Category: Jeremiah

[40:7] Some of the Judean officers and soldiers had not surrendered. They heard that the king of Babylonia had made Gedaliah governor of the land and had placed him in charge of all those who had not been taken away to Babylonia—the poorest people in the land.

[40:8] So Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai from Netophah, and Jezaniah from Maacah went with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah.

[40:9] Gedaliah said to them, “I give you my word that there is no need for you to be afraid to surrender to the Babylonians. Settle in this land, serve the king of Babylonia, and all will go well with you.

[40:10] I myself will stay in Mizpah and be your representative when the Babylonians come here. But you can gather and store up wine, fruit, and olive oil, and live in the villages you occupy.”

[40:11] Meanwhile, all the Israelites who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other countries, heard that the king of Babylonia had allowed some Israelites to stay on in Judah and that he had made Gedaliah their governor.

[40:12] So they left the places where they had been scattered, and returned to Judah. They came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and there they gathered in large amounts of wine and fruit.

[42:1] Then all the army leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class

[42:2] and said to me, “Please do what we ask you! Pray to the Lord our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see.

[42:3] Pray that the Lord our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do.”

[42:4] I answered, “Very well, then. I will pray to the Lord our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep back anything from you.”

[42:5] Then they said to me, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the Lord our God gives you for us.

[42:6] Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him.”

[42:7] Ten days later the Lord spoke to me;

[42:8] so I called together Johanan, all the army leaders who were with him, and all the other people.

[42:9] I said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said,

[42:10] ‘If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow.

[42:11] Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power.

[42:12] Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the Lord, have spoken.’

[42:16] then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt.

[42:17] All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.’

[42:18] “The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of you and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.’”

[42:19] Then I continued, “The Lord has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now

[42:20] that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the Lord our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands.

[42:21] And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the Lord our God sent me to tell you.

[42:22] So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live.”

[43:1] I finished telling the people everything that the Lord their God had sent me to tell them.

[43:2] Then Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the other arrogant men said to me, “You are lying. The Lord our God did not send you to tell us not to go and live in Egypt.

[43:3] Baruch son of Neriah has stirred you up against us, so that the Babylonians will gain power over us and can either kill us or take us away to Babylonia.”

[43:4] So neither Johanan nor any of the army officers nor any of the people would obey the Lord's command to remain in the land of Judah.

[43:5] Then Johanan and all the army officers took everybody left in Judah away to Egypt, together with all the people who had returned from the nations where they had been scattered:

[43:6] the men, the women, the children, and the king's daughters. They took everyone whom Nebuzaradan the commanding officer had left under the care of Gedaliah, including Baruch and me.

[43:7] They disobeyed the Lord's command and went into Egypt as far as the city of Tahpanhes.

[43:8] There the Lord said to me,

[43:9] “Get some large stones and bury them in the mortar of the pavement in front of the entrance to the government building here in the city, and let some of the Israelites see you do it.

[43:10] Then tell them that I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, am going to bring my servant King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia to this place, and he will put his throne over these stones that you buried, and will spread the royal tent over them.

[43:11] Nebuchadnezzar will come and defeat Egypt. Those people who are doomed to die of disease will die of disease, those doomed to be taken away as prisoners will be taken away as prisoners, and those doomed to be killed in war will be killed in war.

[43:12] I will set fire to the temples of Egypt's gods, and the king of Babylonia will either burn their gods or carry them off. As shepherds pick their clothes clean of lice, so the king of Babylonia will pick the land of Egypt clean and then leave victorious.

[43:13] He will destroy the sacred stone monuments at Heliopolis in Egypt and will burn down the temples of the Egyptian gods.”

[44:1] The Lord spoke to me concerning all the Israelites living in Egypt, in the cities of Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and in the southern part of the country.

[44:2] The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, said, “You yourselves have seen the destruction I brought on Jerusalem and all the other cities of Judah. Even now they are still in ruins, and no one lives in them

[44:3] because their people had done evil and had made me angry. They offered sacrifices to other gods and served gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors ever worshiped.

[44:4] I kept sending you my servants the prophets, who told you not to do this terrible thing that I hate.

[44:5] But you would not listen or pay any attention. You would not give up your evil practice of sacrificing to other gods.

[44:6] So I poured out my anger and fury on the towns of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem, and I set them on fire. They were left in ruins and became a horrifying sight, as they are today.

[44:7] “And so I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, now ask why you are doing such an evil thing to yourselves. Do you want to bring destruction on men and women, children and babies, so that none of your people will be left?

[44:8] Why do you make me angry by worshiping idols and by sacrificing to other gods here in Egypt, where you have come to live? Are you doing this just to destroy yourselves, so that every nation on earth will make fun of you and use your name as a curse?

[44:9] Have you forgotten all the wicked things that have been done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their wives, and by you and your wives?

[44:10] But to this day you have not humbled yourselves. You have not honored me or lived according to all the laws that I gave you and your ancestors.

[44:11] “So then, I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, will turn against you and destroy all Judah.

[44:12] As for the people of Judah who are left and are determined to go and live in Egypt, I will see to it that all of them are destroyed. All of them, great and small, will die in Egypt, either in war or of starvation. They will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of them and use their name as a curse.

[44:13] I will punish those who live in Egypt, just as I punished Jerusalem—with war, starvation, and disease.

[44:14] None of the people of Judah who are left and have come to Egypt to live will escape or survive. Not one of them will return to Judah, where they long to live once again. No one will return except a few refugees.”

[44:15] Then all the men who knew that their wives offered sacrifices to other gods, and all the women who were standing there, including the Israelites who lived in southern Egypt—a large crowd in all—said to me,

[44:16] “We refuse to listen to what you have told us in the name of the Lord.

[44:17] We will do everything that we said we would. We will offer sacrifices to our goddess, the Queen of Heaven, and we will pour out wine offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our king and our leaders, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food, we were prosperous, and had no troubles.

[44:18] But ever since we stopped sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing, and our people have died in war and of starvation.”

[44:19] And the women added, “When we baked cakes shaped like the Queen of Heaven, offered sacrifices to her, and poured out wine offerings to her, our husbands approved of what we were doing.”

[44:20] Then I said to all the men and the women who had answered me in this way,

[44:21] “As for the sacrifices which you and your ancestors, your kings and your leaders, and the people of the land offered in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—do you think that the Lord did not know about them or that he forgot them?

[44:22] This very day your land lies in ruins and no one lives in it. It has become a horrifying sight, and people use its name as a curse because the Lord could no longer endure your wicked and evil practices.

[44:23] This present disaster has come on you because you offered sacrifices to other gods and sinned against the Lord by not obeying all his commands.”

[44:26] But now listen to the vow that I, the Lord, have made in my mighty name to all you Israelites in Egypt: Never again will I let any of you use my name to make a vow by saying, ‘I swear by the living Sovereign Lord!’

[44:27] I will see to it that you will not prosper, but will be destroyed. All of you will die, either in war or of disease, until not one of you is left.

[44:28] But a few of you will escape death and return from Egypt to Judah. Then the survivors will know whose words have come true, mine or theirs.

[44:29] I, the Lord, will give you proof that I will punish you in this place and that my promise to bring destruction on you will come true.

[44:30] I will hand over King Hophra of Egypt to his enemies who want to kill him, just as I handed over King Zedekiah of Judah to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, who was his enemy and wanted to kill him.”

[45:1] In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, Baruch wrote down what I had dictated to him. Then I told him

[45:2] that the Lord, the God of Israel, had said, “Baruch,

[45:3] you are saying, ‘I give up! The Lord has added sorrow to my troubles. I am worn out from groaning, and I can't find any rest!’

[45:4] “But I, the Lord, am tearing down what I have built and pulling up what I have planted. I will do this to the entire earth.

[45:5] Are you looking for special treatment for yourself? Don't do it. I am bringing disaster on all people, but you will at least escape with your life, wherever you go. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

[46:1] The Lord spoke to me about the nations,

[46:2] beginning with Egypt. This is what he said about the army of King Neco of Egypt, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia defeated at Carchemish near the Euphrates River in the fourth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah:

[46:3] “The Egyptian officers shout, ‘Get your shields ready and march into battle!

[46:4] Harness your horses and mount them! Fall in line and put on your helmets! Sharpen your spears! Put on your armor!’

[46:5] “But what do I see?” asks the Lord. “They are turning back in terror. Their soldiers are beaten back; overcome with fear, they run as fast as they can and do not look back.

[46:6] Those who run fast cannot get away; the soldiers cannot escape. In the north, by the Euphrates, they stumble and fall.

[46:7] Who is this that rises like the Nile, like a river flooding its banks?

[46:8] It is Egypt, rising like the Nile, like a river flooding its banks. Egypt said, ‘I will rise and cover the world; I will destroy cities and the people who live there.

[46:9] Command the horses to go and the chariots to roll! Send out the soldiers: men from Ethiopia and Libya, carrying shields, and skilled archers from Lydia.’”

[46:10] This is the day of the Sovereign Lord Almighty: today he will take revenge; today he will punish his enemies. His sword will eat them until it is full, and drink their blood until it is satisfied. Today the Almighty sacrifices his victims in the north, by the Euphrates.

[46:11] People of Egypt, go to Gilead and look for medicine! All your medicine has proved useless; nothing can heal you.

[46:12] Nations have heard of your shame; everyone has heard you cry. One soldier trips over another, and both of them fall to the ground.

[46:13] When King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia came to attack Egypt, the Lord spoke to me. He said,

[46:14] “Proclaim it in the towns of Egypt, in Migdol, Memphis, and Tahpanhes: ‘Get ready to defend yourselves; all you have will be destroyed in war!

[46:15] Why has your mighty god Apis fallen? The Lord has struck him down!’

[46:16] Your soldiers have stumbled and fallen; each one says to the other, ‘Hurry! Let's go home to our people and escape the enemy's sword!’

[46:17] “Give the king of Egypt a new name— ‘Noisy Braggart Who Missed His Chance.’

[46:18] I, the Lord Almighty, am king. I am the living God. As Mount Tabor towers above the mountains and Mount Carmel stands high above the sea, so will be the strength of the one who attacks you.

[46:19] Get ready to be taken prisoner, you people of Egypt! Memphis will be made a desert, a ruin where no one lives.

[46:20] Egypt is like a splendid cow, attacked by a stinging fly from the north.

[46:21] Even her hired soldiers are helpless as calves. They did not stand and fight; all of them turned and ran. The day of their doom had arrived, the time of their destruction.

[46:22] Egypt runs away, hissing like a snake, as the enemy's army approaches. They attack her with axes, like people cutting down trees

[46:23] and destroying a thick forest. Their soldiers are too many to count; they outnumber the locusts.

[46:24] The people of Egypt are put to shame; they are conquered by the people of the north. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

[46:25] The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, “I am going to punish Amon, the god of Thebes, together with Egypt and its gods and kings. I am going to take the king of Egypt and all who put their trust in him,

[46:26] and hand them over to those who want to kill them, to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army. But later on, people will live in Egypt again, as they did in times past. I, the Lord, have spoken.

[46:27] “My people, do not be afraid, people of Israel, do not be terrified. I will rescue you from that faraway land, from the land where you are prisoners. You will come back home and live in peace; you will be secure, and no one will make you afraid.

[46:28] I will come to you and save you. I will destroy all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not destroy you. I will not let you go unpunished; but when I punish you, I will be fair. I, the Lord, have spoken.”