Jeremiah 27-31

Jeremiah 27

¹When Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first became king this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²This is what the Lord has said to me: Make for yourself bands and yokes and put them on your neck;

³And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Zidon, by their servants who come to Jerusalem, to Zedekiah, king of Judah;

⁴And give them orders to say to their masters, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Say to your masters,

⁵I have made the earth, and man and beast on the face of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I will give it to anyone at my pleasure.

⁶And now I have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant; and I have given the beasts of the field to him for his use.

⁷And all the nations will be servants to him and to his son and to his son's son, till the time comes for his land to be overcome: and then a number of nations and great kings will take it for their use.

⁸And it will come about, that if any nation does not become a servant to this same Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and does not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, then I will send punishment on that nation, says the Lord, by the sword and need of food and by disease, till I have given them into his hands.

⁹And you are not to give attention to your prophets or your readers of signs or your dreamers or those who see into the future or those who make use of secret arts, who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon:

¹⁰For they say false words to you, so that you may be sent away far from your land, and so that you may be forced out by me and come to destruction.

¹¹But as for that nation which puts its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and becomes his servant, I will let that nation keep on in its land, farming it and living in it, says the Lord.

¹²And I said all this to Zedekiah, king of Judah, saying, Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and become his servants and his people, so that you may keep your lives.

¹³Why are you desiring death, you and your people, by the sword, and because food is gone, and by disease, as the Lord has said of the nation which does not become the servant of the king of Babylon?

¹⁴And you are not to give ear to the prophets who say to you, You will not become servants of the king of Babylon: for what they say is not true.

¹⁵For I have not sent them, says the Lord, but they are saying what is false in my name, so that I might send you out by force, causing destruction to come on you and on your prophets.

¹⁶And I said to the priests and to all the people, This is what the Lord has said: Give no attention to the words of your prophets who say to you, See, in a very little time now the vessels of the Lord's house will come back again from Babylon: for what they say to you is false.

¹⁷Give no attention to them; become servants of the king of Babylon and keep yourselves from death: why let this town become a waste?

¹⁸But if they are prophets, and if the word of the Lord is with them, let them now make request to the Lord of armies that the vessels which are still in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and at Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.

¹⁹For this is what the Lord has said about the rest of the vessels which are still in this town,

²⁰Which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take away, when he took Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, a prisoner from Jerusalem to Babylon, with all the great men of Judah and Jerusalem;

²¹For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said about the rest of the vessels in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and at Jerusalem:

²²They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they will be till the day when I send their punishment on them, says the Lord. Then I will take them up and put them back in their place.

Jeremiah 28

¹And it came about in that year, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah, the son of Azzur the prophet, who came from Gibeon, said to Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, before the priests and all the people,

²These are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: By me the yoke of the king of Babylon has been broken.

³In the space of two years I will send back into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place to Babylon:

⁴And I will let Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, come back to this place, with all the prisoners of Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord: for I will have the yoke of the king of Babylon broken.

⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, before the priests and all the people who had come into the house of the Lord,

⁶The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do so: may the Lord give effect to the words which you have said, and let the vessels of the Lord's house, and all the people who have been taken away, come back from Babylon to this place.

⁷But still, give ear to this word which I am saying to you and to all the people:

⁸The prophets, who were before me and before you, from early times gave word to a number of countries and great kingdoms about war and destruction and disease.

⁹The prophet whose words are of peace, when his words come true, will be seen to be a prophet whom the Lord has sent.

¹⁰Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and it was broken by his hands.

¹¹And before all the people Hananiah said, The Lord has said, Even so will I let the yoke of the king of Babylon be broken off the necks of all the nations in the space of two years. Then the prophet Jeremiah went away.

¹²Then after the yoke had been broken off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah by Hananiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

¹³Go and say to Hananiah, This is what the Lord has said: Yokes of wood have been broken by you, but in their place I will make yokes of iron.

¹⁴For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: I have put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations, making them servants to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and they are to be his servants: and in addition I have given him the beasts of the field.

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Give ear, now, Hananiah; the Lord has not sent you; but you are making this people put their faith in what is false.

¹⁶For this reason the Lord has said, See, I will send you away from off the face of the earth: this year death will overtake you, because you have said words against the Lord.

¹⁷So death came to Hananiah the prophet the same year, in the seventh month.

Jeremiah 29

¹Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the responsible men among those who had been taken away, and to the priests and the prophets and to all the rest of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon;

²(After Jeconiah the king and the queen-mother and the unsexed servants and the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem and the expert workmen and the metal-workers had gone away from Jerusalem;)

³By the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,) saying,

⁴This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said to all those whom I have taken away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon:

⁵Go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them;

⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may have sons and daughters; and be increased in number there and do not become less.

⁷And be working for the peace of the land to which I have had you taken away prisoners, and make prayer to the Lord for it: for in its peace you will have peace.

⁸For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Do not let yourselves be tricked by the prophets who are among you, and the readers of signs, and give no attention to their dreams which they may have;

⁹For they are saying to you what is false in my name: I have not sent them, says the Lord.

¹⁰For this is what the Lord has said: When seventy years are ended for Babylon, I will have pity on you and give effect to my good purpose for you, causing you to come back to this place.

¹¹For I am conscious of my thoughts about you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope at the end.

¹²And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to me, and I will give ear to you.

¹³And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.

¹⁴I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

¹⁵For you have said, The Lord has given us prophets in Babylon.

¹⁶For this is what the Lord has said about the king who is seated on the seat of David's kingdom, and about all the people living in this town, your countrymen who have not gone out with you as prisoners;

¹⁷This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will send on them the sword and need of food and disease, and will make them like bad figs, which are of no use for food, they are so bad.

¹⁸I will go after them, attacking them with the sword and with need of food and with disease, and will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a wonder and a surprise and a name of shame among all the nations where I have sent them:

¹⁹Because they have not given ear to my words, says the Lord, when I sent to them my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them; but you did not give ear, says the Lord.

²⁰And now, give ear to the word of the Lord, all you whom I have sent away prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²¹This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said about Ahab, the son of Kolaiah, and about Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, who are saying to you what is false in my name: See, I will give them up into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your eyes.

²²And their fate will be used as a curse by all the prisoners of Judah who are in Babylon, who will say, May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, who were burned in the fire by the king of Babylon;

²³Because they have done shame in Israel, and have taken their neighbours' wives, and in my name have said false words, which I did not give them orders to say; and I myself am the witness, says the Lord.

²⁴About Shemaiah the Nehelamite.

²⁵Shemaiah the Nehelamite sent a letter in his name to Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying,

²⁶The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest, to be an overseer in the house of the Lord for every man who is off his head and is acting as a prophet, to put such men in prison and in chains.

²⁷So why have you made no protest against Jeremiah of Anathoth, who is acting as a prophet to you?

²⁸For he has sent to us in Babylon saying, The time will be long: go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them.

²⁹And Zephaniah the priest made clear to Jeremiah the prophet what was said in the letter, reading it to him.

³⁰Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying,

³¹Send to all those who have been taken away, saying, This is what the Lord has said about Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has been acting as a prophet to you, and I did not send him, and has made you put your faith in what is false;

³²For this cause the Lord has said, Truly I will send punishment on Shemaiah and on his seed; not a man of his family will have a place among this people, and he will not see the good which I am going to do to my people, says the Lord: because he has said words against the Lord.

Jeremiah 30

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Put down in a book all the words which I have said to you.

³For see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will let the fate of my people Israel and Judah be changed, says the Lord: and I will make them come back to the land which I gave to their fathers, so that they may take it for their heritage.

⁴And these are the words which the Lord said about Israel and about Judah.

⁵This is what the Lord has said: A voice of shaking fear has come to our ears, of fear and not of peace.

⁶Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to have birth-pains: why do I see every man with his hands gripping his sides, as a woman does when the pains of birth are on her, and all faces are turned green?

⁷Ha! for that day is so great that there is no day like it: it is the time of Jacob's trouble: but he will get salvation from it.

⁸For it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that his yoke will be broken off his neck, and his bands will be burst; and men of strange lands will no longer make use of him as their servant:

⁹But they will be servants to the Lord their God and to David their king, whom I will give back to them.

¹⁰So have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and at peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

¹¹For I am with you, says the Lord, to be your saviour: for I will put an end to all the nations where I have sent you wandering, but I will not put an end to you completely: though with wise purpose I will put right your errors, and will not let you go quite without punishment.

¹²For the Lord has said, Your disease may not be made well and your wound is bitter.

¹³There is no help for your wound, there is nothing to make you well.

¹⁴Your lovers have no more thought for you, they go after you no longer; for I have given you the wound of a hater, even cruel punishment;

¹⁵Why are you crying for help because of your wound? for your pain may never be taken away: because your evil-doing was so great and because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.

¹⁶For this cause, all those who take you for their food will themselves become your food; and all your attackers, every one of them, will be taken prisoners; and those who send destruction on you will come to destruction; and all those who take away your goods by force will undergo the same themselves.

¹⁷For I will make you healthy again and I will make you well from your wounds, says the Lord; because they have given you the name of an outlaw, saying, It is Zion cared for by no man.

¹⁸The Lord has said, See, I am changing the fate of the tents of Jacob, and I will have pity on his houses; the town will be put up on its hill, and the great houses will be living-places again.

¹⁹And from them will go out praise and the sound of laughing: and I will make them great in number, and they will not become less; and I will give them glory, and they will not be small.

²⁰And their children will be as they were in the old days, and the meeting of the people will have its place before me, and I will send punishment on all who are cruel to them.

²¹And their chief will be of their number; their ruler will come from among themselves; and I will let him be present before me, so that he may come near to me: for who may have strength of heart to come near me? says the Lord.

²²And you will be my people, and I will be your God.

²³See, the storm-wind of the Lord, even the heat of his wrath, has gone out, a rolling storm, bursting on the heads of the evil-doers.

²⁴The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

Jeremiah 31

¹At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.

²The Lord has said, Grace came in the waste land to a people kept safe from the sword, even to Israel on the way to his resting-place.

³From far away he saw the Lord: my love for you is an eternal love: so with mercy I have made you come with me.

⁴I will again make new your buildings, O virgin of Israel, and you will take up your place: again you will take up your instruments of music, and go out in the dances of those who are glad.

⁵Again will your vine-gardens be planted on the hill of Samaria: the planters will be planting and using the fruit.

⁶For there will be a day when those who get in the grapes on the hills of Ephraim will be crying, Up! let us go up to Zion to the Lord our God.

⁷For the Lord has said, Make a glad song for Jacob and give a cry on the top of the mountains: give the news, give praise, and say, The Lord has given salvation to his people, even to the rest of Israel.

⁸See, I will take them from the north country, and get them from the inmost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the feeble-footed, the woman with child and her who is in birth-pains together: a very great army, they will come back here.

⁹They will come with weeping, and going before them I will be their guide: guiding them by streams of water in a straight way where there is no falling: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is the first of my sons.

¹⁰Give ear to the word of the Lord, O you nations, and give news of it in the sea-lands far away, and say, He who has sent Israel wandering will get him together and will keep him as a keeper does his flock.

¹¹For the Lord has given a price for Jacob, and made him free from the hands of him who was stronger than he.

¹²So they will come with songs on the high places, flowing together to the good things of the Lord, to the grain and the wine and the oil, to the young ones of the flock and of the herd: their souls will be like a watered garden, and they will have no more sorrow.

¹³Then the virgin will have joy in the dance, and the young men and the old will be glad: for I will have their weeping turned into joy, I will give them comfort and make them glad after their sorrow.

¹⁴I will give the priests their desired fat things, and my people will have a full measure of my good things, says the Lord.

¹⁵So has the Lord said: In Ramah there is a sound of crying, weeping and bitter sorrow; Rachel weeping for her children; she will not be comforted for their loss.

¹⁶The Lord has said this: Keep your voice from sorrow and your eyes from weeping: for your work will be rewarded, says the Lord; and they will come back from the land of their hater.

¹⁷And there is hope for the future, says the Lord; and your children will come back to the land which is theirs.

¹⁸Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God.

¹⁹Truly, after I had been turned, I had regret for my ways; and after I had got knowledge, I made signs of sorrow: I was put to shame, truly, I was covered with shame, because I had to undergo the shame of my early years.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he the child of my delight? for whenever I say things against him, I still keep him in my memory: so my heart is troubled for him; I will certainly have mercy on him, says the Lord.

²¹Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself: give attention to the highway, even the way in which you went: be turned again, O virgin of Israel, be turned to these your towns.

²²How long will you go on turning this way and that, O wandering daughter? for the Lord has made a new thing on the earth, a woman changed into a man.

²³So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Again will these words be used in the land of Judah and in its towns, when I have let their fate be changed: May the blessing of the Lord be on you, O resting-place of righteousness, O holy mountain.

²⁴And Judah and all its towns will be living there together; the farmers and those who go about with flocks.

²⁵For I have given new strength to the tired soul and to every sorrowing soul in full measure.

²⁶At this, awaking from my sleep, I saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will have Israel and Judah planted with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.

²⁸And it will come about that, as I have been watching over them for the purpose of uprooting and smashing down and overturning and sending destruction and causing trouble; so I will be watching over them for the purpose of building up and planting, says the Lord.

²⁹In those days they will no longer say, The fathers have been tasting bitter grapes and the children's teeth are put on edge.

³⁰But everyone will be put to death for the evil which he himself has done: whoever has taken bitter grapes will himself have his teeth put on edge.

³¹See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah:

³²Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which agreement was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord.

³³But this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law in their inner parts, writing it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

³⁴And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.

³⁵These are the words of the Lord, who has given the sun for a light by day, ordering the moon and stars for a light by night, who puts the sea in motion, causing the thunder of its waves; the Lord of armies is his name.

³⁶If the order of these things before me is ever broken, says the Lord, then will the seed of Israel come to an end as a nation before me for ever.

³⁷This is what the Lord has said: If the heavens on high may be measured, and the bases of the earth searched out, then I will give up the seed of Israel, because of all they have done, says the Lord.

³⁸See, the days are coming, says the Lord, for the building of the Lord's town, from the tower of Hananel to the doorway of the angle.

³⁹And the measuring-line will go out in front of it as far as the hill Gareb, going round to Goah.

⁴⁰And all the valley of the dead bodies, and all the field of death as far as the stream Kidron, up to the angle of the horses' doorway to the east, will be holy to the Lord; it will not again be uprooted or overturned for ever.