Jeremiah 32-36

Jeremiah 32

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.

²Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was round Jerusalem, shutting it in: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, in the house of the king of Judah.

³For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had had him shut up, saying, Why have you, as a prophet, been saying, The Lord has said, See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take it;

⁴And Zedekiah, king of Judah, will not get away from the hands of the Chaldaeans, but will certainly be given up into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will have talk with him, mouth to mouth, and see him, eye to eye.

⁵And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he will be till I have pity on him, says the Lord: though you are fighting with the Chaldaeans, things will not go well for you?

⁶And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁷See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's brother, will come to you and say, Give the price and get for yourself my property in Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest relation.

⁸So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me, as the Lord had said, to the place of the armed watchmen, and said to me, Give the price and get my property which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's right to the heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was clear to me that this was the word of the Lord.

⁹So I got for a price the property in Anathoth from Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and gave him the money, seventeen shekels of silver;

¹⁰And I put it in writing, stamping it with my stamp, and I took witnesses and put the money into the scales.

¹¹So I took the paper witnessing the business, one copy rolled up and stamped, and one copy open:

¹²And I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and of the witnesses who had put their names to the paper, and before all the Jews who were seated in the place of the armed watchmen.

¹³And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying,

¹⁴This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take these papers, the witness of this business, the one which is rolled up and stamped, and the one which is open; and put them in a vessel of earth so that they may be kept for a long time.

¹⁵For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, There will again be trading in houses and fields and vine-gardens in this land.

¹⁶Now after I had given the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, I made my prayer to the Lord, saying,

¹⁷Ah Lord God! see, you have made the heaven and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, and there is nothing you are not able to do:

¹⁸You have mercy on thousands, and send punishment for the evil-doing of the fathers on their children after them: the great, the strong God, the Lord of armies is his name:

¹⁹Great in wisdom and strong in act: whose eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, giving to everyone the reward of his ways and the fruit of his doings:

²⁰You have done signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day, in Israel and among other men; and have made a name for yourself as at this day;

²¹And have taken your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, causing great fear;

²²And have given them this land, which you gave your word to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;

²³And they came in and took it for their heritage, but they did not give ear to your voice, and were not ruled by your law; they have done nothing of all you gave them orders to do: so you have made all this evil come on them:

²⁴See, they have made earthworks against the town to take it; and the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans who are fighting against it, because of the sword and need of food and disease: and what you have said has taken place, and truly you see it.

²⁵And you have said to me, Give the money to get yourself a property, and have the business witnessed; though the town is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁷See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything so hard that I am unable to do it?

²⁸So this is what the Lord has said: See, I am giving this town into the hands of the Chaldaeans and into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will take it:

²⁹And the Chaldaeans, who are fighting against this town, will come and put the town on fire, burning it together with the houses, on the roofs of which perfumes have been burned to the Baal, and drink offerings have been drained out to other gods, moving me to wrath.

³⁰For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but evil in my eyes from their earliest years: the children of Israel have only made me angry with the work of their hands, says the Lord.

³¹For this town has been to me a cause of wrath and of burning passion from the day of its building till this day, so that I put it away from before my face:

³²Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to make me angry, they and their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

³³And they have been turning their backs and not their faces to me: and though I was their teacher, getting up early and teaching them, their ears were not open to teaching.

³⁴But they put their disgusting images into the house which is named by my name, making it unclean.

³⁵And they put up the high places of the Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, making their sons and their daughters go through the fire to Molech; which I did not give them orders to do, and it never came into my mind that they would do this disgusting thing, causing Judah to be turned out of the way.

³⁶And now the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of this town, about which you say, It is given into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword and by need of food and by disease:

³⁷See, I will get them together from all the countries where I have sent them in my wrath and in the heat of my passion and in my bitter feeling; and I will let them come back into this place where they may take their rest safely.

³⁸And they will be my people, and I will be their God:

³⁹And I will give them one heart and one way, so that they may go on in the worship of me for ever, for their good and the good of their children after them:

⁴⁰And I will make an eternal agreement with them, that I will never give them up, but ever do them good; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not go away from me.

⁴¹And truly, I will take pleasure in doing them good, and all my heart and soul will be given to planting them in this land in good faith.

⁴²For the Lord has said: As I have made all this great evil come on this people, so I will send on them all the good which I said about them.

⁴³And there will be trading in fields in this land of which you say, It is a waste, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldaeans.

⁴⁴Men will get fields for money, and put the business in writing, stamping the papers and having them witnessed, in the land of Benjamin and in the country round Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill-country and in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the South: for I will let their fate be changed, says the Lord.

Jeremiah 33

¹Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was still shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying,

²These are the words of the Lord, who is doing it, the Lord who is forming it, to make it certain; the Lord is his name;

³Let your cry come to me, and I will give you an answer, and let you see great things and secret things of which you had no knowledge.

⁴For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said about the houses of this town and the houses of the kings of Judah, which have been broken down to make earthworks and ... ;

⁵... and to make them full of the dead bodies of men whom I have put to death in my wrath and in my passion, and because of whose evil-doing I have kept my face covered from this town.

⁶See, I will make it healthy and well again, I will even make them well; I will let them see peace and good faith in full measure.

⁷And I will let the fate of Judah and of Israel be changed, building them up as at first.

⁸And I will make them clean from all their sin, with which they have been sinning against me; I will have forgiveness for all their sins, with which they have been sinning against me, and with which they have done evil against me.

⁹And this town will be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, who, hearing of all the good which I am doing for them, will be shaking with fear because of all the good and the peace which I am doing for it.

¹⁰This is what the Lord has said: There will again be sounding in this place, of which you say, It is a waste, without man and without beast; even in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem which are waste and unpeopled, without man and without beast,

¹¹Happy sounds, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who say, Give praise to the Lord of armies, for the Lord is good, for his mercy is unchanging for ever: the voices of those who go with praise into the house of the Lord. For I will let the land come back to its first condition, says the Lord.

¹²This is what the Lord of armies has said: Again there will be in this place, which is a waste, without man and without beast, and in all its towns, a resting-place where the keepers of sheep will make their flocks take rest.

¹³In the towns of the hill-country, in the towns of the lowland, and in the towns of the South and in the land of Benjamin and in the country round Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, the flocks will again go under the hand of him who is numbering them, says the Lord.

¹⁴See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will give effect to the good word which I have said about the people of Israel and the people of Judah.

¹⁵In those days and at that time, I will let a Branch of righteousness come up for David; and he will be a judge in righteousness in the land.

¹⁶In those days, Judah will have salvation and Jerusalem will be safe: and this is the name which will be given to her: The Lord is our righteousness.

¹⁷For the Lord has said, David will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel;

¹⁸And the priests and the Levites will never be without a man to come before me, offering burned offerings and perfumes and meal offerings and offerings of beasts at all times.

¹⁹And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁰The Lord has said: If it is possible for my agreement of the day and the night to be broken, so that day and night no longer come at their fixed times,

²¹Then my agreement with my servant David may be broken, so that he no longer has a son to take his place on the seat of the kingdom; and my agreement with the Levites, the priests, my servants.

²²As it is not possible for the army of heaven to be numbered, or the sand of the sea measured, so will I make the seed of my servant David, and the Levites my servants.

²³And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁴Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation.

²⁵The Lord has said, If I have not made day and night, and if the limits of heaven and earth have not been fixed by me,

²⁶Then I will give up caring for the seed of Jacob and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will let their fate be changed and will have mercy on them.

Jeremiah 34

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth which were under his rule, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and all its towns, saying,

²The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, Go and say to Zedekiah, king of Judah, This is what the Lord has said: See, I will give this town into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will have it burned with fire:

³And you will not get away from him, but will certainly be taken and given up into his hands; and you will see the king of Babylon, eye to eye, and he will have talk with you, mouth to mouth, and you will go to Babylon.

⁴But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah; this is what the Lord has said about you: Death will not come to you by the sword:

⁵You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings as they made for your fathers, the earlier kings before you, will be made for you; and they will be weeping for you and saying, Ah lord! for I have said the word, says the Lord.

⁶Then Jeremiah the prophet said all these things to Zedekiah, king of Judah, in Jerusalem,

⁷When the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the towns of Judah which had not been taken, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these were the last of the walled towns of Judah.

⁸The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made an agreement with all the people in Jerusalem, to give news in public that servants were to be made free;

⁹That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant:

¹⁰And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go.

¹¹But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls.

¹²For this reason the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

¹³The Lord, the God of Israel, has said, I made an agreement with your fathers on the day when I took them out of Egypt, out of the prison-house, saying,

¹⁴At the end of seven years every man is to let go his countryman who is a Hebrew, who has become yours for a price and has been your servant for six years; you are to let him go free: but your fathers gave no attention and did not give ear.

¹⁵And now, turning away from evil, you had done what is right in my eyes, giving a public undertaking for every man to make his neighbour free; and you had made an agreement before me in the house which is named by my name:

¹⁶But again you have put shame on my name, and you have taken back, every one his man-servant and his servant-girl, whom you had sent away free, and you have put them under the yoke again to be your servants and servant-girls.

¹⁷And so the Lord has said, You have not given ear to me and undertaken publicly, every man to let loose his countryman and his neighbour: see, I undertake to let loose against you the sword and disease and need of food; and I will send you wandering among all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁸And I will give the men who have gone against my agreement and have not given effect to the words of the agreement which they made before me, when the ox was cut in two and they went between the parts of it,

¹⁹The rulers of Judah and the rulers of Jerusalem, the unsexed servants and the priests and all the people of the land who went between the parts of the ox,

²⁰Even these I will give up into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives: and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth.

²¹And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his rulers I will give into the hands of their haters and into the hands of those who have designs against their lives, and into the hands of the king of Babylon's army which has gone away from you.

²²See, I will give orders, says the Lord, and make them come back to this town; and they will make war on it and take it and have it burned with fire: and I will make the towns of Judah waste and unpeopled.

Jeremiah 35

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,

²Go into the house of the Rechabites, and have talk with them, and take them into the house of the Lord, into one of the rooms, and give them wine.

³Then I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons and all the Rechabites;

⁴And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the rulers' room, which was over the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door;

⁵And I put before the sons of the Rechabites basins full of wine and cups, and I said to them, Take some wine.

⁶But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, gave us orders, saying, You are to take no wine, you or your sons, for ever:

⁷And you are to make no houses, or put in seed, or get vine-gardens planted, or have any: but all your days you are to go on living in tents, so that you may have a long life in the land where you are living as in a strange country.

⁸And we have kept the rules of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, in everything which he gave us orders to do, drinking no wine all our days, we and our wives and our sons and our daughters;

⁹Building no houses for ourselves, having no vine-gardens or fields or seed:

¹⁰But we have been living in tents, and have done everything which Jonadab our father gave us orders to do.

¹¹But when Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came up into the land, we said, Come, let us go to Jerusalem, away from the army of the Chaldaeans and from the army of the Aramaeans: and so we are living in Jerusalem.

¹²Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

¹³This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Go and say to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, Is there no hope of teaching you to give ear to my words? says the Lord.

¹⁴The orders which Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave to his sons to take no wine, are done, and to this day they take no wine, for they do the orders of their father: but I have sent my words to you, getting up early and sending them, and you have not given ear to me.

¹⁵And I have sent you all my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them, saying, Come back, now, every man from his evil way, and do better, and go not after other gods to become their servants, and you will go on living in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but your ears have not been open, and you have not given attention to me.

¹⁶Though the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have done the orders of their father which he gave them, this people has not given ear to me:

¹⁷For this reason the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem all the evil which I said I would do to them: because I sent my words to them, but they did not give ear; crying out to them, but they gave no answer.

¹⁸But to the Rechabites Jeremiah said, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Because you have done the orders of Jonadab your father, and have kept his rules, and done everything as he gave you orders to do it;

¹⁹For this reason the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, will never be without a man to take his place before me.

Jeremiah 36

¹Now it came about in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

²Take a book and put down in it all the words I have said to you against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations, from the day when my word came to you in the days of Josiah till this day.

³It may be that the people of Judah, hearing of all the evil which it is my purpose to do to them, will be turned, every man from his evil ways; so that they may have my forgiveness for their evil-doing and their sin.

⁴Then Jeremiah sent for Baruch, the son of Neriah; and Baruch took down from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had said to him, writing them in a book.

⁵And Jeremiah gave orders to Baruch, saying, I am shut up, and am not able to go into the house of the Lord:

⁶So you are to go, reading there from the book, which you have taken down from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of the people in the Lord's house, on a day when they go without food, and in the hearing of all the men of Judah who have come out from their towns.

⁷It may be that their prayer for grace will go up to the Lord, and that every man will be turned from his evil ways: for great is the wrath and the passion made clear by the Lord against this people.

⁸And Baruch, the son of Neriah, did as Jeremiah the prophet gave him orders to do, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

⁹Now it came about in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, that it was given out publicly that all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem, were to keep from food before the Lord.

¹⁰Then Baruch gave a public reading of the words of Jeremiah from the book, in the house of the Lord, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher square, as one goes in by the new doorway of the Lord's house, in the hearing of all the people.

¹¹And Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, after hearing all the words of the Lord from the book,

¹²Went down to the king's house, to the scribe's room: and all the rulers were seated there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan, the son of Achbor, and Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, and Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the rulers.

¹³Then Micaiah gave them an account of all the words which had come to his ears when Baruch was reading the book to the people.

¹⁴So all the rulers sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the book from which you have been reading to the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Neriah, took the book in his hand and came down to them.

¹⁵Then they said to him, Be seated now, and give us a reading from it. So Baruch did so, reading it to them.

¹⁶Now it came about that, after hearing all the words, they said to one another in fear, We will certainly give the king an account of all these words.

¹⁷And questioning Baruch, they said, Say now, how did you put all these words down in writing from his mouth?

¹⁸Then Baruch, answering, said, He said all these things to me by word of mouth, and I put them down with ink in the book.

¹⁹Then the rulers said to Baruch, Go and put yourself in a safe place, you and Jeremiah, and let no man have knowledge of where you are.

²⁰Then they went into the open square to the king; but the book they put away in the room of Elishama the scribe; and they gave the king an account of all the words.

²¹So the king sent Jehudi to get the book, and he took it from the room of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi gave a reading of it in the hearing of the king and all the rulers who were by the king's side.

²²Now the king was seated in the winter house, and a fire was burning in the fireplace in front of him.

²³And it came about that whenever Jehudi, in his reading, had got through three or four divisions, the king, cutting them with his penknife, put them into the fire, till all the book was burned up in the fire which was burning in the fireplace.

²⁴But they had no fear and gave no signs of grief, not the king or any of his servants, after hearing all these words.

²⁵And Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made a strong request to the king not to let the book be burned, but he would not give ear to them.

²⁶And the king gave orders to Jerahmeel, the king's son, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord kept them safe.

²⁷Then after the book, in which Baruch had put down the words of Jeremiah, had been burned by the king, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁸Take another book and put down in it all the words which were in the first book, which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, put into the fire.

²⁹And about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: You have put this book into the fire, saying, Why have you put in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come, causing the destruction of this land and putting an end to every man and beast in it?

³⁰For this reason the Lord has said of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, He will have no son to take his place on the seat of David: his dead body will be put out to undergo the heat of the day and the cold of the night.

³¹And I will send punishment on him and on his seed and on his servants for their evil-doing; I will send on them and on the people of Jerusalem and the men of Judah, all the evil which I said against them, but they did not give ear.

³²Then Jeremiah took another book, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who put down in it, from the mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which had been burned in the fire by Jehoiakim, king of Judah: and in addition a number of other words of the same sort.