1 Paul, an apostle (special messenger) of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, [my] beloved child: Grace (favor and spiritual blessing), mercy, and [heart] peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord!

³ I thank God Whom I worship with a pure conscience, ^[a]in the spirit of my fathers, when without ceasing I remember you night and day in my prayers,

⁴ And when, as I recall your tears, I yearn to see you so that I may be filled with joy.

⁵ I am calling up memories of your sincere and unqualified faith (the ^[b]leaning of your entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), [a faith] that first lived permanently in [the heart of] your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am [fully] persuaded, [dwells] in you also.

⁶ That is why I would remind you to stir up (rekindle the embers of, fan the flame of, and keep burning) the [gracious] gift of God, [the inner fire] that is in you by means of the laying on of my hands [^[c]with those of the elders at your ordination].

⁷ For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.

⁸ Do not blush or be ashamed then, to testify to and for our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for His sake, but [^[d]with me] take your share of the suffering [to which the preaching] of the Gospel [may expose you, and do it] in the power of God.

⁹ [For it is He] Who delivered and saved us and called us with a calling in itself holy and leading to holiness [to a life of consecration, a vocation of holiness]; [He did it] not because of anything of merit that we have done, but because of and to further His own purpose and grace (unmerited favor) which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began [eternal ages ago].

¹⁰ [It is that purpose and grace] which He now has made known and has fully disclosed and made real [to us] through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who annulled death and made it of no effect and brought life and immortality (immunity from eternal death) to light through the Gospel.

¹¹ For [the proclaiming of] this [Gospel] I was appointed a herald (preacher) and an apostle (special messenger) and a teacher of the Gentiles.

¹² And this is why I am suffering as I do. Still I am not ashamed, for I know (perceive, have knowledge of, and am acquainted with) Him Whom I have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on), and I am [positively] persuaded that He is able to guard and keep that which has been entrusted to me and which ^[e]I have committed [to Him] until that day.

¹³ Hold fast and follow the pattern of wholesome and sound teaching which you have heard from me, in [all] the faith and love which are [for us] in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ Guard and keep [with the greatest care] the precious and excellently adapted [Truth] which has been entrusted [to you], by the [help of the] Holy Spirit Who makes His home in us.

¹⁵ You already know that all who are in Asia turned away and forsook me, Phygelus and Hermogenes among them.

¹⁶ May the Lord grant [His] mercy to the family of Onesiphorus, for he often showed me kindness and ministered to my needs [comforting and reviving and bracing me like fresh air]! He was not ashamed of my chains and imprisonment [for Christ’s sake].

¹⁷ No, rather when he reached Rome, he searched diligently and eagerly for me and found me.

¹⁸ May the Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord on that [great] day! And you know how many things he did for me and what a help he was at Ephesus [you know better than I can tell you].

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17 The sin of Judah is written with a pen or stylus of iron and with the point of a diamond; it is engraved on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars,

² While their children [earnestly] remember their [heathen] altars and their Asherim [wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah] beside the green trees upon the high hills.

³ O [Jerusalem] My mountain in the field, I will give your wealth and all your treasures to the spoil and your high places for sin [as the price of your sin] throughout all your territory.

⁴ And you, through your own fault, will loosen your hand and discontinue from your heritage which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in My anger which will burn throughout the ages.

⁵ Thus says the Lord: Cursed [with great evil] is the strong man who trusts in and relies on frail man, making weak [human] flesh his arm, and whose mind and heart turn aside from the Lord.

⁶ For he shall be like a shrub or a person naked and destitute in the desert; and he shall not see any good come, but shall dwell in the parched places in the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

⁷ [Most] blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is.

⁸ For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river; and it shall not see and fear when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit.

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly perverse and corrupt and severely, mortally sick! Who can know it [perceive, understand, be acquainted with his own heart and mind]?^(A)

¹⁰ I the Lord search the mind, I try the heart, even to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

¹¹ Like the partridge that gathers a brood which she did not hatch and sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches by unjust means and not by right. He will leave them, or they will leave him, in the midst of his days, and at his end he will be a fool.

¹² A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary (the temple).

¹³ O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be put to shame. They who depart from You and me [Your prophet] shall [disappear like] writing upon the ground, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters.

¹⁴ Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.

¹⁵ Behold, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord [predicting the disaster that you said would befall us]? Let it come now!

¹⁶ But as for me, I have not sought to escape from being a shepherd after You, nor have I desired the woeful day [of judgment]; You know that. Whatever I said was spoken in Your presence and was from You.

¹⁷ Be not a terror to me; You are my refuge and my hope in the day of evil.

¹⁸ Let those be put to shame who persecute me, but let me not be put to shame; let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

¹⁹ Thus said the Lord to me: Go and stand in the gate of the sons of the people, through which the kings of Judah enter and through which they go out, and also [stand] in all the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰ Say to them, Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter through these gates.

²¹ Thus says the Lord: Take heed to yourselves and for the sake of your lives bear no burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem.

²² And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy (set apart to the worship of God), as I commanded your fathers.

²³ Yet they would not listen and obey or incline their ears; but they stiffened their necks, that they might not hear and might not receive instruction.

²⁴ But if you diligently listen to and obey Me, says the Lord, and bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy (set apart to the worship of God), to do no work on it,

²⁵ Then there will enter through the gates of this city kings and princes who will sit upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses—the kings and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city will be inhabited and last throughout the ages.

²⁶ And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places round about Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the lowland, from the hill country, and from the South (the Negeb), bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, cereal offerings and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of the Lord.

²⁷ But if you will not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy (set apart to the worship of God), and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem [with one] on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in her gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

18 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

² Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.

³ Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was working at the wheel.

⁴ And the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he made it over, reworking it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make it.

⁵ Then the word of the Lord came to me:

⁶ O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? says the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

⁷ At one time I will suddenly speak concerning a nation or kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it;

⁸ And if [the people of] that nation concerning which I have spoken turn from their evil, I will relent and reverse My decision concerning the evil that I thought to do to them.

⁹ At another time I will suddenly speak concerning a nation or kingdom, that I will build up and plant it;

¹⁰ And if they do evil in My sight, obeying not My voice, then I will regret and reverse My decision concerning the good with which I said I would benefit them.

¹¹ Now therefore say to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Return now each one from his evil way; reform your [accustomed] ways and make your [individual] actions good and right.

¹² But they will say, That is in vain! For we will walk after our own devices, and we will each do as the stubbornness of his own evil heart dictates.

¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask now among the nations: Who has heard such things? Virgin Israel has done a very vile and horrible thing.

¹⁴ Will the snow of Mount Lebanon fail and vanish from its rocks [which tower above the land of Israel]? Will the cold, rushing waters of strange lands [that dash down from afar] be dried up?

¹⁵ Yet My people have forgotten Me; they burn incense to false gods, they have been caused to stumble in their ways and in the ancient roads, to walk in bypaths, in a way not graded and built up [not on a highway],

¹⁶ Making their land a desolation and a horror, a thing to be hissed at perpetually; everyone who passes by shall be astounded and horrified and shake his head.

¹⁷ I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity [says the Lord].

¹⁸ Then [my enemies] said, Come and let us devise schemes against Jeremiah; for the law [of Moses] shall not perish from the priest [as this false prophet Jeremiah predicts], nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us smite him with the tongue [making a charge against him to the king], and let us not pay any attention to his words.

¹⁹ Give heed to me, Lord; listen to [what] my adversaries [are plotting to do to me—and intercede].

²⁰ Shall evil be recompensed for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. [Earnestly] remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your anger from them.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine; give them over to the power of the sword. And let their wives become childless and widows; let their men meet death by pestilence, their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

²² Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring a troop upon them, for they have dug a pit to take me and have hidden snares for my feet.

²³ Yet, Lord, You know all their plotting against me to slay me. Forgive not their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your sight. But let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.