Jeremiah 32-36

Jeremiah 32

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah.

³For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying like this? You claim that the LORD says, ‘Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.

⁴Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape from the hands of the Chaldeans, but he will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye.

⁵He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will stay until I attend to him, declares the LORD. If you fight against the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.’”

⁶Jeremiah replied, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying:

⁷Behold! Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, is coming to you to say, ‘Buy for yourself my field in Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it.’

⁸Then, as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and urged me, ‘Please buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you own the right of inheritance and redemption. Buy it for yourself.’” Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.

⁹So I bought the field in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and I weighed out seventeen shekels of silver.

¹⁰I signed and sealed the deed, called in witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales.

¹¹Then I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy with its terms and conditions, as well as the open copy—

¹²and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the sight of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who were signing the purchase agreement and all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.

¹³In their sight I instructed Baruch,

¹⁴“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Take these deeds—both the sealed copy and the open copy of the deed of purchase—and put them in a clay jar to preserve them for a long time.

¹⁵For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

¹⁶After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD:

¹⁷“Oh, Lord GOD! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!

¹⁸You show loving devotion to thousands but lay the iniquity of the fathers into the laps of their children after them, O great and mighty God whose name is the LORD of Hosts,

¹⁹the One great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are on all the ways of the sons of men, to reward each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.

²⁰You performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and You do so to this very day, both in Israel and among all mankind. And You have made a name for Yourself, as is the case to this day.

²¹You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.

²²You gave them this land that You had sworn to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

²³They came in and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law. They failed to perform all that You commanded them to do, and so You have brought upon them all this disaster.

²⁴See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

²⁵Yet You, O Lord GOD, have said to me, ‘Buy for yourself the field with silver and call in witnesses, even though the city has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans!’”

²⁶Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

²⁷“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

²⁸Therefore this is what the LORD says: Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it.

²⁹And the Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come in, set it on fire, and burn it, along with the houses of those who provoked Me to anger by burning incense to Baal on their rooftops and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods.

³⁰For the children of Israel and of Judah have done nothing but evil in My sight from their youth; indeed, they have done nothing but provoke Me to anger by the work of their hands, declares the LORD.

³¹For this city has aroused My wrath and fury from the day it was built until now. Therefore I will remove it from My presence

³²because of all the evil the children of Israel and of Judah have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem.

³³They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.

³⁴They have placed their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

³⁵They have built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Hinnom to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech—something I never commanded them, nor had it ever entered My mind, that they should commit such an abomination and cause Judah to sin.

³⁶Now therefore, about this city of which you say, ‘It will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword and famine and plague,’ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says:

³⁷I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety.

³⁸They will be My people, and I will be their God.

³⁹I will give them one heart and one way, so that they will always fear Me for their own good and for the good of their children after them.

⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.

⁴¹Yes, I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

⁴²For this is what the LORD says: Just as I have brought all this great disaster on this people, so I will bring on them all the good I have promised them.

⁴³And fields will be bought in this land about which you are saying, ‘It is a desolation, without man or beast; it has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans.’

⁴⁴Fields will be purchased with silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed, and witnessed in the land of Benjamin, in the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah—the cities of the hill country, the foothills, and the Negev—because I will restore them from captivity, declares the LORD.”

Jeremiah 33

¹While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time:

²“Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it, the LORD is His name:

³Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

⁴For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah that have been torn down for defense against the siege ramps and the sword:

⁵The Chaldeans are coming to fight and to fill those places with the corpses of the men I will strike down in My anger and in My wrath. I have hidden My face from this city because of all its wickedness.

⁶Nevertheless, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal its people and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.

⁷I will restore Judah and Israel from captivity and will rebuild them as in former times.

⁸And I will cleanse them from all the iniquity they have committed against Me, and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against Me.

⁹So this city will bring Me renown, joy, praise, and glory before all the nations of the earth, who will hear of all the good I do for it. They will tremble in awe because of all the goodness and prosperity that I will provide for it.

¹⁰This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the LORD, saying: ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Hosts, for the LORD is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the LORD.

¹²This is what the LORD of Hosts says: In this desolate place, without man or beast, and in all its cities, there will once more be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.

¹³In the cities of the hill country, the foothills, and the Negev, in the land of Benjamin and the cities surrounding Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the LORD.

¹⁴Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the gracious promise that I have spoken to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause to sprout for David a righteous Branch, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.

¹⁷For this is what the LORD says: David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,

¹⁸nor will the priests who are Levites ever fail to have a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to present sacrifices.”

¹⁹And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

²⁰“This is what the LORD says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time,

²¹then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant and with My ministers the Levites who are priests, so that David will not have a son to reign on his throne.

²²As the hosts of heaven cannot be counted and as the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so too will I multiply the descendants of My servant David and the Levites who minister before Me.”

²³Moreover, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

²⁴“Have you not noticed what these people are saying: ‘The LORD has rejected the two families He had chosen’? So they despise My people and no longer regard them as a nation.

²⁵This is what the LORD says: If I have not established My covenant with the day and the night and the fixed order of heaven and earth,

²⁶then I would also reject the descendants of Jacob and of My servant David, so as not to take from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore them from captivity and will have compassion on them.”

Jeremiah 34

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, all his army, all the earthly kingdoms under his control, and all the other nations were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding cities.

²The LORD, the God of Israel, told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him that this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

³And you yourself will not escape his grasp, but will surely be captured and delivered into his hand. You will see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face; and you will go to Babylon.

⁴Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the LORD says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;

⁵you will die in peace. As spices were burned for your fathers, the former kings who preceded you, so people will burn spices for you and lament, ‘Alas, O master!’ For I Myself have spoken this word, declares the LORD.”

⁶In Jerusalem, then, Jeremiah the prophet relayed all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah

⁷as the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the remaining cities of Judah—against Lachish and Azekah. For these were the only fortified cities remaining in Judah.

⁸After King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty, the word came to Jeremiah from the LORD

⁹that each man should free his Hebrew slaves, both male and female, and no one should hold his fellow Jew in bondage.

¹⁰So all the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their menservants and maidservants and no longer hold them in bondage. They obeyed and released them,

¹¹but later they changed their minds and took back the menservants and maidservants they had freed, and they forced them to become slaves again.

¹²Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

¹³“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying:

¹⁴Every seventh year, each of you must free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself to you. He may serve you six years, but then you must let him go free. But your fathers did not listen or incline their ear.

¹⁵Recently you repented and did what pleased Me; each of you proclaimed freedom for his neighbor. You made a covenant before Me in the house that bears My Name.

¹⁶But now you have changed your minds and profaned My name. Each of you has taken back the menservants and maidservants whom you had set at liberty to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves.

¹⁷Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁸And those who have transgressed My covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before Me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its pieces.

¹⁹The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf,

²⁰I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

²¹And I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon that had withdrawn from you.

²²Behold, I am going to give the command, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Jeremiah 35

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:

²“Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them to one of the chambers of the house of the LORD to offer them a drink of wine.”

³So I took Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons—the entire house of the Rechabites—

⁴and I brought them into the house of the LORD, to a chamber occupied by the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, a man of God. This room was near the chamber of the officials, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper.

⁵Then I set pitchers full of wine and some cups before the men of the house of the Rechabites, and I said to them, “Drink some wine.”

⁶“We do not drink wine,” they replied, “for our forefather Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us, ‘Neither you nor your descendants are ever to drink wine.

⁷Nor are you ever to build a house or sow seed or plant a vineyard. Those things are not for you. Instead, you must live in tents all your lives, so that you may live a long time in the land where you wander.’

⁸And we have obeyed the voice of our forefather Jonadab son of Rechab in all he commanded us. So we have not drunk wine all our lives—neither we nor our wives nor our sons and daughters.

⁹Nor have we built houses in which to live, and we have not owned any vineyards or fields or crops.

¹⁰But we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done exactly as our forefather Jonadab commanded us.

¹¹So when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched into the land, we said: ‘Come, let us go into Jerusalem to escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’ So we have remained in Jerusalem.”

¹²Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

¹³“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem: ‘Will you not accept discipline and obey My words?’ declares the LORD.

¹⁴The words of Jonadab son of Rechab have been carried out. He commanded his sons not to drink wine, and they have not drunk it to this very day because they have obeyed the command of their forefather. But I have spoken to you again and again, and you have not obeyed Me!

¹⁵Again and again I have sent you all My servants the prophets, proclaiming: ‘Turn now, each of you, from your wicked ways, and correct your actions. Do not go after other gods to serve them. Live in the land that I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.

¹⁶Yes, the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not listened to Me.

¹⁷Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will bring to Judah and to all the residents of Jerusalem all the disaster I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them but they have not obeyed, and I have called to them but they have not answered.’”

¹⁸Then Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites: “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Because you have obeyed the command of your forefather Jonadab and have kept all his commandments and have done all that he charged you to do,

¹⁹this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Jonadab son of Rechab will never fail to have a man to stand before Me.’”

Jeremiah 36

¹In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²“Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah until today.

³Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the calamity I plan to bring upon them, each of them will turn from his wicked way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

⁴So Jeremiah called Baruch son of Neriah, and at the dictation of Jeremiah, Baruch wrote on a scroll all the words that the LORD had spoken to Jeremiah.

⁵Then Jeremiah commanded Baruch, “I am restricted; I cannot enter the house of the LORD;

⁶so you are to go to the house of the LORD on a day of fasting, and in the hearing of the people you are to read the words of the LORD from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who are coming from their cities.

⁷Perhaps they will bring their petition before the LORD, and each one will turn from his wicked way; for great are the anger and fury that the LORD has pronounced against this people.”

⁸So Baruch son of Neriah did everything that Jeremiah the prophet had commanded him. In the house of the LORD he read the words of the LORD from the scroll.

⁹Now in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, a fast before the LORD was proclaimed to all the people of Jerusalem and all who had come there from the cities of Judah.

¹⁰From the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper courtyard at the opening of the New Gate of the house of the LORD, Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the hearing of all the people.

¹¹When Micaiah son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the LORD from the scroll,

¹²he went down to the scribe’s chamber in the king’s palace, where all the officials were sitting: Elishama the scribe, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials.

¹³And Micaiah reported to them all the words he had heard Baruch read from the scroll in the hearing of the people.

¹⁴Then all the officials sent word to Baruch through Jehudi son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, saying, “Bring the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people, and come here.” So Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll and went to them.

¹⁵“Please sit down,” they said, “and read it in our hearing.” So Baruch read it in their hearing.

¹⁶When they had heard all these words, they turned to one another in fear and said to Baruch, “Surely we must report all these words to the king.”

¹⁷“Tell us now,” they asked Baruch, “how did you write all these words? Was it at Jeremiah’s dictation?”

¹⁸“It was at his dictation,” Baruch replied. “He recited all these words to me and I wrote them in ink on the scroll.”

¹⁹Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must hide yourselves and tell no one where you are.”

²⁰So the officials went to the king in the courtyard. And having stored the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, they reported everything to the king.

²¹Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king and all the officials who were standing beside him.

²²Since it was the ninth month, the king was sitting in his winter quarters with a fire burning before him.

²³And as soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll had been consumed by the fire.

²⁴Yet in hearing all these words, the king and his servants did not become frightened or tear their garments.

²⁵Even though Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.

²⁶Instead, the king commanded Jerahmeel, a son of the king, as well as Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the LORD had hidden them.

²⁷After the king had burned the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

²⁸“Take another scroll and rewrite on it the very words that were on the original scroll, which Jehoiakim king of Judah has burned.

²⁹You are to proclaim concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah that this is what the LORD says: You have burned the scroll and said, ‘Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon would surely come and destroy this land and deprive it of man and beast?’

³⁰Therefore this is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night.

³¹I will punish him and his descendants and servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the residents of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the calamity about which I warned them but they did not listen.”

³²Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, and at Jeremiah’s dictation he wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.