The Daily Audio Bible

Jeremiah and the False Preacher Hananiah

28 In that same year, in the beginning of the rule of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the man from Gibeon who told what would happen in the future, spoke to me in the house of the Lord. He said to me in front of the religious leaders and all the people, ² “This is what the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have broken the crossbar across the shoulders of the king of Babylon. ³ Within two years I will bring back to this place all the objects of the Lord’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from here and carried to Babylon. ⁴ I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the people of Judah who were taken to Babylon,’ says the Lord. ‘For I will break the cross-bar of the king of Babylon.’”

⁵ Then Jeremiah, the man of God, spoke to Hananiah, the man who told what would happen, in front of the religious leaders and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord. ⁶ And Jeremiah, the man who spoke for God, said, “Let it be so! May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words you have spoken come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the objects of the Lord’s house and all the people of Judah. ⁷ Yet listen now to what I am about to say in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. ⁸ The men who spoke for God before us from long ago spoke of war and trouble and disease coming to many lands and great nations. ⁹ As for the man who told that peace would come, when his word comes to pass, then that man will be known as the one that the Lord has sent.” ¹⁰ Then Hananiah, the man who told what would happen, took the cross-bar from the neck of Jeremiah the man of God and broke it. ¹¹ And Hananiah said in front of all the people, “The Lord says, ‘In this way I will break the cross-bar of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations within two years.’” Then Jeremiah the man of God went his way.

¹² Some time after Hananiah had broken the cross-bar from off the neck of Jeremiah, the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ¹³ “Go and tell Hananiah, ‘The Lord says, “You have broken the cross-bars of wood, but you have made bars of iron in their place.” ¹⁴ For the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, “I have put the cross-bar of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And they will serve him. I have given him the animals of the field also.”’” ¹⁵ Then Jeremiah who spoke for God said to Hananiah who told what would happen, “Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you. And you have made these people trust in a lie. ¹⁶ So the Lord says, ‘See, I am about to take you from the earth. This year you are going to die, because you have spoken against the right and power of the Lord.’” ¹⁷ So Hananiah, who had said these things in God’s name, died in the seventh month of the same year.

Jeremiah’s Letter to Those Taken to Babylon

29 These are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the man of God sent from Jerusalem to the leaders, the religious leaders, the men of God, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from Jerusalem to Babylon. ² (This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the king’s servants, the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem, and the able workmen had left Jerusalem.) ³ The letter was sent with Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said, ⁴ “This is what the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says to all of His people who have been sent from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ ‘Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit. ⁶ Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters. And take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may give birth to sons and daughters. Become many there, and do not let your number become less. ⁷ Work for the well-being of the city where I have sent you to and pray to the Lord for this. For if it is well with the city you live in, it will be well with you.’ ⁸ For the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, ‘Do not let the people among you who tell what is going to happen in the future and those who use their secret ways fool you. Do not listen to their dreams. ⁹ For they speak false words to you in My name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord.

¹⁰ “For the Lord says, ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and keep My promise to you. I will bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for well-being and not for trouble, to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will look for Me and find Me, when you look for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will bring you back and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have made you go,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you away.’

¹⁵ “You have said that the Lord has given men who speak for Him in Babylon. ¹⁶ This is what the Lord says about the king who sits on the throne of David, and about all the people who live in this city, your brothers who were not taken with you to Babylon. ¹⁷ The Lord of All says, ‘I am sending the sword, hunger, and disease upon them. I will make them like bad figs which are so bad they cannot be eaten. ¹⁸ I will go after them with the sword, hunger, and disease, and will make them a cause of trouble to all the nations of the earth. They will be a curse, an object of much shame and hate among all the nations where I have made them go. ¹⁹ This is because they have not listened to My words,’ says the Lord, ‘which I sent to them again and again by My servants who spoke for Me. And you did not listen,’ says the Lord. ²⁰ So hear the Word of the Lord, all you people who have been sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²¹ “This is what the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says about Ahab the son of Kolaiah and about Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are speaking false words to you in My name: ‘See, I will give them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And he will kill them in front of your eyes. ²² Because of them a curse will be used by all the people who are from Judah but are in Babylon: “May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.” ²³ This is because they have done what is foolish in Israel. They have done sex sins with their neighbors’ wives. And they have spoken false words in My name, which I did not tell them to speak. I am He Who knows, and I see what they have done,’ says the Lord.”

The Letter to Shemaiah

²⁴ And say to Shemaiah the Nehelamite, ²⁵ “This is what the Lord of All, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have sent letters in your own name to all the people in Jerusalem and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the religious leader, and to all the religious leaders. You said to Zephaniah, ²⁶ “The Lord has made you the religious leader over the house of the Lord instead of Jehoiada. You are to take every crazy man who says he speaks in God’s name and put him in chains with iron around his neck. ²⁷ So why have you not spoken sharp words to Jeremiah of Anathoth who is speaking to you in God’s name? ²⁸ For he has sent word to us in Babylon, saying, ‘You will be held there for a long time. So build houses and live in them. And plant gardens and eat their fruit.’”’”

²⁹ Zephaniah the religious leader read this letter to Jeremiah the man of God. ³⁰ Then the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ³¹ “Send word to all My people held in Babylon, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Shemaiah has spoken to you in My name, but I did not send him. He has made you trust in a lie.’ ³² So the Lord says, ‘I am about to punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his children after him. He will not have anyone living among these people. And he will not see the good that I am about to do to My people,’ says the Lord, ‘because he has spoken against Me.’”

1 This letter is from Paul, a missionary of Jesus Christ. I am sent by God, the One Who saves, and by our Lord Jesus Christ Who is our hope. ² I write to you, Timothy. You are my son in the Christian faith. May God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord give you His loving-favor and loving-kindness and peace.

Watch for False Teachers

³ When I left for the country of Macedonia, I asked you to stay in the city of Ephesus. I wanted you to stay there so you could tell those who are teaching what is not true to stop. ⁴ They should not listen to stories that are not true. It is foolish for them to try to learn more about their early fathers. These only bring more questions to their minds and do not make their faith in God stronger. ⁵ We want to see our teaching help you have a true love that comes from a pure heart. Such love comes from a heart that says we are not guilty and from a faith that does not pretend. ⁶ But some have turned away from these things. They have turned to foolish talking. ⁷ Some of them want to be teachers of the Law. But they do not know what they are talking about even if they act as if they do.

The Law Is Good

⁸ We know the Law is good when it is used the way God meant it to be used. ⁹ We must remember the Law is not for the person who is right with God. It is for those who do not obey anybody or anything. It is for the sinners who hate God and speak against Him. It is for those who kill their fathers and mothers and for those who kill other people. ¹⁰ It is for those who do sex sins and for people who do sex sins with their own sex. It is for people who steal other people and for those who lie and for those who promise not to lie, but do. It is for everything that is against right teaching. ¹¹ The great Good News of our honored God is right teaching. God has trusted me to preach this Good News.

Paul Gives Thanks to God

¹² I thank Christ Jesus our Lord for the power and strength He has given me. He trusted me and gave me His work to do. ¹³ Before He chose me, I talked bad about Christ. I made His followers suffer. I hurt them every way I could. But God had loving-kindness for me. I did not understand what I was doing for I was not a Christian then. ¹⁴ Then our Lord gave me much of His loving-favor and faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ What I say is true and all the world should receive it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners from their sin and I am the worst sinner. ¹⁶ And yet God had loving-kindness for me. Jesus Christ used me to show how long He will wait for even the worst sinners. In that way, others will know they can have life that lasts forever also. ¹⁷ We give honor and thanks to the King Who lives forever. He is the One Who never dies and Who is never seen. He is the One Who knows all things. He is the only God. Let it be so.

The Good Fight of Faith

¹⁸ Timothy, my son, here is my word to you. Fight well for the Lord! God’s preachers told us you would. ¹⁹ Keep a strong hold on your faith in Christ. May your heart always say you are right. Some people have not listened to what their hearts say. They have done what they knew was wrong. Because of this, their faith in Christ was wrecked. ²⁰ This happened to Hymenaeus and Alexander. I gave them over to Satan to teach them not to speak against God.

A Prayer for Help

86 Hear, O Lord, and answer me. For I am suffering and in need. ² Keep my life, for I am faithful to You. You are my God. Save Your servant who trusts in You. ³ Show me loving-kindness, O Lord. For I cry to You all day long. ⁴ Bring joy to Your servant. For I lift up my soul to You, O Lord. ⁵ For You are good and ready to forgive, O Lord. You are rich in loving-kindness to all who call to You. ⁶ Hear my prayer, O Lord. Listen to my cry for help. ⁷ I will call to You in the day of my trouble. For You will answer me. ⁸ There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord. And there are no works like Yours. ⁹ All the nations You have made will come and worship before You, O Lord. And they will bring honor to Your name. ¹⁰ For You are great and do great things. You alone are God.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord. I will walk in Your truth. May my heart fear Your name. ¹² O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You with all my heart. I will bring honor to Your name forever. ¹³ For Your loving-kindness toward me is great. And You have saved my soul from the bottom of the grave.

¹⁴ O God, proud men have come up against me. A group of fighting men want to take my life. And they do not think of You. ¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a God full of love and pity. You are slow to anger and rich in loving-kindness and truth. ¹⁶ Turn to me, and show me loving-kindness. Give Your strength to Your servant. And save the son of your woman servant. ¹⁷ Give me something special to see of Your favor. Then those who hate me may see it and be ashamed. Because You, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

¹⁷ Do not let your foot be in your neighbor’s house too much, or he may become tired of you and hate you.