Jeremiah 21-24

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

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.^(A)

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!^(B)

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.

23 Woe to the shepherds (the civil leaders) who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasturing! says the Lord.

² Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for and feed My people: You have scattered My flock and driven them away and have not visited and attended to them; behold, I will visit and attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord.

³ And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries to which I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds and pastures; and they will be fruitful and multiply.

⁴ And I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. And they will fear no more nor be dismayed, neither will any be missing or lost, says the Lord.

⁵ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch (Sprout), and He will reign as King and do wisely and will execute justice and righteousness in the land.

⁶ In His days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name by which He shall be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.^(C)

⁷ Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no more say, As the Lord lives, Who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,

⁸ But, As the Lord lives, Who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries to which I had driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land. ^(D).

⁹ Concerning the prophets: My heart [says Jeremiah] is broken within me, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, a man whom wine has overcome, because of the Lord and because of His holy words [which He has pronounced against unfaithful leaders].

¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers (forsakers of God, Israel’s true Husband). Because of the curse [of God upon it] the land mourns, the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. They [both false prophets and people] rush into wickedness; and their course is evil, their might is not right.

¹¹ For both [false] prophet and priest are ungodly and profane; even in My house have I found their wickedness, says the Lord.

¹² Therefore their way will be to them like slippery paths in the dark; they will be driven on and fall into them. For I will bring evil upon them in the year of their punishment, says the Lord.

¹³ And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to err and go astray.

¹⁴ I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they encourage and strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none returns from his wickedness. They have all of them become to Me like Sodom, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah.

¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with [the bitterness of] wormwood and make them drink the [poisonous] water of gall, for from the [false] prophets of Jerusalem profaneness and ungodliness have gone forth into all the land.

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the [false] prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility) and fill you with vain hopes; they speak a vision of their own minds and not from the mouth of the Lord.

¹⁷ They are continually saying to those who despise Me and the word of the Lord, The Lord has said: You shall have peace; and they say to everyone who walks after the stubbornness of his own mind and heart, No evil shall come upon you.

¹⁸ For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord, that he should perceive and hear His word? Who has marked His word [noticing and observing and giving attention to it] and has [actually] heard it?

¹⁹ Behold, the tempest of the Lord has gone forth in wrath, a whirling tempest; it shall whirl and burst upon the heads of the wicked.

²⁰ The anger of the Lord shall not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the thoughts and intents of His mind and heart. In the latter days you shall consider and understand it perfectly.

²¹ I did not send these [false] prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

²² But if they had stood in My council, then they would have caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them [My people] from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.

²³ Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off?

²⁴ Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? says the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.

²⁵ I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed [visions on my bed at night].

²⁶ [How long shall this state of things continue?] How long yet shall it be in the minds of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even the prophets of the deceit of their own hearts,

²⁷ Who think that they can cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which every man tells to his neighbor, just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal?

²⁸ The prophet who has a dream, let him tell his dream; but he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat [for nourishment]? says the Lord.

²⁹ Is not My word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks in pieces the rock [of most stubborn resistance]?

³⁰ Therefore behold, I am against the [false] prophets, says the Lord, [I am even now descending upon them with punishment, these prophets] who steal My words from one another [imitating the phrases of the true prophets].

³¹ Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their [own deceitful] tongues and say, Thus says the Lord.

³² Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the Lord, and tell them and cause My people to err and go astray by their lies and by their vain boasting and recklessness—when I did not send them or command them; nor do they profit these people at all, says the Lord.

³³ And when these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, What is the burden of the Lord [the thing to be lifted up now]? then you shall say to them, What burden [indeed]! [You are the burden!] And I will disburden Myself of you and I will cast you off, says the Lord.

³⁴ And as for the prophet, the priest, or [any of these] the people, whoever [in mockery calls the word of the Lord a burden and] says, The burden of the Lord, I will even visit in wrath and punish that man and his house.

³⁵ [For the future, in speaking of the utterances of the Lord] thus shall you say every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother: What has the Lord answered? or, What has the Lord spoken?

³⁶ But the burden of the Lord you must mention no more, for every man’s burden is his own response and word [for as they mockingly call all prophecies burdens, whether good or bad, so will it prove to be to them; God will take them at their own word]; for you pervert the words [not of a lifeless idol, but] of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God!

³⁷ Thus shall you [reverently] say to the prophet: What has the Lord answered you? Or, What has the Lord spoken?

³⁸ But if you say, The burden of the Lord, therefore thus says the Lord: Because you said these words, The burden of the Lord, when I sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of the Lord,

³⁹ Therefore behold, I, even I, will assuredly take you up and cast you away from My presence, you and the city [Jerusalem] which I gave to you and to your fathers.

⁴⁰ And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you and a perpetual shame which will not be forgotten.

24 After Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile Jeconiah [also called Coniah and Jehoiachin] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me [in a vision] two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord.

² One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.

³ Then the Lord said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs—the good figs very good, and the bad very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.

⁴ Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁵ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.

⁶ For I will set My eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.

⁷ And I will give them a heart to know (recognize, understand, and be acquainted with) Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

⁸ And as for the bad figs, which are so bad that they cannot be eaten, surely thus says the Lord, So will I give up Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes and the residue of Jerusalem who remains in this land and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

⁹ I will even give them up to be a dismay and a horror and to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach, a byword or proverb, a taunt, and a curse in all places where I will drive them.

¹⁰ And I will send the sword, famine, and pestilence among them until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.