Jeremiah 32:1–15

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord—^ain the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. ²For then the king of Babylon’s army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up ^bin the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah’s house. ³For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you ^cprophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: ^d“Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; ⁴and Zedekiah king of Judah ^eshall not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him ¹face to face, and see him ^feye to eye; ⁵then he shall ^glead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall be ^huntil I visit him,” says the Lord; ⁱ“though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed” ’?”

⁶And Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁷‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, “Buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the ^jright of redemption is yours to buy it.” ’ ⁸Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, ‘Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. ⁹So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and ^kweighed out to him the money—seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰And I signed the ²deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales. ¹¹So I took the purchase deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open; ¹²and I gave the purchase deed to ^lBaruch the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the ^mwitnesses who signed the purchase deed, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison.

¹³“Then I charged ⁿBaruch before them, saying, ¹⁴‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Take these deeds, both this purchase deed which is sealed and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days.” ¹⁵For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall be ^opossessed again in this land.” ’