Bible in 90 Days

²³ The Lord spoke to Jeremiah again and said: ²⁴ Have you heard what people are saying?—that the Lord chose Judah and Israel and then abandoned them! They are sneering and saying that Israel isn’t worthy to be counted as a nation. ^25-26 But this is the Lord’s reply: I would no more reject my people than I would change my laws of night and day, of earth and sky. I will never abandon the Jews, or David my servant, or change the plan that his child will someday rule these descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead I will restore their prosperity and have mercy on them.

34 This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his armies from all the kingdoms he ruled, came and fought against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah:

² Go tell Zedekiah, king of Judah, that the Lord says this: I will give this city to the king of Babylon and he shall burn it. ³ You shall not escape; you shall be captured and taken before the king of Babylon; he shall pronounce sentence against you and you shall be exiled to Babylon. ⁴ But listen to this, O Zedekiah, king of Judah: God says you won’t be killed in war and carnage ⁵ but that you will die quietly among your people, and they will burn incense in your memory, just as they did for your fathers. They will weep for you and say, “Alas, our king is dead!” This I have decreed, says the Lord.

⁶ So Jeremiah delivered the message to King Zedekiah. ⁷ At this time the Babylonian army was besieging Jerusalem, Lachish, and Azekah—the only walled cities of Judah still standing.

⁸ This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah of Judah had freed all the slaves in Jerusalem— ⁹ (for King Zedekiah had ordered everyone to free his Hebrew slaves, both men and women. He had said that no Jew should be the master of another Jew for all were brothers. ¹⁰ The princes and all the people had obeyed the king’s command and freed their slaves, but the action was only temporary. ¹¹ They changed their minds and made their servants slaves again.^{[a] 12} That is why the Lord gave the following message to Jerusalem.)

¹³ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your fathers long ago when I brought them from their slavery in Egypt. ¹⁴ I told them that every Hebrew slave must be freed after serving six years. But this was not done. ¹⁵ Recently you began doing what was right, as I commanded you, and freed your slaves. You had solemnly promised me in my Temple that you would do it. ¹⁶ But now you refuse and have defiled my name by shrugging off your oath and have made them slaves again.

¹⁷ Therefore, says the Lord, because you will not listen to me and release them, I will release you to the power of death by war and famine and disease. And I will scatter you over all the world as exiles. ^18-19 Because you have refused the terms of our contract, I will cut you apart just as you cut apart the calf when you walked between its halves to solemnize your vows. Yes, I will butcher you, whether you are princes, court officials, priests, or people—for you have broken your oath. ²⁰ I will give you to your enemies, and they shall kill you. I will feed your dead bodies to the vultures and wild animals. ²¹ And I will surrender Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his officials to the army of the king of Babylon, though he has departed from the city for a little while. ²² I will summon the Babylonian armies back again, and they will fight against it and capture this city and burn it. And I will see to it that the cities of Judah are completely destroyed and left desolate without a living soul.

35 This is the message the Lord gave Jeremiah when Jehoiakim (son of Josiah) was the king of Judah:^[b]

² Go to the settlement where the families of the Rechabites live and invite them to the Temple. Take them into one of the inner rooms and offer them a drink of wine.

³ So I went over to see Jaazaniah (son of Jeremiah, who was the son of Habazziniah) and brought him and all his brothers and sons—representing all the Rechab families— ⁴ to the Temple, into the room assigned for the use of the sons of Hanan the prophet (the son of Igdaliah). This room was located next to the one used by the palace official, directly above the room of Maaseiah (son of Shallum), who was the Temple doorman. ⁵ I set cups and jugs of wine before them and invited them to have a drink, ⁶ but they refused.

“No,” they said. “We don’t drink, for Jonadab our father (son of Rechab) commanded that none of us should ever drink, neither we nor our children forever. ⁷ He also told us not to build houses or plant crops or vineyards and not to own farms, but always to live in tents; and that if we obeyed, we would live long, good lives in our own land. ⁸ And we have obeyed him in all these things. We have never had a drink of wine since then, nor have our wives or our sons or daughters either. ⁹ We haven’t built houses or owned farms or planted crops. ¹⁰ We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed everything that Jonadab our father commanded us. ¹¹ But when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, arrived in this country, we were afraid and decided to move to Jerusalem. That’s why we are here.”

¹² Then the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah:

¹³ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: Go and say to Judah and Jerusalem, Won’t you learn a lesson from the families of Rechab? ¹⁴ They don’t drink because their father told them not to. But I have spoken to you again and again, and you won’t listen or obey. ¹⁵ I have sent you prophet after prophet to tell you to turn back from your wicked ways and to stop worshiping other gods, and that if you obeyed, then I would let you live in peace here in the land I gave to you and your fathers. But you wouldn’t listen or obey. ¹⁶ The families of Rechab have obeyed their father completely, but you have refused to listen to me. ¹⁷ Therefore, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Because you refuse to listen or answer when I call, I will send upon Judah and Jerusalem all the evil I have ever threatened.

^18-19 Then Jeremiah turned to the Rechabites and said: “The Lord, the God of Israel, says that because you have obeyed your father in every respect, he shall always have descendants who will worship me.”

36 In the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim^[c] of Judah (son of Josiah) the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah:

² “Get a scroll and write down all my messages against Israel, Judah, and the other nations. Begin with the first message back in the days of Josiah, and write down every one of them. ³ Perhaps when the people of Judah see in writing all the terrible things I will do to them, they will repent. And then I can forgive them.”

⁴ So Jeremiah sent for Baruch (son of Neriah), and as Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote down all the prophecies.

⁵ When all was finished, Jeremiah said to Baruch, “Since I am a prisoner here, ⁶ you read the scroll in the Temple on the next day of fasting, for on that day people will be there from all over Judah. ⁷ Perhaps even yet they will turn from their evil ways and ask the Lord to forgive them before it is too late, even though these curses of God have been pronounced upon them.”

⁸ Baruch did as Jeremiah told him to and read all these messages to the people at the Temple. ⁹ This occurred on the day of fasting held in December of the fifth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim (son of Josiah). People came from all over Judah to attend the services at the Temple that day. ¹⁰ Baruch went to the office of Gemariah the scribe (son of Shaphan) to read the scroll. (This room was just off the upper assembly hall of the Temple, near the door of the New Gate.)

¹¹ When Micaiah (son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan) heard the messages from God, ¹² he went down to the palace to the conference room where the administrative officials were meeting. Elishama (the scribe) was there, as well as Delaiah (son of Shemaiah), Elnathan (son of Achbor), Gemariah (son of Shaphan), Zedekiah (son of Hananiah), and all the others with similar responsibilities. ¹³ When Micaiah told them about the messages Baruch was reading to the people, ^14-15 the officials sent Jehudi (son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi) to ask Baruch to come and read the messages to them too, and Baruch did.

¹⁶ By the time he finished they were badly frightened. “We must tell the king,” they said. ¹⁷ “But first, tell us how you got these messages. Did Jeremiah himself dictate them to you?” ¹⁸ So Baruch explained that Jeremiah had dictated them to him word by word, and he had written them down in ink upon the scroll. ¹⁹ “You and Jeremiah both hide,” the officials said to Baruch. “Don’t tell a soul where you are!” ²⁰ Then the officials hid the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe and went to tell the king.

²¹ The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. Jehudi brought it from Elishama the scribe and read it to the king as all his officials stood by. ²² The king was in a winterized part of the palace at the time, sitting in front of a fireplace,^[d] for it was December and cold. ²³ And whenever Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king would take his knife, slit off the section, and throw it into the fire, until the whole scroll was destroyed. ^24-25 And no one protested except Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah. They pled with the king not to burn the scroll, but he wouldn’t listen to them. Not another of the king’s officials showed any signs of fear or anger at what he had done.

²⁶ Then the king commanded Jerahmeel (a member of the royal family^[e]) and Seraiah (son of Azriel) and Shelemiah (son of Abdeel) to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah. But the Lord hid them!

²⁷ After the king had burned the scroll, the Lord said to Jeremiah: ²⁸ Get another scroll and write everything again just as you did before, ²⁹ and say this to the king: “This is what the Lord says! You burned the scroll because it said the king of Babylon would destroy this country and everything in it. ³⁰ And now the Lord adds this concerning you, Jehoiakim, king of Judah: He shall have no one to sit upon the throne^[f] of David. His dead body shall be thrown out to the hot sun and frosty nights, ³¹ and I will punish him and his family and his officials because of their sins. I will pour out upon them all the evil I promised—upon them and upon all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, for they wouldn’t listen to my warnings.”

³² Then Jeremiah took another scroll and dictated again to Baruch all he had written before, only this time the Lord added a lot more!

37 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not appoint Coniah (King Jehoiakim’s son) to be the new king of Judah.^[g] Instead he chose Zedekiah (son of Josiah). ² But neither King Zedekiah nor his officials nor the people who were left in the land listened to what the Lord said through Jeremiah. ³ Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal (son of Shelemiah) and Zephaniah the priest (son of Maaseiah) to ask Jeremiah to pray for them. ⁴ (Jeremiah had not been imprisoned yet, so he could come and go as he pleased.)

⁵ When the army of Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt appeared at the southern border of Judah to relieve the besieged city of Jerusalem, the Babylonian army withdrew from Jerusalem to fight the Egyptians.

⁶ Then the Lord sent this message to Jeremiah: ⁷ “The Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to ask me what is going to happen, that Pharaoh’s army, though it came here to help you, is about to return in flight to Egypt! The Babylonians shall defeat them and send them scurrying home. ⁸ These Babylonians shall capture this city and burn it to the ground. ⁹ Don’t fool yourselves that the Babylonians are gone for good. They aren’t! ¹⁰ Even if you destroyed the entire Babylonian army until there was only a handful of survivors and they lay wounded in their tents, yet they would stagger out and defeat you and put this city to the torch!”

¹¹ When the Babylonian army set out from Jerusalem to engage Pharaoh’s army in battle, ¹² Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the land of Benjamin, to see the property he had bought.^{[h] 13} But as he was walking through the Benjamin Gate, a sentry arrested him as a traitor, claiming he was defecting to the Babylonians. The guard making the arrest was Irijah (son of Shelemiah, grandson of Hananiah).

¹⁴ “That’s not true,” Jeremiah said. “I have no intention whatever of doing any such thing!”

But Irijah wouldn’t listen; he took Jeremiah before the city officials. ^15-16 They were incensed with Jeremiah and had him flogged and put into the dungeon under the house of Jonathan the scribe, which had been converted into a prison. Jeremiah was kept there for several days, ¹⁷ but eventually King Zedekiah sent for him to come to the palace secretly. The king asked him if there was any recent message from the Lord. “Yes,” said Jeremiah, “there is! You shall be defeated by the king of Babylon!”

¹⁸ Then Jeremiah broached the subject of his imprisonment. “What have I ever done to deserve this?” he asked the king. “What crime have I committed? Tell me what I have done against you or your officials or the people? ¹⁹ Where are those prophets now who told you that the king of Babylon would not come? ²⁰ Listen, O my lord the king: I beg you, don’t send me back to that dungeon, for I’ll die there.”

²¹ Then King Zedekiah commanded that Jeremiah not be returned to the dungeon but be placed in the palace prison instead, and that he be given a small loaf of fresh bread every day as long as there was any left in the city. So Jeremiah was kept in the palace prison.^[i]

38 But when Shephatiah (son of Mattan) and Gedaliah (son of Pashhur) and Jucal (son of Shelemiah) and Pashhur (son of Malchiah) heard what Jeremiah had been telling the people— ² that everyone remaining in Jerusalem would die by sword, starvation, or disease, but anyone surrendering to the Babylonians would live, ³ and that the city of Jerusalem would surely be captured by the king of Babylon— ⁴ they went to the king and said: “Sir, this fellow must die. That kind of talk will undermine the morale of the few soldiers we have left, and of all the people too. This man is a traitor.”

⁵ So King Zedekiah agreed. “All right,” he said. “Do as you like—I can’t stop you.”

⁶ They took Jeremiah from his cell and lowered him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. (It belonged to Malchiah, a member of the royal family.) There was no water in it, but there was a thick layer of mire at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it.

⁷ When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an important palace official, heard that Jeremiah was in the cistern, ⁸ he rushed out to the Gate of Benjamin where the king was holding court.

⁹ “My lord the king,” he said, “these men have done a very evil thing in putting Jeremiah into the cistern. He will die of hunger, for almost all the bread in the city is gone.”

¹⁰ Then the king commanded Ebed-melech to take thirty men with him and pull Jeremiah out before he died. ¹¹ So Ebed-melech took thirty men and went to a palace depot for discarded supplies where used clothing was kept. There he found some old rags and discarded garments which he took to the cistern and lowered to Jeremiah on a rope. ¹² Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Use these rags under your armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then, when Jeremiah was ready, ¹³ they pulled him out and returned him to the palace prison, where he remained.

¹⁴ One day King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah to meet him at the side entrance of the Temple.

“I want to ask you something,” the king said, “and don’t try to hide the truth.”

¹⁵ Jeremiah said, “If I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And you won’t listen to me anyway.”

¹⁶ So King Zedekiah swore before Almighty God his Creator that he would not kill Jeremiah or give him to the men who were after his life.

¹⁷ Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Almighty Lord, the God of Israel, says: If you will surrender to Babylon, you and your family shall live and the city will not be burned. ¹⁸ If you refuse to surrender, this city shall be set afire by the Babylonian army and you will not escape.”

¹⁹ “But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians will hand me over to the Jews who have defected to them, and who knows what they will do to me?”

²⁰ Jeremiah replied, “You won’t get into their hands if only you will obey the Lord; your life will be spared, and all will go well for you. ^21-22 But if you refuse to surrender, the Lord has said that all the women left in your palace will be brought out and given to the officers of the Babylonian army; and these women will taunt you with bitterness. ‘Fine friends you have,’ they’ll say, ‘those Egyptians. They have betrayed you and left you to your fate!’ ²³ All your wives and children will be led out to the Babylonians, and you will not escape. You will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned.”

²⁴ Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “On pain of death, don’t tell anyone you told me this! ²⁵ And if my officials hear that I talked with you and they threaten you with death unless you tell them what we discussed, ²⁶ just say that you begged me not to send you back to the dungeon in Jonathan’s house, for you would die there.”

²⁷ And sure enough, it wasn’t long before all the city officials came to Jeremiah and asked him why the king had called for him. So he said what the king had told him to, and they left without finding out the truth, for the conversation had not been overheard by anyone. ²⁸ And Jeremiah remained confined to the prison yard until the day Jerusalem was captured.

39 It was in January of the ninth year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah that King Nebuchadnezzar and all his army came against Jerusalem again and besieged it. ² Two years later, in the month of July, they breached the wall, and the city fell, ³ and all the officers of the Babylonian army came in and sat in triumph at the middle gate. Nergal-sharezer was there, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Nergal-sharezer the king’s chief assistant, and many others.

⁴ When King Zedekiah and his soldiers realized that the city was lost, they fled during the night, going out through the gate between the two walls back of the palace garden and across the fields toward the Jordan Valley. ⁵ But the Babylonians chased the king and caught him on the plains of Jericho and brought him to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who was at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment upon him. ⁶ The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as they killed his children and all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in chains to send him away to Babylon as a slave.

⁸ Meanwhile the army burned Jerusalem, including the palace, and tore down the walls of the city. ⁹ Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, and his men sent the remnant of the population and all those who had defected to him to Babylon. ¹⁰ But throughout the land of Judah he left a few people, the very poor, and gave them fields and vineyards.

^11-12 Meanwhile King Nebuchadnezzar had told Nebuzaradan to find Jeremiah. “See that he isn’t hurt,” he said. “Look after him well and give him anything he wants.” ¹³ So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, and Nebushazban, the chief of the eunuchs, and Nergal-sharezer, the king’s advisor, and all the officials took steps to do as the king had commanded. ¹⁴ They sent soldiers to bring Jeremiah out of the prison, and put him into the care of Gedaliah (son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan), to take him back to his home. And Jeremiah lived there among his people who were left in the land.

¹⁵ The Lord gave the following message to Jeremiah before the Babylonians arrived, while he was still in prison: ¹⁶ “Send this word to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will do to this city everything I threatened; I will destroy it before your eyes, ¹⁷ but I will deliver you. You shall not be killed by those you fear so much. ¹⁸ As a reward for trusting me, I will preserve your life and keep you safe.”

40 Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took Jeremiah to Ramah along with all the exiled people of Jerusalem and Judah who were being sent to Babylon, but then released him.

^2-3 The captain called for Jeremiah and said, “The Lord your God has brought this disaster on this land, just as he said he would. For these people have sinned against the Lord. That is why it happened. ⁴ Now I am going to take off your chains and let you go. If you want to come with me to Babylon, fine; I will see that you are well cared for. But if you don’t want to come, don’t. The world is before you—go where you like. ⁵ If you decide to stay, then return to Gedaliah, who has been appointed as governor of Judah by the king of Babylon, and stay with the remnant he rules. But it’s up to you; go where you like.”

Then Nebuzaradan gave Jeremiah some food and money and let him go. ⁶ So Jeremiah returned to Gedaliah and lived in Judah with the people left in the land.

⁷ Now when the leaders of the Jewish guerrilla bands in the countryside heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor over the poor of the land who were left behind, and had not exiled everyone to Babylon, ⁸ they came to see Gedaliah at Mizpah, where his headquarters were. These are the names of the leaders who came: Ishmael (son of Nethaniah), Johanan and Jonathan (sons of Kareah), Seraiah (son of Tanhumeth), the sons of Ephai (the Netophathite), Jezaniah (son of a Maacathite), and their men. ⁹ And Gedaliah assured them that it would be safe to surrender to the Babylonians.

“Stay here and serve the king of Babylon,” he said, “and all will go well for you. ¹⁰ As for me, I will stay at Mizpah and intercede for you with the Babylonians who will come here to oversee my administration. Settle in any city you wish and live off the land. Harvest the grapes and summer fruits and olives and store them away.”

¹¹ When the Jews in Moab and among the Ammonites and in Edom and the other nearby countries heard that a few people were still left in Judah, and that the king of Babylon had not taken them all away, and that Gedaliah was the governor, ¹² they all began to return to Judah from the many places to which they had fled. They stopped at Mizpah to discuss their plans with Gedaliah and then went out to the deserted farms and gathered a great harvest of wine grapes and other crops.

^13-14 But soon afterwards Johanan (son of Kareah) and the other guerrilla leaders came to Mizpah to warn Gedaliah that Baalis, king of the Ammonites, had sent Ishmael (son of Nethaniah) to assassinate him. But Gedaliah wouldn’t believe them. ¹⁵ Then Johanan had a private conference with Gedaliah. Johanan volunteered to kill Ishmael secretly.

“Why should we let him come and murder you?” Johanan asked. “What will happen then to the Jews who have returned? Why should this remnant be scattered and lost?”

¹⁶ But Gedaliah said, “I forbid you to do any such thing, for you are lying about Ishmael.”

41 But in October, Ishmael (son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama), who was a member of the royal family and one of the king’s top officials, arrived in Mizpah, accompanied by ten men. Gedaliah invited them to dinner. ² While they were eating, Ishmael and the ten men in league with him suddenly jumped up, pulled out their swords, and killed Gedaliah. ³ Then they went out and slaughtered all the Jewish officials and Babylonian soldiers who were in Mizpah with Gedaliah.

⁴ The next day, before the outside world knew what had happened, ⁵ eighty men approached Mizpah from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, to worship at the Temple of the Lord. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and cut themselves, and were bringing offerings and incense. ⁶ Ishmael went out from the city to meet them, crying as he went. When he faced them he said, “Oh, come and see what has happened to Gedaliah!”

⁷ Then, when they were all inside the city, Ishmael and his men killed all but ten of them and threw their bodies into a cistern. ⁸ The ten had talked Ishmael into letting them go by promising to bring him their treasures of wheat, barley, oil, and honey they had hidden away. ⁹ The cistern where Ishmael dumped the bodies of the men he murdered was the large one constructed by King Asa when he fortified Mizpah to protect himself against Baasha, king of Israel.^[j]

¹⁰ Ishmael made captives of the king’s daughters and of the people who had been left under Gedaliah’s care in Mizpah by Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard. Soon after, he took them with him when he headed toward the country of the Ammonites.

¹¹ But when Johanan (son of Kareah) and the rest of the guerrilla leaders heard what Ishmael had done, ¹² they took all their men and set out to stop him. They caught up with him at the pool near Gibeon. ^13-14 The people with Ishmael shouted for joy when they saw Johanan and his men and ran to meet them.

¹⁵ Meanwhile Ishmael escaped with eight of his men into the land of the Ammonites.

^16-17 Then Johanan and his men went to the village of Geruth Chimham, near Bethlehem, taking with them all those they had rescued—soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs, to prepare to leave for Egypt. ¹⁸ For they were afraid of what the Babylonians would do when the news reached them that Ishmael had killed Gedaliah the governor, for he had been chosen and appointed by the Babylonian emperor.

42 Then Johanan and the army captains and all the people, great and small, came to Jeremiah ² and said, “Please pray for us to the Lord your God, for as you know so well, we are only a tiny remnant of what we were before. ³ Beg the Lord your God to show us what to do and where to go.”

⁴ “All right,” Jeremiah replied. “I will ask him and I will tell you what he says. I will hide nothing from you.”

⁵ Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the curse of God be on us if we refuse to obey whatever he says we should do! ⁶ Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we send you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.”

⁷ Ten days later the Lord gave his reply to Jeremiah. ⁸ So he called for Johanan and the captains of his forces, and for all the people, great and small, ⁹ and said to them: “You sent me to the Lord, the God of Israel, with your request, and this is his reply:

¹⁰ “Stay here in this land. If you do, I will bless you, and no one will harm you. For I am sorry for all the punishment I have had to give to you. ¹¹ Don’t fear the king of Babylon anymore, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. ¹² And I will be merciful to you by making him kind so that he will not kill you or make slaves of you but will let you stay here in your land.

^13-14 “But if you refuse to obey the Lord and say, ‘We will not stay here,’—and insist on going to Egypt where you think you will be free from war and hunger and alarms, ¹⁵ then this is what the Lord replies, O remnant of Judah: The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: If you insist on going to Egypt, ¹⁶ the war and famine you fear will follow close behind you, and you will perish there. ¹⁷ That is the fate awaiting every one of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. Yes, you will die from sword, famine, and disease. None of you will escape from the evil I will bring upon you there.

¹⁸ “For the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Just as my anger and fury were poured out upon the people of Jerusalem, so it will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be received with disgust and with hatred—you will be cursed and reviled. And you will never again see your own land. ¹⁹ For the Lord has said: O remnant of Judah, do not go to Egypt!”

Jeremiah concluded: “Never forget the warning I have given you today. ²⁰ If you go, it will be at the cost of your lives. For you were deceitful when you sent me to pray for you and said, ‘Just tell us what God says and we will do it!’ ²¹ And today I have told you exactly what he said, but you will not obey any more now than you did the other times. ²² Therefore know for a certainty that you will die by sword, famine, and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going.”

43 When Jeremiah had finished giving this message from God to all the people, ^2-3 Azariah (son of Hoshaiah) and Johanan (son of Kareah) and all the other proud men said to Jeremiah, “You lie! The Lord our God hasn’t told you to tell us not to go to Egypt! Baruch (son of Neriah) has plotted against us and told you to say this so that we will stay here and be killed by the Babylonians or carried off to Babylon as slaves.”

⁴ So Johanan and all the guerrilla leaders and all the people refused to obey the Lord and stay in Judah. ⁵ All of them, including all those who had returned from the nearby countries where they had fled, now started off for Egypt with Johanan and the other captains in command. ⁶ In the crowd were men, women, and children, the king’s daughters, and all those whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had left with Gedaliah. They even forced Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them too. ⁷ And so they arrived in Egypt at the city of Tahpanhes, for they would not obey the Lord.

⁸ Then at Tahpanhes, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah again and said: ⁹ “Call together the men of Judah and, as they watch you, bury large rocks between the pavement stones at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace here in Tahpanhes, ¹⁰ and tell the men of Judah this: The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will surely bring Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, here to Egypt, for he is my servant. I will set his throne upon these stones that I have hidden. He shall spread his royal canopy over them. ¹¹ And when he comes, he shall destroy the land of Egypt, killing all those I want killed and capturing those I want captured, and many shall die of plague. ¹² He will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt and burn the idols and carry off the people as his captives. And he shall plunder the land of Egypt as a shepherd picks fleas from his cloak! And he himself shall leave unharmed. ¹³ And he shall break down the obelisks standing in the city of Heliopolis and burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.”

44 This is the message God gave to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who were living in the north of Egypt in the cities of Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and throughout southern Egypt as well:

^2-3 The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You saw what I did to Jerusalem and to all the cities of Judah. Because of all their wickedness they lie in heaps and ashes, without a living soul. For my anger rose high against them for worshiping other gods—“gods” that neither they nor you nor any of your fathers have ever known.

⁴ I sent my servants, the prophets, to protest over and over again and to plead with them not to do this horrible thing I hate, ⁵ but they wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t turn back from their wicked ways; they have kept right on with their sacrifices to these “gods.” ⁶ And so my fury and anger boiled over and fell as fire upon the cities of Judah and into the streets of Jerusalem, and there is desolation until this day.

⁷ And now the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, asks you: Why are you destroying yourselves? For not one of you shall live—not a man, woman, or child among you who has come here from Judah, not even the babies in arms. ⁸ For you are rousing my anger with the idols you have made and worshiped here in Egypt, burning incense to them, and causing me to destroy you completely and to make you a curse and a stench in the nostrils of all the nations of the earth. ⁹ Have you forgotten the sins of your fathers, the sins of the kings and queens of Judah, your own sins, and the sins of your wives in Judah and Jerusalem? ¹⁰ And even until this very hour there has been no apology; no one has wanted to return to me or follow the laws I gave you and your fathers before you.

¹¹ Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There is fury in my face and I will destroy every one of you! ¹² I will take this remnant of Judah that insisted on coming here to Egypt, and I will consume them. They shall fall here in Egypt, killed by famine and sword; all shall die, from the least important to the greatest. They shall be despised and loathed, cursed and hated. ¹³ I will punish them in Egypt just as I punished them in Jerusalem, by sword, famine, and disease. ¹⁴ Not one of them shall escape from my wrath except those who repent of their coming and escape from the others by returning again to their own land.

¹⁵ Then all the women present and all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to idols (it was a great crowd of all the Jews in southern Egypt) answered Jeremiah:

¹⁶ “We will not listen to your false ‘Messages from God’! ¹⁷ We will do whatever we want to. We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven^[k] and sacrifice to her just as much as we like—just as we and our fathers before us, and our kings and princes have always done in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and happy! ¹⁸ But ever since we quit burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped worshiping her, we have been in great trouble and have been destroyed by sword and famine.”

¹⁹ “And,” the women added, “do you suppose that we were worshiping the Queen of Heaven and pouring out our libations to her and making cakes for her with her image on them, without our husbands knowing it and helping us? Of course not!”

²⁰ Then Jeremiah said to all of them, men and women alike, who had given him that answer:

²¹ “Do you think the Lord didn’t know that you and your fathers, your kings and princes, and all the people were burning incense to idols in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ²² It was because he could no longer bear all the evil things you were doing that he made your land desolate, an incredible ruin, cursed, without an inhabitant, as it is today. ²³ The very reason all these terrible things have befallen you is because you have burned incense and sinned against the Lord and refused to obey him.”

²⁴ Then Jeremiah said to them all, including the women: “Listen to the word of the Lord, all you citizens of Judah who are here in Egypt! ²⁵ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: Both you and your wives have said that you will never give up your devotion and sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, and you have proved it by your actions. Then go ahead and carry out your promises and vows to her! ²⁶ But listen to the word of the Lord, all you Jews who are living in the land of Egypt: I have sworn by my great name, says the Lord, that it will do you no good to seek my help and blessing anymore, saying, ‘O Lord our God, help us!’ ²⁷ For I will watch over you, but not for good! I will see to it that evil befalls you, and you shall be destroyed by war and famine until all of you are dead.

²⁸ “Only those who return to Judah (it will be but a tiny remnant) shall escape my wrath, but all who refuse to go back—who insist on living in Egypt—shall find out who tells the truth, I or they! ²⁹ And this is the proof I give you that all I have threatened will happen to you and that I will punish you here: ³⁰ I will turn Pharaoh Hophra,^[l] king of Egypt, over to those who seek his life, just as I turned Zedekiah, king of Judah, over to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.”

45 This is the message^[m] Jeremiah gave to Baruch in the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim (son of Josiah), after Baruch had written down all God’s messages as Jeremiah was dictating them to him:

² O Baruch, the Lord God of Israel says this to you: ³ You have said, Woe is me! Don’t I have troubles enough already? And now the Lord has added more! I am weary of my own sighing and I find no rest. ⁴ But tell Baruch this, The Lord says: I will destroy this nation that I built; I will wipe out what I established. ⁵ Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don’t do it! For though I will bring great evil upon all these people, I will protect you wherever you go, as your reward.

46 Here are the messages given to Jeremiah concerning foreign nations: