Jeremiah 21–52

Jerusalem’s Defeat Is Predicated

21King Zedekiah of Judah sent Pashhur son of Malchiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to me with this request: ^2*“Please speak to the Lord for us, because King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army are besieging the city. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles for us and force Nebuchadnezzar to retreat.” ³Then the Lord spoke to me, and I told the men who had been sent to me ⁴to tell Zedekiah that the Lord, the God of Israel, had said, “Zedekiah, I am going to defeat your army that is fighting against the king of Babylonia and his army. I will pile up your soldiers’ weapons in the centre of the city. ⁵I will fight against you with all my might, my anger, my wrath, and my fury. ⁶I will kill everyone living in this city; people and animals alike will die of a terrible disease. ⁷But as for you, your officials, and the people who survive the war, the famine, and the disease—I will let all of you be captured by King Nebuchadnezzar and by your enemies, who want to kill you. Nebuchadnezzar will put you to death. He will not spare any of you or show mercy or pity to any of you. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

⁸Then the Lord told me to say to the people, “Listen! I, the Lord, am giving you a choice between the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. ⁹Anyone who stays in the city will be killed in war or by starvation or disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians, who are now attacking the city, will not be killed; they will at least escape with their lives. ¹⁰I have made up my mind not to spare this city, but to destroy it. It will be given over to the king of Babylonia and he will burn it to the ground. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Judgement on the Royal House of Judah

^11–12The Lord told me to give this message to the royal house of Judah, the descendants of David: “Listen to what I, the Lord, am saying. See that justice is done every day. Protect the person who is being cheated from the one who is cheating him. If you don’t, the evil you are doing will make my anger burn like a fire that cannot be put out. ¹³You, Jerusalem, are sitting^y high above the valleys, like a rock rising above the plain. But I will fight against you. You say that no one can attack you or break through your defences. ¹⁴But I will punish you for what you have done. I will set your palace on fire, and the fire will burn down everything round it. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Jeremiah’s Message to the Royal House of Judah

22The Lord told me to go to the palace of the king of Judah, the descendant of David, and there tell the king, his officials, and the people of Jerusalem to listen to what the Lord had said: ³“I, the Lord, command you to do what is just and right. Protect the person who is being cheated from the one who is cheating him. Do not ill-treat or oppress foreigners, orphans, or widows; and do not kill innocent people in this holy place. ⁴If you really do as I have commanded, then David’s descendants will continue to be kings. And they, together with their officials and their people, will continue to pass through the gates of this palace in chariots and on horses. ^5*But if you do not obey my commands, then I swear to you that this palace will fall into ruins. I, the Lord, have spoken.

⁶“To me, Judah’s royal palace is as beautiful as the land of Gilead and as the Lebanon Mountains; but I will make it a desolate place where no one lives. ⁷I am sending men to destroy it. They will all bring their axes, cut down its beautiful cedar pillars, and throw them into the fire.

⁸“Afterwards many foreigners will pass by and ask one another why I, the Lord, have done such a thing to this great city. ⁹Then they will answer that it is because you have abandoned your covenant with me, your God, and have worshipped and served other gods.”

Jeremiah’s Message Concerning Joahaz

¹⁰People of Judah, do not weep for King Josiah;

do not mourn his death.

But weep bitterly for Joahaz, his son;

they are taking him away,

never to return, never again to see the land where he was born.

^11*The Lord says concerning Josiah’s son Joahaz, who succeeded his father as king of Judah, “He has gone away from here, never to return. ¹²He will die in the country where they have taken him, and he will never again see this land.”

Jeremiah’s Message Concerning Jehoiakim

¹³Doomed is the man who builds his house by injustice

and enlarges it by dishonesty;

who makes his countrymen work for nothing

and does not pay their wages.

¹⁴Doomed is the one who says,

“I will build myself a mansion

with spacious rooms upstairs.”

So he puts windows in his house,

panels it with cedar,

and paints it red.

¹⁵Does it make you a better king

if you build houses of cedar,

finer than those of others?

Your father enjoyed a full life.

He was always just and fair,

and he prospered in everything he did.

¹⁶He gave the poor a fair trial, and all went well with him.

That is what it means to know the Lord.

¹⁷But you can only see your selfish interests;

you kill the innocent

and violently oppress your people.

The Lord has spoken.

^18*So then, the Lord says about Josiah’s son Jehoiakim, king of Judah,

“No one will mourn his death or say,

‘How terrible, my friend, how terrible!’

No one will weep for him or cry,

‘My lord! My king!’

¹⁹With the funeral honours of a donkey,

he will be dragged away

and thrown outside Jerusalem’s gates.”

Jeremiah’s Message about the Fate of Jerusalem

²⁰People of Jerusalem,

go to Lebanon and shout, go to the land of Bashan and cry;

call out from the mountains of Moab,

because all your allies have been defeated.

²¹The Lord spoke to you when you were prosperous,

but you refused to listen.

That is what you’ve done all your life;

you never would obey the Lord.

²²Your leaders will be blown away by the wind,

your allies taken as prisoners of war,

your city disgraced and put to shame

because of all the evil you have done.

²³You rest secure among the cedars brought from Lebanon;

but how pitiful you’ll be when

pains strike you, pains like those of a woman in labour.

God’s Judgement on Jehoiachin

^24*The Lord said to King Jehoiachin, son of King Jehoiakim of Judah, “As surely as I am the living God, even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off ²⁵and give you to people you are afraid of, people who want to kill you. I will give you to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his soldiers. ²⁶I am going to force you and your mother into exile. You will go to a country where neither of you was born, and both of you will die there. ²⁷You will long to see this country again, but you will never return.”

²⁸I said, “Has King Jehoiachin become like a broken jar that is thrown away and that no one wants? Is that why he and his children have been taken into exile to a land they know nothing about?”

²⁹O land, land, land!

Listen to what the Lord has said:

³⁰“This man is condemned to lose his children,

to be a man

who will never succeed.

He will have no descendants who will rule in Judah

as David’s successors.

I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Hope for the Future

23How terrible will be the Lord’s judgement on those rulers who destroy and scatter his people! ²This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the rulers who were supposed to take care of his people: “You have not taken care of my people; you have scattered them and driven them away. Now I am going to punish you for the evil you have done. ³I will gather the rest of my people from the countries where I have scattered them, and I will bring them back to their homeland. They will have many children and increase in number. ⁴I will appoint rulers to take care of them. My people will no longer be afraid or terrified, and I will not punish them again.^z I, the Lord, have spoken.”

^5*The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will rule wisely and do what is right and just throughout the land. ^6*When he is king, the people of Judah will be safe, and the people of Israel will live in peace. He will be called ‘The Lord Our Salvation’.

⁷“The time is coming,” says the Lord, “when people will no longer swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. ⁸Instead, they will swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of a northern land and out of all the other countries where I had scattered them. Then they will live in their own land.”

Jeremiah’s Message about the Prophets

⁹My heart is crushed,

and I am trembling.

Because of the Lord,

because of his holy words,

I am like a man who is drunk,

a man who has had too much wine.

¹⁰The land is full of people unfaithful to the Lord;

they live wicked lives and misuse their power.

Because of the Lord’s curse the land mourns and the pastures are dry.

¹¹The Lord says,

“The prophets and the priests are godless;

I have caught them doing evil in the Temple itself.

¹²The paths they follow will be slippery and dark; I will make them stumble and fall.

I am going to bring disaster on them;

the time of their punishment is coming.

I, the Lord, have spoken.

¹³I have seen the sin of Samaria’s prophets:

they have spoken in the name of Baal

and have led my people astray.

^14*But I have seen the prophets in Jerusalem do even worse:

they commit adultery and tell lies;

they help people to do wrong,

so that no one stops doing what is evil.

To me, they are all

as bad as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

¹⁵“So then, this is what I, the Lord Almighty, say about the prophets of Jerusalem:

I will give them bitter plants to eat

and poison to drink,

because they have spread ungodliness throughout the land.”

¹⁶The Lord Almighty said to the people of Jerusalem, “Do not listen to what the prophets say; they are filling you with false hopes. They tell you what they have imagined and not what I have said. ¹⁷To the people who refuse to listen to what I have said, they keep saying that all will go well with them. And they tell everyone who…