The Woes of the Wicked

⁶ Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,

Proclamation against Ammon

25 The word of the Lord came to me: ² Mortal, set your face toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.^{(A) 3} Say to the Ammonites: Hear the word of the Lord God: Thus says the Lord God: Because you said, “Aha!” over my sanctuary when it was profaned and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate and over the house of Judah when it went into exile,^{(B) 4} therefore I am handing you over to the people of the East for a possession. They shall set their encampments among you and pitch their tents in your midst; they shall eat your fruit, and they shall drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and Ammon a fold for flocks. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.^{(C) 6} For thus says the Lord God: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within you against the land of Israel,^{(D) 7} therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and will hand you over as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.^(E)

Proclamation against Moab

⁸ Thus says the Lord God: Because Moab^[a] said, “The house of Judah is like all the other nations,” ⁹ therefore I will lay open the flank of Moab from the towns^[b] on its frontier, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim. ¹⁰ I will give it along with Ammon to the people of the East as a possession. Thus Ammon shall be remembered no more among the nations, ¹¹ and I will execute judgments upon Moab. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

Proclamation against Edom

¹² Thus says the Lord God: Because Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance upon them,^{(F) 13} therefore thus says the Lord God: I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it humans and animals, and I will make it desolate; from Teman even to Dedan they shall fall by the sword.^{(G) 14} I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel, and they shall act in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath, and they shall know my vengeance, says the Lord God.^(H)

Proclamation against Philistia

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord God: Because with unending hostilities the Philistines acted in vengeance and with malice of heart took revenge in destruction,^{(I) 16} therefore thus says the Lord God: I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the rest of the seacoast.^{(J) 17} I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful punishments. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance on them.^(K)

The Destruction of Jerusalem Reviewed

52 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.^{(A) 2} He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.^{(B) 3} Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.

Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.^{(C) 4} And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around.^{(D) 5} So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ⁶ On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.^{(E) 7} Then a breach was made in the city wall,^[a] and all the soldiers fled and went out from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the King’s Garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah.^{(F) 8} But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered, deserting him.^{(G) 9} Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.^{(H) 10} The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the officers of Judah at Riblah.^{(I) 11} He put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in fetters, and the king of Babylon took him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day of his death.^(J)

¹² In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.^{(K) 13} He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.^{(L) 14} All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.^{(M) 15} Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the artisans.^{(N) 16} But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.^(O)

¹⁷ The pillars of bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried all the bronze to Babylon.^{(P) 18} They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the ladles, and all the vessels of bronze used in the temple service.^{(Q) 19} The captain of the guard took away the small bowls also, the firepans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the ladles, and the bowls for libation, both those of gold and those of silver.^{(R) 20} As for the two pillars, the one sea, the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.^{(S) 21} As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; its circumference was twelve cubits; it was hollow, and its thickness was four fingers.^{(T) 22} Upon it was a capital of bronze; the height of the capital was five cubits; latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, encircled the top of the capital. And the second pillar had the same, with pomegranates.^{(U) 23} There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates encircling the latticework numbered one hundred.

²⁴ The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold.^{(V) 25} From the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers, seven men of the king’s council who were found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found inside the city. ²⁶ Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.^{(W) 27} And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.^(X)

²⁸ This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand twenty-three Judeans;^{(Y) 29} in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took into exile from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; ³⁰ in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile of the Judeans seven hundred forty-five persons; all the persons were four thousand six hundred.^(Z)

Jehoiachin Favored in Captivity

³¹ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year he began to reign, showed favor to King Jehoiachin of Judah and brought him out of prison;^{(AA) 32} he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. ³³ So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes, and every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table.^{(AB) 34} For his allowance, a regular daily allowance was given him by the king of Babylon, as long as he lived, up to the day of his death.^(AC)

Judgment on Egypt

46 The word of the Lord that came to the prophet Jeremiah concerning the nations.

² Concerning Egypt, about the army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which was by the River Euphrates at Carchemish and which King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah:^(A)

Babylonia Will Strike Egypt

¹³ The word that the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about the coming of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon to attack the land of Egypt:^(K)

²⁵ The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, said: See, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes and Pharaoh and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him.^{(V) 26} I will hand them over to those who seek their life, to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and his servants. Afterward Egypt shall be inhabited as in the days of old, says the Lord.^(W)

God Will Save Israel

⁹ I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the Lord, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these nations around; I will utterly destroy them and make them an object of horror and of hissing and an everlasting disgrace.^{[a](A) 10} And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.^{(B) 11} This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹² Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.^{(C) 13} I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book that Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴ For many nations and great kings shall make slaves of them also, and I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.^(D)

The Cup of God’s Wrath

¹⁵ For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.^{(E) 16} They shall drink and stagger and go out of their minds because of the sword that I am sending among them.^(F)

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink it: ¹⁸ Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, an object of hissing and of cursing, as they are today;^{(G) 19} Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, and all his people; ²⁰ all the mixed people;^[b] all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the land of the Philistines—Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;^{(H) 21} Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites;^{(I) 22} all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastland across the sea;^{(J) 23} Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have shaved temples;^{(K) 24} all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed peoples^[c] that live in the desert;^{(L) 25} all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media; ²⁶ all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the king of Sheshach^[d] shall drink.^(M)