Jeremiah 32:1–15

Jeremiah Buys a Field During the Siege

³²The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. ²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah,^{* 3}where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the Lord: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;^{* 4}King Zedekiah of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans but shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye,^{* 5}and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I attend to him, says the Lord; though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed?”^*

⁶Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ ”^{* 8}Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

⁹And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out the silver to him, seventeen shekels of silver.^{* 10}I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the silver on scales.^{* 11}Then I took the sealed deed of purchase containing the terms and conditions and the open copy,^{* 12}and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin^q Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.^{* 13}In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, ¹⁴“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. ¹⁵For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”^*