Jeremiah 19-22

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

19 Thus says the Lord: Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take some of the old people and some of the elderly priests

² And go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], which is by the entrance of the Potsherd Gate; and proclaim there the words that I shall tell you,

³ And say, Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am going to bring such evil upon this place that the ears of whoever hears of it will tingle.

⁴ Because the people have forsaken Me and have estranged and profaned this place [Jerusalem] by burning incense in it to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents

⁵ And have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I commanded not nor spoke of it, nor did it come into My mind and heart—

⁶ Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], but the Valley of Slaughter.^(A)

⁷ And I will pour out and make void the counsel and the plans of [the men of] Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives, and their dead bodies I will give to be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

⁸ And I will make this city an astonishment and a horror and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss [in scorn] because of all its plagues and disasters.

⁹ And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and they shall eat each one the flesh of his neighbor and friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their lives distress them.

¹⁰ Then you shall break the bottle in the sight of the men who accompany you,

¹¹ And say to them, Thus said the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it cannot be mended. Men will bury in Topheth because there will be no other place for burial and until there is no more room to bury.

¹² Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants; and I will even make this city like Topheth.

¹³ And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be like the place of Topheth—even all the houses upon whose roofs incense has been burned to all the host of the heavens and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods.^(B)

¹⁴ Then came Jeremiah from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people,

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks, refusing to hear My words.

20 Now Pashhur son of Immer, the priest, who was [also] chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.

² Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were at the upper Benjamin Gate by the house of the Lord.^(C)

³ And the next day Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, The Lord does not call your name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib [terror on every side].

⁴ For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; they will fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon; he will carry them captive to Babylon and will slay them with the sword.

⁵ Moreover, I will deliver all the riches of this city—all the results of its labors, all its precious things, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—into the hand of their enemies, who will make them a prey and plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon.

⁶ And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity; you shall go to Babylon, and there you shall die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.

⁷ [But Jeremiah said] O Lord, You have persuaded and deceived me, and I was persuaded and deceived; You are stronger than I am and You have prevailed. I am a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.

⁸ For whenever I speak, I must cry out and complain; I shout, Violence and destruction! For the word of the Lord has become to me a reproach and a derision and has brought me insult all day long.

⁹ If I say, I will not make mention of [the Lord] or speak any more in His name, in my mind and heart it is as if there were a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I am weary of enduring and holding it in; I cannot [contain it any longer].

¹⁰ For I have heard many whispering and defaming, [There is] terror on every side! Denounce him! Let us denounce him! Say all my familiar friends, they who watch for my fall, Perhaps he will be persuaded and deceived; then we will prevail against him, and we will get our revenge on him.

¹¹ But the Lord is with me as a mighty and terrible One; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not overcome [me]. They will be utterly put to shame, for they will not deal wisely or prosper [in their schemes]; their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

¹² But, O Lord of hosts, You Who try the righteous, Who see the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance on them, for to You have I revealed and committed my cause.

¹³ Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For He has delivered the life of the poor and needy from the hands of evildoers.

¹⁴ Cursed be the day on which I was born! Let not the day on which my mother bore me be blessed!

¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought the tidings to my father, saying, A son is born to you!—making him very glad.

¹⁶ And let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew, and did not relent. Let him hear the [war] cry in the morning and the shouting of alarm at noon,

¹⁷ Because he did not slay me in the womb, so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb always great.

¹⁸ Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?

21 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying,

² Inquire, I pray you, of the Lord for us, for ^[a] Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, forcing him to withdraw from us.

³ Then said Jeremiah to them, Say this to Zedekiah:

⁴ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back and dull the edge of the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls; and I will bring them into the midst of this city [Jerusalem].

⁵ And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm in anger, in fury, and in great indignation and wrath.

⁶ And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they will die of a great pestilence.

⁷ And afterward, says the Lord, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, the sword, and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their lives. And he will smite them with the edge of the sword; he will not spare them nor have pity or mercy and compassion upon them.

⁸ And to this people you [Jeremiah] shall say, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

⁹ He who remains in this city [Jerusalem] shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. But he who goes out and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be to him his only booty [as a prize of war].

¹⁰ For 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 concerning the royal house of the king of Judah, hear the word of the Lord:

¹² O 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 so that none can quench it—because of the evil of your 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 into our dwelling places?

¹⁴ And I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord. I will kindle a fire in your forest, and it will devour all that is round about you.

22 Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word:

² Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit upon the throne of David—you and your servants and your people who enter by these gates.

³ Thus says the Lord: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver out of the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong; do no violence to the stranger or temporary resident, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

⁴ For if you will indeed obey this word, then will there enter in through the gates of this [the king’s] house kings sitting [for David] upon David’s throne, riding in chariots and on horses—they and their servants and their people.

⁵ But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself, says the Lord, that this house will become a desolation.

⁶ For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah: [If you will not listen to Me, though] you are [as valuable] to Me as [the fat pastures of] Gilead [east of the Jordan] or as the [plentiful] summit of Lebanon [west of the Jordan], yet surely I will make you a wilderness and uninhabited cities.

⁷ And I will prepare, solemnly set apart, and appoint [to execute My judgments against you] destroyers, each with his weapons, and they will cut down your [palaces built of] 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 done this to this great city?

⁹ Then they will answer, Because [the people] forsook the covenant or solemn pledge with the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.

¹⁰ Weep not for him who is dead nor bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away [into captivity], for he shall return no more nor see his native country [again].

¹¹ For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum son of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father and who went forth out of this place: [Shallum] shall not return here any more;

¹² But he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and he shall see this land no more.

¹³ Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his [upper] chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor’s service without wages and does not give him his pay [for his work],

¹⁴ Who says, I will build myself a wide house with large rooms, and he cuts himself out windows, and it is ceiled or paneled with cedar and painted with vermilion.

¹⁵ Do you think that being a king [merely] means [self-indulgent] vying [with Solomon] and striving to excel in cedar [palaces]? Did not your father [Josiah], as he ate and drank, do justice and righteousness [being upright and in right standing with God]? Then it was well with him.

¹⁶ He judged and defended the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not [all] this [what it means] to know and recognize Me? says the Lord.

¹⁷ But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness and dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression and doing violence.

¹⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: [Relatives] shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister, [how great our loss! Subjects] shall not lament for him saying, Ah, lord! or Ah, his majesty! or Ah, [how great was] his glory!

¹⁹ [No] he shall be buried with the burial of a donkey—dragged out and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰ Go up [north] to Lebanon and cry out, and raise your voice in [the hills] of Bashan [across the Jordan], and cry out from Abarim [a range of mountains southeast of Palestine], for all your lovers (the king’s chosen allies) are destroyed.^(D)

²¹ I spoke to you in your [times of] prosperity, but you said, I will not listen! This has been your attitude from your youth; you have not obeyed My voice.

²² The wind [of adversity] shall pasture upon and consume all your shepherds (your princes and statesmen), and your lovers (allies) shall go into captivity. Surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded and dismayed because of all your wickedness.

²³ O inhabitant of Lebanon [Jerusalem, whose palaces are made of Lebanon’s trees], you who make your nest among the cedars, how you will groan and how pitiable you will be when pangs come upon you, pain like that of a woman in childbirth!^(E)

²⁴ As I live, says the Lord, though Coniah [also called Jeconiah and Jehoiachin] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet [ring] upon My right hand, yet would I tear you off.

²⁵ And I will give you into the hands of those who seek your life and into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and into the hands of the Chaldeans.

²⁶ And I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you will die.

²⁷ But to the land to which they will yearn to return, there they will not return.

²⁸ Is this man [King] Coniah a despised, broken pot? Is he a vessel in which no one takes pleasure? Why are they hurled out, he and his royal offspring, and cast into a land which they do not know, understand, or recognize?

²⁹ O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!

³⁰ Thus says the Lord: Write this man [Coniah] down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his offspring shall succeed in sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.