Jeremiah with Gedaliah the Governor

40 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he took him bound in fetters along with all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were being exiled to Babylon.^(A)

The Massacre of the Infants

¹⁶ When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi,^[a] he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.^{[b] 17} Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹³ They said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of a certain man in the land of Canaan; the youngest, however, is now with our father, and one is no more.”^(A)

³⁵ All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father bewailed him.^(A)

³⁶ And their father Jacob said to them, “I am the one you have bereaved of children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has happened to me!”^(A)

¹⁹ And Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem,^(A)

¹⁰ He spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe.