Jeremiah 21–52

Chapter 21

¹This is the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Ma-aseiah, saying, ²“Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon is making war against us; perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds, and will make him withdraw from us.”

³Then Jeremiah said to them: ⁴“Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls; and I will bring them together into the midst of this city. ⁵I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. ⁶And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence. ⁷Afterward, says the Lord, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives. He shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not pity them, or spare them, or have compassion.’

⁸“And to this people you shall say: ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. ⁹He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. ¹⁰For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.’

¹¹“And to the house of the king of Judah say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, ¹²O house of David! Thus says the Lord:

“ ‘Execute justice in the morning,

and deliver from the hand of the oppressor

him who has been robbed,

lest my wrath go forth like fire,

and burn with none to quench it,

because of your evil doings.’ ”

¹³“Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,

O rock of the plain,

says the Lord;

you who say, ‘Who shall come down against us,

or who shall enter our habitations?’

¹⁴I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord;

I will kindle a fire in her forest,

and it shall devour all that is round about her.”

Chapter 22

¹Thus says the Lord: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, ²and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah, who sit on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. ³Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people. ⁵But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. ⁶For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:

“ ‘You are as Gilead to me,

as the summit of Lebanon,

yet surely I will make you a desert,

an uninhabited city.

⁷I will prepare destroyers against you,

each with his weapons;

and they shall cut down your choicest cedars,

and cast them into the fire.

⁸“ ‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the Lord dealt thus with this great city?” ⁹And they will answer, “Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.” ’ ”

¹⁰Weep not for him who is dead,

nor bemoan him;

but weep bitterly for him who goes away,

for he shall return no more

to see his native land.

¹¹For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went away from this place: “He shall return here no more, ¹²but in the place where they have carried him captive, there shall he die, and he shall never see this land again.”

¹³“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,

and his upper rooms by injustice;

who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing,

and does not give him his wages;

¹⁴who says, ‘I will build myself a great house

with spacious upper rooms,’

and cuts out windows for it,

paneling it with cedar,

and painting it with vermilion.

¹⁵Do you think you are a king

because you compete in cedar?

Did not your father eat and drink

and do justice and righteousness?

Then it was well with him.

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

then it was well.

Is not this to know me?

says the Lord.

¹⁷But you have eyes and heart

only for your dishonest gain,

for shedding innocent blood,

and for practicing oppression and violence.”

¹⁸Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

“They shall not lament for him, saying,

‘Ah my brother!’ or ‘Ah sister!’

They shall not lament for him, saying,

‘Ah lord!’ or ‘Ah his majesty!’

¹⁹With the burial of an ass he shall be buried,

dragged and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

²⁰“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,

and lift up your voice in Bashan;

cry from Abarim,

for all your lovers are destroyed.

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity,

but you said, ‘I will not listen.’

This has been your way from your youth,

that you have not obeyed my voice.

²²The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,

and your lovers shall go into captivity;

then you will be ashamed and confounded

because of all your wickedness.

²³O inhabitant of Lebanon,

nested among the cedars,

how you will groan when pangs come upon you,

pain as of a woman in travail!”

²⁴“As I live, says the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off ²⁵and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. ²⁶I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. ²⁷But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot,

a vessel no one cares for?

Why are he and his children hurled and cast

into a land which they do not know?

²⁹O land, land, land,

hear the word of the Lord!

³⁰Thus says the Lord:

“Write this man down as childless,

a man who shall not succeed in his days;

for none of his offspring shall succeed

in sitting on the throne of David,

and ruling again in Judah.”

Chapter 23

¹“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord. ²Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. ³Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, says the Lord.

⁵“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

⁷“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when men shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ⁸but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he^m had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

⁹Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me,

all my bones shake;

I am like a drunken man,

like a man overcome by wine,

because of the Lord

and because of his holy words.

¹⁰For the land is full of adulterers;

because of the curse the land mourns,

and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.

Their course is evil,

and their might is not right.

¹¹“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;

even in my house I have found their wickedness,

says the Lord.

¹²Therefore their way shall be to them

like slippery paths in the darkness,

into which they shall be driven and fall;

for I will bring evil upon them

in the year of their punishment,

says the Lord.

¹³In the prophets of Samaria

I saw an unsavory thing:

they prophesied by Baal

and led my people Israel astray.

¹⁴But in the prophets of Jerusalem

I have seen a horrible thing:

they commit adultery and walk in lies;

they strengthen the hands of evildoers,

so that no one turns from his wickedness;

all of them have become like Sodom to me,

and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

¹⁵Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:

“Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,

and give them poisoned water to drink;

for from the prophets of Jerusalem

ungodliness has gone forth into all the land.”

¹⁶Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes; they speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. ¹⁷They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to every one who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon…