Bible in 90 Days

⁹ My heart is broken for the false prophets, full of deceit. I awake with fear and stagger as a drunkard does from wine because of the awful fate awaiting them,^[a] for God has decreed holy words of judgment against them. ¹⁰ For the land is full of adultery, and the curse of God is on it. The land itself is mourning—the pastures are dried up—for the prophets do evil, and their power is used wrongly.

¹¹ The priests are like the prophets, all ungodly, wicked men. I have seen their despicable acts right here in my own Temple, says the Lord. ¹² Therefore, their paths will be dark and slippery; they will be chased down dark and treacherous trails and fall. For I will bring evil upon them and see to it, when their time has come, that they pay their penalty in full for all their sins.

¹³ I knew the prophets of Samaria were unbelievably evil, for they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel into sin; ¹⁴ but the prophets of Jerusalem are even worse! The things they do are horrible; they commit adultery and love dishonesty. They encourage and compliment those who are doing evil instead of turning them back from their sins. These prophets are as thoroughly depraved as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were.

¹⁵ Therefore the Lord Almighty says: I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. For it is because of them that wickedness fills this land. ¹⁶ This is my warning to my people, says the Lord Almighty. Don’t listen to these false prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for me! ¹⁷ They keep saying to these rebels who despise me, “Don’t worry! All is well!”; and to those who live the way they want to, “The Lord has said you shall have peace!”

¹⁸ But can you name even one of these prophets who lives close enough to God to hear what he is saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen? ¹⁹ See, the Lord is sending a furious whirlwind to sweep away these wicked men. ²⁰ The terrible anger of the Lord will not abate until it has carried out the full penalty he decrees against them. Later, when Jerusalem has fallen,^[b] you will see what I mean.

²¹ I have not sent these prophets, yet they claim to speak for me; I gave them no message, yet they say their words are mine. ²² If they were mine, they would try to turn my people from their evil ways. ²³ Am I a God who is only in one place and cannot see what they are doing? ²⁴ Can anyone hide from me? Am I not everywhere in all of heaven and earth?

²⁵ “Listen to the dream I had from God last night,” they say. And then they proceed to lie in my name. ²⁶ How long will this continue? If they are “prophets,” they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say. ²⁷ By telling these false dreams they are trying to get my people to forget me in the same way as their fathers did, who turned away to the idols of Baal. ²⁸ Let these false prophets tell their dreams and let my true messengers faithfully proclaim my every word. There is a difference between chaff and wheat! ²⁹ Does not my word burn like fire? asks the Lord. Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashed the rock to pieces? ^30-31 So I stand against these “prophets” who get their messages from each other—these smooth-tongued “prophets” who say, “This message is from God!” ³² Their made-up dreams are flagrant lies that lead my people into sin. I did not send them, and they have no message at all for my people, says the Lord.

³³ When one of the people or one of their “prophets” or priests asks you, “Well, Jeremiah, what is the sad news from the Lord today?” you shall reply, “What sad news? You are the sad news, for the Lord has cast you away!” ³⁴ And as for the false prophets and priests and people who joke about “today’s sad news from God,” I will punish them and their families for saying this. ³⁵ You can ask each other, “What is God’s message? What is he saying?” ³⁶ But stop using this term, “God’s sad news.” For what is sad is you and your lying. You are twisting my words and inventing “messages from God” that I didn’t speak. ³⁷ You may respectfully ask Jeremiah, “What is the Lord’s message? What has he said to you?” ^38-39 But if you ask him about “today’s sad news from God,” when I have warned you not to mock like that, then I, the Lord God, will unburden myself of the burden^[c] you are to me. I will cast you out of my presence, you and this city I gave to you and your fathers. ⁴⁰ And I will bring reproach upon you and your name shall be infamous through the ages.

24 After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had captured and enslaved Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah, and exiled him to Babylon along with the princes of Judah and the skilled tradesmen—the carpenters and blacksmiths—the Lord gave me this vision. ² I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple in Jerusalem. In one basket there were fresh, just-ripened figs, but in the other the figs were spoiled and moldy—too rotten to eat. ³ Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad.”

^4-5 Then the Lord said: “The good figs represent the exiles sent to Babylon. I have done it for their good. ⁶ I will see that they are well treated, and I will bring them back here again. I will help them and not hurt them; I will plant them and not pull them up. ⁷ I will give them hearts that respond to me. They shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with great joy.

⁸ “But the rotten figs represent Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials, and all the others of Jerusalem left here in this land; those too who live in Egypt. I will treat them like spoiled figs, too bad to use. ⁹ I will make them repulsive to every nation of the earth, and they shall be mocked and taunted and cursed wherever I compel them to go. ¹⁰ And I will send massacre and famine and disease among them until they are destroyed from the land of Israel, which I gave to them and to their fathers.”

25 This message for all the people of Judah came from the Lord to Jeremiah during the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah (son of Josiah). This was the year Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, began his reign.

^2-3 For the past twenty-three years, Jeremiah said, from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (son of Amon) king of Judah, until now, God has been sending me his messages. I have faithfully passed them on to you, but you haven’t listened. ⁴ Again and again down through the years, God has sent you his prophets, but you have refused to hear. ⁵ Each time the message was this: “Turn from the evil road you are traveling and from the evil things you are doing. Only then can you continue to live here in this land which the Lord gave to you and to your ancestors forever. ⁶ Don’t anger me by worshiping idols; but if you are true to me, then I’ll not harm you.” ⁷ But you won’t listen; you have gone ahead and made me furious with your idols. So you have brought upon yourselves all the evil that has come your way.

^8-9 And now the Lord God says: Because you have not listened to me, I will gather together all the armies of the north under Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (I have appointed him as my deputy), and I will bring them all against this land and its people and against the other nations near you, and I will utterly destroy you and make you a byword of contempt forever. ¹⁰ I will take away your joy, your gladness, and your wedding feasts; your businesses shall fail, and all your homes shall lie in silent darkness. ¹¹ This entire land shall become a desolate wasteland; all the world will be shocked at the disaster that befalls you. Israel and her neighboring lands shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

¹² Then, after these years^[d] of slavery are ended, I will punish the king of Babylon and his people for their sins; I will make the land of Chaldea an everlasting waste. ¹³ I will bring upon them all the terrors I have promised in this book—all the penalties announced by Jeremiah against the nations. ¹⁴ For many nations and great kings shall enslave the Chaldeans, just as they enslaved my people; I will punish them in proportion to their treatment of my people.

¹⁵ For the Lord God said to me: “Take from my hand this wine cup filled to the brim with my fury, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it. ¹⁶ They shall drink from it and reel, crazed by the death blows I rain upon them.”

¹⁷ So I took the cup of fury from the Lord and made all the nations drink from it—every nation God had sent me to; ¹⁸ I went to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah, and their kings and princes drank of the cup so that from that day until this they have been desolate, hated, and cursed, just as they are today. ^19-20 I went to Egypt, and Pharaoh, his servants, the princes, and the people—they too drank from that terrible cup, along with all the foreign population living in his land. So did all the kings of the land of Uz and the kings of the Philistine cities: Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what remains of Ashdod, ²¹ and I visited the nations of Edom, Moab, and Ammon; ²² and all the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the regions across the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, and Buz, and the other heathen there; ²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia and of the nomadic tribes of the desert; ²⁵ and all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media; ²⁶ and all the kings of the northern countries, far and near, one after the other; and all the kingdoms of the world. And finally, the king of Babylon himself drank from this cup of God’s wrath.

²⁷ Tell them, “The Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: Drink from this cup of my wrath until you are drunk and vomit and fall to rise no more, for I am sending terrible wars upon you.” ²⁸ And if they refuse to accept the cup, tell them, “The Lord of heaven’s armies says you must drink it! You cannot escape! ²⁹ I have begun to punish my own people, so should you go free? No, you shall not evade punishment. I will call for war against all the peoples of the earth.”

³⁰ Therefore prophesy against them. Tell them the Lord will shout against his own from his holy temple in heaven and against all those living on the earth. He will shout as the harvesters do who tread the juice from the grapes. ³¹ That cry of judgment will reach the farthest ends of the earth, for the Lord has a case against all the nations—all mankind. He will slaughter all the wicked. ³² See, declares the Lord Almighty, the punishment shall go from nation to nation—a great whirlwind of wrath shall rise against the farthest corners of the earth. ³³ On that day those the Lord has slain shall fill the earth from one end to the other. No one shall mourn for them nor gather up the bodies to bury them; they shall fertilize the earth.

³⁴ Weep and moan, O evil shepherds; let the leaders of mankind beat their heads upon the stones, for their time has come to be slaughtered and scattered; they shall fall like fragile women. ³⁵ And you will find no place to hide, no way to escape.

³⁶ Listen to the frantic cries of the shepherds and to the leaders shouting in despair, for the Lord has spoiled their pastures. ³⁷ People now living undisturbed will be cut down by the fierceness of the anger of the Lord. ³⁸ He has left his lair like a lion seeking prey; their land has been laid waste by warring armies—because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

26 This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord during the first year of the reign of Jehoiakim (son of Josiah), king of Judah:

² Stand out in front of the Temple of the Lord and make an announcement to all the people who have come there to worship from many parts of Judah. Give them the entire message; don’t leave out one word of all I have for them to hear. ³ For perhaps they will listen and turn from their evil ways, and then I can withhold all the punishment I am ready to pour out upon them because of their evil deeds. ⁴ Tell them the Lord says: If you will not listen to me and obey the laws I have given you, ⁵ and if you will not listen to my servants, the prophets—for I sent them again and again to warn you, but you would not listen to them— ⁶ then I will destroy this Temple as I destroyed the Tabernacle at Shiloh, and I will make Jerusalem a curse word in every nation of the earth.

^7-8 When Jeremiah had finished his message, saying everything the Lord had told him to, the priests and false prophets and all the people in the Temple mobbed him, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him! ⁹ What right do you have to say the Lord will destroy this Temple like the one at Shiloh?” they yelled. “What do you mean—Jerusalem destroyed and not one survivor?”

¹⁰ When the high officials of Judah heard what was going on, they rushed over from the palace and sat down at the door of the Temple to hold court. ¹¹ Then the priests and the false prophets presented their accusations to the officials and the people. “This man should die!” they said. “You have heard with your own ears what a traitor he is, for he has prophesied against this city.”

¹² Then Jeremiah spoke in his defense. “The Lord sent me,” he said, “to prophesy against this Temple and this city. He gave me every word of all that I have spoken. ¹³ But if you stop your sinning and begin obeying the Lord your God, he will cancel all the punishment he has announced against you. ¹⁴ As for me, I am helpless and in your power—do with me as you think best. ¹⁵ But there is one thing sure, if you kill me, you will be killing an innocent man, and the responsibility will lie upon you and upon this city and upon every person living in it; for it is absolutely true that the Lord sent me to speak every word that you have heard from me.”

¹⁶ Then the officials and people said to the priests and false prophets, “This man does not deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”

¹⁷ Then some of the wise old men stood and spoke to all the people standing around and said:

¹⁸ “The decision is right; for back in the days when Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, he told the people that God said: ‘This hill shall be plowed like an open field and this city of Jerusalem razed into heaps of stone, and a forest shall grow at the top where the great Temple now stands!’ ¹⁹ But did King Hezekiah and the people kill him for saying this? No, they turned from their wickedness and worshiped the Lord and begged the Lord to have mercy upon them; and the Lord held back the terrible punishment he had pronounced against them. If we kill Jeremiah for giving us the messages of God, who knows what God will do to us!”

²⁰ Another true prophet of the Lord, Uriah (son of Shemaiah) from Kiriath-jearim, was also denouncing the city and the nation at the same time as Jeremiah was. ²¹ But when King Jehoiakim and the army officers and officials heard what he was saying, the king sent to kill him. Uriah heard about it and fled to Egypt. ²² Then King Jehoiakim sent Elnathan (son of Achbor) to Egypt along with several other men to capture Uriah. ²³ They took him prisoner and brought him back to King Jehoiakim, who butchered him with a sword and had him buried in an unmarked grave.

²⁴ But Ahikam (son of Shaphan), the royal secretary,^[e] stood with Jeremiah and persuaded the court not to turn him over to the mob to kill him.

27 This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim^[f] (son of Josiah), king of Judah:

² “Make a yoke and fasten it on your neck with leather thongs as you would strap a yoke on an ox. ³ Then send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, through their ambassadors in Jerusalem, ⁴ saying, Tell your masters that the Lord, the God of Israel, sends you this message:

⁵ “By my great power I have made the earth and all mankind and every animal; and I give these things of mine to anyone I want to. ⁶ So now I have given all your countries to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who is my deputy. And I have handed over to him all your cattle for his use. ⁷ All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until his time is up, and then many nations and great kings shall conquer Babylon and make him their slave. ⁸ Submit to him and serve him—put your neck under Babylon’s yoke! I will punish any nation refusing to be his slave; I will send war, famine, and disease upon that nation until he has conquered it.

⁹ “Do not listen to your false prophets, fortune-tellers, dreamers, mediums, and magicians who say the king of Babylon will not enslave you. ¹⁰ For they are all liars, and if you follow their advice and refuse to submit to the king of Babylon, I will drive you out of your land and send you far away to perish. ¹¹ But the people of any nation submitting to the king of Babylon will be permitted to stay in their own country and farm the land as usual.”

¹² Jeremiah repeated all these prophecies to Zedekiah, king of Judah. “If you want to live, submit to the king of Babylon,” he said. ¹³ “Why do you insist on dying—you and your people? Why should you choose war and famine and disease, which the Lord has promised to every nation that will not submit to Babylon’s king? ¹⁴ Don’t listen to the false prophets who keep telling you the king of Babylon will not conquer you, for they are liars. ¹⁵ I have not sent them, says the Lord, and they are telling you lies in my name. If you insist on heeding them, I must drive you from this land to die—you and all these ‘prophets’ too.”

¹⁶ I spoke again and again to the priests and all the people and told them: “This is what the Lord says! Don’t listen to your prophets who are telling you that soon the gold dishes taken from the Temple will be returned from Babylon. It is all a lie. ¹⁷ Don’t listen to them. Surrender to the king of Babylon and live, for otherwise this whole city will be destroyed. ¹⁸ If they are really God’s prophets, then let them pray to the Lord Almighty that the gold dishes still here in the Temple, left from before, and that those in the palace of the king of Judah and in the palaces in Jerusalem will not be carried away with you to Babylon!

^19-21 “For the Lord Almighty says: The pillars of bronze standing before the Temple, the great bronze basin in the Temple court, the metal stands, and all the other ceremonial articles left here by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when he exiled all the important people of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, along with Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah, ²² will all yet be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them. Then I will bring them all back to Jerusalem again.”

28 On a December day in that same year—the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah—Hananiah (son of Azzur), a false prophet from Gibeon, addressed me publicly in the Temple while all the priests and people listened. He said:

² “The Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, declares: I have removed the yoke of the king of Babylon from your necks. ³ Within two years I will bring back all the Temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar carried off to Babylon, ⁴ and I will bring back King Jeconiah,^[g] son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the other captives exiled to Babylon, says the Lord. I will surely remove the yoke put on your necks by the king of Babylon.”

⁵ Then Jeremiah said to Hananiah, in front of all the priests and people, ⁶ “Amen! May your prophecies come true! I hope the Lord will do everything you say and bring back from Babylon the treasures of this Temple, with all our loved ones. ⁷ But listen now to the solemn words I speak to you in the presence of all these people. ⁸ The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, always warning of war, famine, and plague. ⁹ So a prophet who foretells peace has the burden of proof on him to prove that God has really sent him. Only when his message comes true can it be known that he really is from God.”

¹⁰ Then Hananiah, the false prophet, took the yoke off Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. ¹¹ And Hananiah said again to the crowd that had gathered, “The Lord has promised that within two years he will release all the nations now in slavery to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.” At that point Jeremiah walked out.

¹² Soon afterwards the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: ¹³ Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says: You have broken a wooden yoke, but these people have yokes of iron on their necks. ¹⁴ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations, forcing them into slavery to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And nothing will change this decree, for I have even given him all your flocks and herds.

¹⁵ Then Jeremiah said to Hananiah, the false prophet, “Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and the people are believing your lies. ¹⁶ Therefore the Lord says you must die. This very year your life will end because you have rebelled against the Lord.”

¹⁷ And sure enough, two months later Hananiah died.

29 ^1-2 After Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the court officials, the tribal officers, and craftsmen had been deported to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah wrote them a letter from Jerusalem, addressing it to the Jewish elders, priests, prophets, and to all the people. ³ He sent the letter with Elasah (son of Shaphan) and Gemariah (son of Hilkiah) when they went to Babylon as King Zedekiah’s ambassadors to Nebuchadnezzar. And this is what the letter said:

⁴ The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, sends this message to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem:

⁵ Build homes and plan to stay; plant vineyards, for you will be there many years. ⁶ Marry and have children, and then find mates for them and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Don’t dwindle away! ⁷ And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray for her, for if Babylon has peace, so will you.

⁸ The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Don’t let the false prophets and mediums who are there among you fool you. Don’t listen to the dreams that they invent, ⁹ for they prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. ¹⁰ The truth is this: You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised and bring you home again. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. ¹² In those days when you pray, I will listen. ¹³ You will find me when you seek me, if you look for me in earnest.

¹⁴ Yes, says the Lord, I will be found by you, and I will end your slavery and restore your fortunes; I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you back home again to your own land.

¹⁵ But now, because you accept the false prophets among you and say the Lord has sent them, ^16-17 I will send war, famine, and plague upon the people left here in Jerusalem—on your relatives who were not exiled to Babylon, and on the king who sits on David’s throne—and make them like rotting figs, too bad to eat. ¹⁸ And I will scatter them around the world. And in every nation where I place them they will be cursed and hissed and mocked, ¹⁹ for they refuse to listen to me though I spoke to them again and again through my prophets.

²⁰ Therefore listen to the word of God, all you Jewish captives over there in Babylon. ²¹ The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says this about your false prophets, Ahab (son of Kolaiah) and Zedekiah (son of Maaseiah), who are declaring lies to you in my name: Look, I am turning them over to Nebuchadnezzar to execute publicly. ²² Their fate shall become proverbial of all evil, so that whenever anyone wants to curse someone he will say, “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon burned alive!” ²³ For these men have done a terrible thing among my people. They have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have lied in my name. I know, for I have seen everything they do, says the Lord.

²⁴ And say this to Shemaiah the dreamer:^{[h] 25} The Lord, the God of Israel, says: You have written a letter to Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah) the priest, and sent copies to all the other priests and to everyone in Jerusalem. ²⁶ And in this letter you have said to Zephaniah, “The Lord has appointed you to replace Jehoiada as priest in Jerusalem. And it is your responsibility to arrest any madman who claims to be a prophet and to put him in the stocks and collar. ²⁷ Why haven’t you done something about this false prophet Jeremiah of Anathoth? ²⁸ For he has written to us here in Babylon saying that our captivity will be long; that we should build permanent homes and plan to stay many years; that we should plant fruit trees, for we will be here to eat the fruit from them for a long time to come.”

²⁹ Zephaniah took the letter over to Jeremiah and read it to him! ³⁰ Then the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah:

³¹ Send an open letter to all the exiles in Babylon and tell them this: The Lord says that because Shemaiah the Nehelamite has “prophesied” to you when I didn’t send him and has fooled you into believing his lies, ³² I will punish him and his family. None of his descendants shall see the good I have waiting for my people, for he has taught you to rebel against the Lord.

30 This is another of the Lord’s messages to Jeremiah:

² The Lord God of Israel says: Write down for the record all that I have said to you. ³ For the time is coming when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, and I will bring them home to this land that I gave to their fathers; they shall possess it and live here again.

⁴ And write this also concerning Israel and Judah:

⁵ “Where shall we find peace?” they cry. “There is only fear and trembling. ⁶ Do men give birth? Then why do they stand there, ashen-faced, hands pressed against their sides like women in labor?”

⁷ Alas, in all history when has there ever been a time of terror such as in that coming day? It is a time of trouble for my people—for Jacob—such as they have never known before. Yet God will rescue them! ⁸ For on that day, says the Lord Almighty, I will break the yoke from their necks and snap their chains, and foreigners shall no longer be their masters! ⁹ For they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their King,^[i] whom I will raise up for them, says the Lord.

¹⁰ So don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant; don’t be dismayed, O Israel; for I will bring you home again from distant lands, and your children from their exile. They shall have rest and quiet in their own land, and no one shall make them afraid. ¹¹ For I am with you and I will save you, says the Lord. Even if I utterly destroy the nations where I scatter you, I will not exterminate you; I will punish you, yes—you will not go unpunished.

¹² For your sin is an incurable bruise, a terrible wound. ¹³ There is no one to help you or to bind up your wound, and no medicine does any good. ¹⁴ All your lovers have left you and don’t care anything about you anymore; for I have wounded you cruelly, as though I were your enemy; mercilessly, as though I were an implacable foe; for your sins are so many, your guilt is so great.

¹⁵ Why do you protest your punishment? Your sin is so scandalous that your sorrow should never end! It is because your guilt is great that I have had to punish you so much.

¹⁶ But in that coming day, all who are destroying you shall be destroyed, and all your enemies shall be slaves. Those who rob you shall be robbed; and those attacking you shall be attacked. ¹⁷ I will give you back your health again and heal your wounds. Now you are called “The Outcast” and “Jerusalem, the Place Nobody Wants.”

¹⁸ But, says the Lord, when I bring you home again from your captivity and restore your fortunes, Jerusalem will be rebuilt upon her ruins; the palace will be reconstructed as it was before. ¹⁹ The cities will be filled with joy and great thanksgiving, and I will multiply my people and make of them a great and honored nation. ²⁰ Their children shall prosper as in David’s reign; their nations shall be established before me, and I will punish anyone who hurts them. ²¹ They will have their own ruler again.^[j] He will not be a foreigner. And I will invite him to be a priest at my altars, and he shall approach me, for who would dare to come unless invited. ²² And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

²³ Suddenly the devastating whirlwind of the Lord roars with fury; it shall burst upon the heads of the wicked. ²⁴ The Lord will not call off the fierceness of his wrath until it has finished all the terrible destruction he has planned. Later on^[k] you will understand what I am telling you.

31 At that time, says the Lord, all the families of Israel shall recognize me as the Lord; they shall act like my people. ² I will care for them as I did those who escaped from Egypt, to whom I showed my mercies in the wilderness, when Israel sought for rest. ³ For long ago the Lord had said to Israel: I have loved you, O my people, with an everlasting love; with loving-kindness I have drawn you to me. ⁴ I will rebuild your nation, O virgin of Israel. You will again be happy and dance merrily with the timbrels. ⁵ Again you will plant your vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria and eat from your own gardens there.

⁶ The day shall come when watchmen on the hills of Ephraim will call out and say, “Arise, and let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.” ⁷ For the Lord says: Sing with joy for all that I will do for Israel, the greatest of the nations! Shout out with praise and joy: “The Lord has saved his people, the remnant of Israel.” ⁸ For I will bring them from the north and from earth’s farthest ends, not forgetting their blind and lame, young mothers with their little ones, those ready to give birth. It will be a great company who comes. ⁹ Tears of joy shall stream down their faces, and I will lead them home with great care. They shall walk beside the quiet streams and not stumble. For I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my oldest child.

¹⁰ Listen to this message from the Lord, you nations of the world, and publish it abroad: The Lord who scattered his people will gather them back together again and watch over them as a shepherd does his flock. ¹¹ He will save Israel from those who are too strong for them! ¹² They shall come home and sing songs of joy upon the hills of Zion and shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord—the good crops, the wheat, the wine, and the oil, and the healthy flocks and herds. Their life shall be like a watered garden, and all their sorrows shall be gone. ¹³ The young girls will dance for joy, and menfolk—old and young—will take their part in all the fun; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will comfort them and make them rejoice, for their captivity with all its sorrows will be behind them. ¹⁴ I will feast the priests with the abundance of offerings brought to them at the Temple; I will satisfy my people with my bounty, says the Lord.

¹⁵ The Lord spoke to me again, saying: In Ramah there is bitter weeping—Rachel^[l] is weeping for her children and cannot be comforted, for they are gone. ¹⁶ But the Lord says: Don’t cry any longer, for I have heard your prayers^[m] and you will see them again; they will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy. ¹⁷ There is hope for your future, says the Lord, and your children will come again to their own land.

¹⁸ I have heard Ephraim’s groans: “You have punished me greatly; but I needed it all, as a calf must be trained for the yoke. Turn me again to you and restore me, for you alone are the Lord, my God. ¹⁹ I turned away from God, but I was sorry afterwards. I kicked myself for my stupidity. I was thoroughly ashamed of all I did in younger days.”

²⁰ And the Lord replies: Ephraim is still my son, my darling child. I had to punish him, but I still love him. I long for him and surely will have mercy on him.

²¹ As you travel into exile, set up road signs pointing back to Israel. Mark your pathway well. For you shall return again, O virgin Israel, to your cities here. ²² How long will you vacillate, O wayward daughter? For the Lord will cause something new and different to happen—Israel will search for God.^[n]

²³ The Lord, the God of Israel, says: When I bring them back again, they shall say in Judah and her cities, “The Lord bless you, O center of righteousness, O holy hill!” ²⁴ And city dwellers and farmers and shepherds alike shall live together in peace and happiness. ²⁵ For I have given rest to the weary and joy to all the sorrowing.

²⁶ (Then Jeremiah wakened. “Such sleep is very sweet!” he said.)

²⁷ The Lord says: The time will come when I will greatly increase the population and multiply the number of cattle here in Israel. ²⁸ In the past I painstakingly destroyed the nation, but now I will carefully build it up. ²⁹ The people shall no longer quote this proverb—“Children pay for their fathers’ sins.”^{[o] 30} For everyone shall die for his own sins—the person eating sour grapes is the one whose teeth are set on edge.

³¹ The day will come, says the Lord, when I will make a new contract with the people of Israel and Judah. ³² It won’t be like the one I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a contract they broke, forcing me to reject them,^[p] says the Lord. ³³ But this is the new contract I will make with them: I will inscribe my laws upon their hearts,^[q] so that they shall want to honor me; then they shall truly be my people and I will be their God. ³⁴ At that time it will no longer be necessary to admonish one another to know the Lord. For everyone, both great and small, shall really know me then, says the Lord, and I will forgive and forget their sins.

³⁵ The Lord who gives us sunlight in the daytime and the moon and stars to light the night, and who stirs the sea to make the roaring waves—his name is Lord Almighty—says this: ³⁶ I am as likely to reject my people Israel as I am to do away with these laws of nature! ³⁷ Not until the heavens can be measured and the foundations of the earth explored, will I consider casting them away forever for their sins!

^38-39 For the time is coming, says the Lord, when all Jerusalem shall be rebuilt for the Lord, from the tower of Hananel at the northeast corner,^[r] to the Corner Gate at the northwest; and from the hill of Gareb at the southwest, across to Goah on the southeast. ⁴⁰ And the entire city, including the graveyard and ash dump in the valley, and all the fields out to the brook of Kidron, and from there to the Horse Gate on the east side of the city, all shall be holy to the Lord; it shall never again be captured or destroyed.

32 The following message came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah (which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign). ² At this time Jeremiah was imprisoned in the dungeon beneath the palace,^[s] while the Babylonian army was besieging Jerusalem. ³ King Zedekiah had put him there for continuing to prophesy that the city would be conquered by the king of Babylon, ⁴ and that King Zedekiah would be caught and taken as a prisoner before the king of Babylon for trial and sentencing.

⁵ “He shall take you to Babylon and imprison you there for many years until you die. Why fight the facts? You can’t win! Surrender now!” Jeremiah had told him again and again.

^6-7 Then this message from the Lord came to Jeremiah: Your cousin Hanamel (son of Shallum) will soon arrive to ask you to buy the farm he owns in Anathoth, for by law you have a chance to buy before it is offered to anyone else.

⁸ So Hanamel came, as the Lord had said he would, and visited me in the prison. “Buy my field in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin,” he said, “for the law gives you the first right to purchase it.” Then I knew for sure that the message I had heard was really from the Lord.

⁹ So I bought the field, paying Hanamel seventeen pieces of silver. ¹⁰ I signed and sealed the deed of purchase before witnesses, weighed out the silver, and paid him. ¹¹ Then I took the sealed deed containing the terms and conditions and also the unsealed copy, ¹² and publicly, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who had signed the deed, and as the prison guards watched, I handed the papers to Baruch (son of Neriah, who was the son of Mahseiah). ¹³ And I said to him as they all listened:

¹⁴ “The Lord, God of Israel, says: Take both this sealed deed and the copy and put them into a pottery jar to preserve them for a long time. ¹⁵ For the Lord, God of Israel, says: In the future these papers will be valuable.^[t] Someday people will again own property here in this country and will be buying and selling houses and vineyards and fields.”

¹⁶ Then after I had given the papers to Baruch I prayed: ¹⁷ “O Lord God! You have made the heavens and earth by your great power; nothing is too hard for you! ¹⁸ You are loving and kind to thousands, yet children suffer for their fathers’ sins; you are the great and mighty God, the Lord Almighty. ¹⁹ You have all wisdom and do great and mighty miracles; for your eyes are open to all the ways of men, and you reward everyone according to his life and deeds. ²⁰ You have done incredible things in the land of Egypt—things still remembered to this day. And you have continued to do great miracles in Israel and all around the world. You have made your name very great, as it is today.

²¹ “You brought Israel out of Egypt with mighty miracles and great power and terror. ²² You gave Israel this land that you promised their fathers long ago—a wonderful land that ‘flows with milk and honey.’ ²³ Our fathers came and conquered it and lived in it, but they refused to obey you or to follow your laws; they have hardly done one thing you told them to. That is why you have sent all this terrible evil upon them. ²⁴ See how the siege mounds have been built against the city walls, and the Babylonians shall conquer the city by sword, famine, and disease. Everything has happened just as you said—as you determined it should! ²⁵ And yet you say to buy the field—paying good money for it before these witnesses—even though the city will belong to our enemies.”

²⁶ Then this message came to Jeremiah: ²⁷ I am the Lord, the God of all mankind; is there anything too hard for me? ²⁸ Yes, I will give this city to the Babylonians and to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; he shall conquer it. ²⁹ And the Babylonians outside the walls shall come in and set fire to the city and burn down all these houses, where the roofs have been used to offer incense to Baal and to pour out libations to other gods, causing my fury to rise! ³⁰ For Israel and Judah have done nothing but wrong since their earliest days; they have infuriated me with all their evil deeds. ³¹ From the time this city was built until now, it has done nothing but anger me; so I am determined to be rid of it.

³² The sins of Israel and Judah—the sins of the people, of their kings, officers, priests, and prophets—stir me up. ³³ They have turned their backs upon me and refused to return; day after day, year after year, I taught them right from wrong, but they would not listen or obey. ³⁴ They have even defiled my own Temple by worshiping their abominable idols there. ³⁵ And they have built high altars to Baal in the valley of Hinnom. There they have burnt their children as sacrifices to Molech—something I never commanded and cannot imagine suggesting. What an incredible evil, causing Judah to sin so greatly!

³⁶ Now therefore the Lord God of Israel says concerning this city that it will fall to the king of Babylon through warfare, famine, and disease, ³⁷ but I will bring my people back again from all the countries where in my fury I will scatter them. I will bring them back to this very city and make them live in peace and safety. ³⁸ And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹ And I will give them one heart and mind to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants.

⁴⁰ And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, promising never again to desert them but only to do them good. I will put a desire into their hearts to worship me, and they shall never leave me. ⁴¹ I will rejoice to do them good and will replant them in this land with great joy. ⁴² Just as I have sent all these terrors and evils upon them, so will I do all the good I have promised them.

⁴³ Fields will again be bought and sold in this land now ravaged by the Babylonians, where men and animals alike have disappeared. ⁴⁴ Yes, fields shall once again be bought and sold—deeds signed and sealed and witnessed—in the country of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah and in the hill country, in the Philistine Plain and in the Negeb too, for some day I will restore prosperity to them.

33 While Jeremiah was still in jail, the Lord sent him this second message:

² The Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth—Jehovah is his name—says this: ³ Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen here. ⁴ For though you have torn down the houses of this city, and the king’s palace too, for materials to strengthen the walls against the siege weapons of the enemy, ⁵ yet the Babylonians will enter, and the men of this city are already as good as dead, for I have determined to destroy them in my furious anger. I have abandoned them because of all their wickedness, and I will not pity them when they cry for help.

⁶ Nevertheless the time will come when I will heal Jerusalem’s damage and give her prosperity and peace. ⁷ I will rebuild the cities of both Judah and Israel and restore their fortunes. ⁸ And I will cleanse away all their sins against me and pardon them. ⁹ Then this city will be an honor to me, and it will give me joy and be a source of praise and glory to me before all the nations of the earth! The people of the world will see the good I do for my people and will tremble with awe!

^10-11 The Lord declares that the happy voices of bridegrooms and of brides and the joyous song of those bringing thanksgiving offerings to the Lord will be heard again in this doomed land. The people will sing: “Praise the Lord! For he is good and his mercy endures forever!” For I will make this land happier and more prosperous than it has ever been before. ¹² This land—though every man and animal and city is doomed—will once more see shepherds leading sheep and lambs. ¹³ Once again their flocks will prosper in the mountain villages and in the cities east of the Philistine Plain, in all the cities of the Negeb, in the land of Benjamin, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and in all the cities of Judah. ¹⁴ Yes, the day will come, says the Lord, when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good I promised them.

¹⁵ At that time I will bring to the throne the true Son of David,^[u] and he shall rule justly. ¹⁶ In that day the people of Judah and Jerusalem shall live in safety and their motto will be, “The Lord is our righteousness!” ¹⁷ For the Lord declares that from then on, David shall forever have an heir sitting on the throne of Israel. ¹⁸ And there shall always be Levites to offer burnt offerings and meal offerings and sacrifices to the Lord.

¹⁹ Then this message came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ^20-21 If you can break my covenant with the day and with the night so that day and night don’t come on their usual schedule, only then will my covenant with David, my servant, be broken so that he shall not have a son to reign upon his throne; and my covenant with the Levite priests, my ministers, is noncancelable. ²² And as the stars cannot be counted nor the sand upon the seashores measured, so the descendants of David my servant and the line of the Levites who minister to me will be multiplied.