¹⸤These are⸥ the words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah. He was one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. ²The Lord spoke his word to Jeremiah when King Josiah, son of Amon, was in his thirteenth year as king of Judah. ³The Lord also spoke when Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, was king of Judah and during the 11 years that Zedekiah, ⸤another⸥ son of Josiah, was king of Judah. The Lord continued to speak to Jeremiah until the people of Jerusalem were taken away into captivity in the fifth month of the year.

The Lord Gives Jeremiah a Message for His People

⁴The Lord spoke his word to me,

⁵“Before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you.

Before you were born,

I set you apart for my holy purpose.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

⁶I, Jeremiah, said, “Almighty Lord, I do not know how to speak. I am only a boy!”

⁷But the Lord said to me, “Don’t say that you are only a boy. You will go wherever I send you. You will say whatever I command you to say. ⁸Don’t be afraid of people. I am with you, and I will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

⁹Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. The Lord said to me,

“Now I have put my words in your mouth.

¹⁰Today I have put you in charge of nations and kingdoms.

You will uproot and tear down.

You will destroy and overthrow.

You will build and plant.”

¹¹Again the Lord spoke his word to me and asked, “Jeremiah, what do you see?”

I answered, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”

¹²Then the Lord said to me, “Right. I am watching to make sure that my words come true.”^a

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Footnotes

a 1:11–12 There is a play on words here between Hebrew shaked (almond tree) and shoked (watching).