wine has been observed to this very day; in obedience to their ancestor, they have drunk no wine. But despite the fact that I have repeated this command to you countless times, you have not obeyed me.

¹⁵ I have continued to send to you all my servants the prophets who warned you repeatedly, “Turn back, every one of you, from your evil conduct, and cease to follow other gods to serve them. Then you will continue to live in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you did not pay attention and you refused to listen to me. ¹⁶ The descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have honored the command that their ancestors gave them. You, however, have not heeded my warnings.

¹⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: I am determined to bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem every disaster with which I threatened them because they would not listen when I spoke to them and did not answer when I called to them.

¹⁸ However, to the clan of the Rechabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of your father Jonadab, followed all of his instructions, and did everything that he ordered you to do, ¹⁹ therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: There will never fail to be a descendant of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, to stand before me forever.”

Chapter 36^[d]

Baruch Writes the Prophecies on a Scroll.^{[e] 1} In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you against Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day when I first spoke to you, during the reign of Josiah, until today. ³ Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disasters that I intend to inflict upon them, they will all turn back from their evil ways. Then I will forgive their wickedness and their sins.

⁴ Then Jeremiah summoned Baruch, the son of Neriah, and dictated everything that the Lord had spoken to him so that Baruch might write it all on a scroll. ⁵ He also gave Baruch the following instruction. “Inasmuch as I am prevented from entering the house of the Lord, ⁶ you yourself must go there, and on a fast day, in the hearing of all the people in the Lord’s house, you shall read from the scroll the words of the Lord that you wrote at my dictation.

“You shall read them also in the hearing of all the people of Judah who travel there from their towns. ⁷ Perhaps they will then plead before the Lord, and all of them will turn from their evil ways. For great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has threatened against this people.” ⁸ Then Baruch, the son of Neriah, prepared to do everything that the prophet Jeremiah had ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord’s house.

⁹ In the ninth month of the fifth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah, a fast before the Lord was proclaimed for all the people of Jerusalem and all those who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem. ¹⁰ Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper court, at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house, in the hearing of all the people.

¹¹ When Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the Lord that had been read from the scroll, ¹² he went down to the king’s palace and entered the scribe’s chamber, where all the officials were in session: Elishama the scribe, Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan, the son of Achbor, Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the other officials.

¹³ After Micaiah had reported to them all that he had heard when Baruch read from the scroll to the people, ¹⁴ the officials then sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shemaliah, the son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, “Come to us and bring with you the scroll that you read publicly to the people.” Holding the scroll in his hand, Baruch, the son of Neriah, came into their presence.

¹⁵ “Sit down,” they said to him, “and read it to us.” Baruch read it to them, ¹⁶ and when they had heard all the words, they turned to one another in alarm and said to Baruch, “We must certainly report this to the king.”

¹⁷ They then asked Baruch, “Please tell us how you came to write all these words. Were they dictated to you by Jeremiah?” ¹⁸ Baruch replied, “Jeremiah dictated all these words, and I wrote them down in ink on the scroll.” ¹⁹ Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must go into hiding, and be extremely careful not to let anyone know where you are.”

²⁰ Leaving the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe, the officials then went to the court of the king, and they reported all that had occurred. ²¹ The king sent Jehudi for the scroll, and he brought it from the room of Elishama the scribe and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him.

²² Since it was the ninth month of the year, the king was sitting in his winter residence, and there was a fire burning in a brazier in front of him. ²³ Each time Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the fire in the brazier until the entire scroll was finally consumed in the brazier’s flames.

²⁴ However, despite hearing all these words, neither the king nor any of his officials showed the slightest alarm, nor did they tear their garments. ²⁵ And although Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he refused to listen to them. ²⁶ Then the king ordered his son Jerahmeel, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah. However, the Lord had hidden them.

²⁷ After the king had burned the scroll with all the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ²⁸ Take another scroll and inscribe on it everything that was written on the first scroll which King Jehoiakim of Judah has burned. ²⁹ Also state clearly to Jehoiakim, the king of Judah: Thus says the Lord: You have dared to burn that scroll, saying: Why did you write in it that the king of Babylon without question will come and destroy this land and leave it devoid of men and animals?

³⁰ Therefore, thus says the Lord about King Jehoiakim of Judah: He will have no descendant to succeed him on the throne of David, and his dead body will be exposed to the blazing heat of the day and icy frost at night. ³¹ I will punish him and his offspring and his attendants for their wickedness, and I will bring down on them and on the citizens of Jerusalem and on the people of Judah all the disasters with which I threatened them, because they paid no heed to my warnings.

³² Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah had burned in the fire, in addition to many more words than there had been previously.

Chapter 37^[f]

Jeremiah’s Arrest. ¹ Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, was appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to be king in the land of Judah, succeeding Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim. ² However, neither he nor his officials nor the people of the land paid any heed to the words of the Lord that he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah.

³ Even so, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal, the son of Shelamiah, and the priest Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah, to the prophet Jeremiah with this message, “Please pray to the Lord, our God, for us.” ⁴ At that time Jeremiah had not been imprisoned, and he was still able to move freely among the people. ⁵ Meanwhile, Pharaoh’s army had set forth from Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem learned of this, they withdrew from there.

⁶ Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah: ⁷ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Give this reply to the king of Judah who sent you to consult me: Pharaoh’s army which has set out to help you will withdraw to its own country of Egypt, ⁸ and the Chaldeans will then resume their attack upon this city. They will capture it and burn it to the ground.

⁹ Thus says the Lord: Do not deceive yourselves with the belief that the Chaldeans will cease their attack on you, for they will not disappear. ¹⁰ Even if you managed to defeat the entire force of the Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and only those who were wounded were still left, they would rise up and burn this city to the ground.

¹¹ When the Chaldean army had withdrawn from their attack on Jerusalem after they learned of the approach of Pharaoh’s army, ¹² Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem for the territory of Benjamin to take possession of his share of a piece of property that he had inherited. ¹³ However, when he reached the Benjamin Gate, he encountered there the captain of the guard whose name was Irijah, the son of Shemaliah, the son of Hananiah. Irijah arrested the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” ¹⁴ Jeremiah answered him, “That is a lie. I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah refused to listen to him, and he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.

¹⁵ The officials were enraged at Jeremiah. After having him beaten, they ordered him to be confined in the house of Jonathan the scribe, which had been converted into a jail. ¹⁶ Jeremiah was placed in a cell in the dungeon where he remained for a lengthy period of time.

¹⁷ Later, King Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him, and he questioned him privately in his palace, asking him, “Is there any word from the Lord?” “There is,” Jeremiah replied. “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” ¹⁸ Jeremiah then asked King Zedekiah, “In what way have I wronged you or your ministers or this people that caused you to order me to be thrown into prison? ¹⁹ Where are your prophets now who prophesied to you that the king of Babylon would not attack you or this land?

²⁰ “Therefore, I beg you, my lord king, to grant my petition. Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe. If you do, I will die there.” ²¹ Therefore, King Zedekiah issued an order that Jeremiah was to be confined to the court of the guard, and that a loaf of bread was to be given to him each day from the Street of the Bakers until there was no more bread remaining in the city. And so Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

Chapter 38

Jeremiah in the Muddy Cistern. ¹ Shephatiah, the son of Mattan, Gedaliah, the son of Pashhur, Jucal, the son of Shemaliah, and Pashhur, the son of Malchiah, heard Jeremiah speaking these words to all the people, ² “Thus says the Lord: Whoever remains in this city will die by the sword, or famine, or pestilence. However, anyone who leaves it and surrenders to the Chaldeans will live; his life will be spared and he will live. ³ Thus says the Lord: Without any doubt this city will be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon who will capture it.

⁴ Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death. There is no question that he is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city as well as all the people by saying such things to them. For this man is not interested in the welfare of these people but rather is seeking their ruin.”

⁵ King Zedekiah replied, “He is in your power.” For the king was powerless to oppose them. ⁶ Therefore, they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting him down with ropes. There was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.

⁷ However, it so happened that an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech,^[g] who was a eunuch in the king’s palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. Therefore, he decided to report this to the king, ⁸ and he left the palace to speak to the king who at that moment was seated at the Benjamin Gate. ⁹ “My lord king,” he said, “these men have acted wickedly in their treatment of the prophet Jeremiah. They threw him into a cistern and left him there to die of hunger, for there is no more bread left in the city.”

¹⁰ The king instructed Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, to take three men along with him and lift the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern before he perished. ¹¹ Ebed-melech went to the palace with the men after first taking from a storage closet in the palace some old tattered rags and worn-out clothes which he lowered with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. ¹² Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian called down to Jeremiah, “Put those old rags and clothes under your armpits to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, ¹³ and then they pulled him up with the ropes out of the cistern. But Jeremiah continued to remain in the court of the guard.

¹⁴ King Zedekiah summoned the prophet Jeremiah and received him at the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. “I have something to ask you,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not conceal anything from me.” ¹⁵ Jeremiah replied to Zedekiah, “If I speak in a straightforward manner, you will have me put to death, won’t you? And if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” ¹⁶ But King Zedekiah then swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah, “As the Lord lives who gave us the breath of life, I will not put you to death, nor will I hand you over to those who seek your life.”

¹⁷ Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared, and this city will not be burned to the ground, and you and your family will live. ¹⁸ However, if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, this city will fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, who will destroy it with fire, and you yourself will not be able to escape their clutches.”

¹⁹ King Zedekiah then said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans. It very well might be that I will be handed over to them and they will be ruthless in their treatment of me.” ²⁰ Jeremiah replied, “You will not be handed over to them. If you obey the Lord by doing everything I tell you, all will go well with you, and your life will be spared. ²¹ But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has shown me. ²² He has given me a vision of all the women left in the palace of the king of Judah being led off to the officials of the king of Babylon and saying,

²³ “All your wives and your children will be led off to the Chaldeans, and you yourself will not escape their clutches. Rather, you will be handed over to the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned to the ground.”

²⁴ Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know of this conversation, or you will die. ²⁵ If the officials learn that I have spoken with you, and they say to you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what he said to you; do not hold anything back from us or we will put you to death,’ ²⁶ give them this answer, ‘I was simply pleading with the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’ ”

²⁷ All the officials did come to Jeremiah to interrogate him, and he replied to them in the very same words that the king had commanded. Therefore, they ceased to question him, for no one had heard their conversation. ²⁸ And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was captured.

Chapter 39

Jeremiah and Gedaliah. ¹ In the tenth month of the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, marched into battle against Jerusalem with his entire army and laid siege to it. ² Then, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, on the ninth day of the fourth month, a breach was made in the wall of the city. ³ Thereupon, all of the officials of the king of Babylon came forward and took their seats at the middle gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, who was a high dignitary, another Nergal-sharezer, who was the chief astrologer, and all of the other dignitaries in the king’s service.

⁴ When King Zedekiah of Judah beheld them, he and all of his soldiers fled, departing from the city during the night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls, and they set off in the direction of the Arabah. ⁵ However, the army of the Chaldeans set off in pursuit of them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. After they had captured him, they took him to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, at Riblah in the land of Hamath, who passed sentence on him.

⁶ The king of Babylon ordered the sons of Zedekiah to be slaughtered at Riblah before their father’s eyes, and he also sentenced all the nobles of Judah to be put to death. ⁷ Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah and ordered him to be taken to Babylon bound in chains.

⁸ The Chaldeans burned to the ground the royal palace and the houses of the people, and they demolished the walls of Jerusa-lem. ⁹ Then Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, deported to Babylon the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the remaining workmen. ¹⁰ However Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing, and at the same time, he gave them vineyards and fields.

¹¹ Concerning Jeremiah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon gave the following orders to Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, ¹² “Take him and look after him. Do him no harm, but grant him whatever he requests.” ¹³ Then Nebuzaradan, the commander, the commander of the guard, and Nebushazban, a high-ranking dignitary, and Nergal-sharezer, an important official, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon ¹⁴ ordered Jeremiah to be taken from the court of the guard and entrusted to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be brought safely home. Thus he remained among his own people.

¹⁵ A Blessing for Ebed-melech. While Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him. ¹⁶ “Go and tell Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am now going to fulfill the words I have spoken against this city for its ruin and not for its prosperity, and those promises will be fulfilled before your very eyes.

¹⁷ “However, I will rescue you on that day, says the Lord. You will not be handed over to those whom you so greatly fear. ¹⁸ For I will save you. You will not fall by the sword, but you will escape with your life because you have placed your trust in me, says the Lord.”