3 Remind people to be submissive to [their] magistrates and authorities, to be obedient, to be prepared and willing to do any upright and honorable work,

² To slander or abuse or speak evil of no one, to avoid being contentious, to be forbearing (yielding, gentle, and conciliatory), and to show unqualified courtesy toward everybody.

³ For we also were once thoughtless and senseless, obstinate and disobedient, deluded and misled; [we too were once] slaves to all sorts of cravings and pleasures, wasting our days in malice and jealousy and envy, hateful (hated, detestable) and hating one another.

⁴ But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior to man [as man] appeared,

⁵ He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but because of His own pity and mercy, by [the] cleansing [bath] of the new birth (regeneration) and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

⁶ Which He poured out [so] richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.

⁷ [And He did it in order] that we might be justified by His grace (by His favor, wholly undeserved), [that we might be acknowledged and counted as conformed to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action], and that we might become heirs of eternal life according to [our] hope.

⁸ This message is most trustworthy, and concerning these things I want you to insist steadfastly, so that those who have believed in (trusted in, relied on) God may be careful to apply themselves to honorable occupations and to doing good, for such things are [not only] excellent and right [in themselves], but [they are] good and profitable for the people.

⁹ But avoid stupid and foolish controversies and genealogies and dissensions and wrangling about the Law, for they are unprofitable and futile.

¹⁰ [As for] a man who is factious [a heretical sectarian and cause of divisions], after admonishing him a first and second time, reject [him from your fellowship and have nothing more to do with him],

¹¹ Well aware that such a person has utterly changed (is perverted and corrupted); he goes on sinning [though he] is convicted of guilt and self-condemned.

¹² When I send Artemas or [perhaps] Tychicus to you, lose no time but make every effort to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.

¹³ Do your utmost to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they want for (lack) nothing.

¹⁴ And let our own [people really] learn to apply themselves to good deeds (to honest labor and honorable employment), so that they may be able to meet necessary demands ^[a]whenever the occasion may require and not be living idle and uncultivated and unfruitful lives.

¹⁵ All who are with me wish to be remembered to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace (God’s favor and blessing) be with you all. Amen (so be it).

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31 At that time, says the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.

² Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness [place of exile]—when Israel sought to find rest.

³ The Lord appeared from of old to me [Israel], saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.^(A)

⁴ Again I will build you and you will be built, O Virgin Israel! You will again be adorned with your timbrels [small one-headed drums] and go forth in the dancing [chorus] of those who make merry.^(B)

⁵ Again you shall plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and make the fruit common and enjoy it [undisturbed].

⁶ For there shall be a day when the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall cry out, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.

⁷ For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the head of the nations [on account of the chosen people, Israel]. Proclaim, praise, and say, The Lord has saved His people, the remnant of Israel!

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and among them will be the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who labors in childbirth together; a great company, they will return here to Jerusalem.

⁹ They will come with weeping [in penitence and for joy], pouring out prayers [for the future]. I will lead them back; I will cause them to walk by streams of water and bring them in a straight way in which they will not stumble, for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim [Israel] is My firstborn.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations, and declare it in the isles and coastlands far away, and say, He Who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.

¹¹ For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from the hand of him who was too strong for him.

¹² They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion and shall flow together and be radiant with joy over the goodness of the Lord—for the corn, for the juice [of the grape], for the oil, and for the young of the flock and the herd. And their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow or languish any more at all.

¹³ Then will the maidens rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old together. For I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow.

¹⁴ I will satisfy fully the life of the priests with abundance [of offerings shared with them], and My people will be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord.

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord: A ^[a]voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.^(C)

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and [your children] shall return from the enemy’s land.

¹⁷ And there is hope for your future, says the Lord; your children shall come back to their own country.

¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim [Israel] moaning thus: You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; bring me back, that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God.

¹⁹ Surely after I [Ephraim] was turned [from You], I repented; and after I was instructed, I penitently smote my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth [as a nation].

²⁰ Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a darling child and beloved? For as often as I speak against him, I do [earnestly] remember him still. Therefore My affection is stirred and My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy, pity, and loving-kindness for him, says the Lord.

²¹ Set up for yourselves highway markers [back to Canaan], make for yourselves guideposts; turn your thoughts and attention to the way by which you went [into exile]. Retrace your steps, O Virgin Israel, return to these your cities.

²² How long will you waver and hesitate [to return], O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a ^[b]new thing in the land [of Israel]: a female shall compass (woo, win, and protect) a man.

²³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in her cities when I release them from exile: The Lord bless you, O habitation of justice and righteousness, O holy mountain!

²⁴ And [the people of] Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together—[nomad] farmers and those who wander about with their flocks.

²⁵ For I will [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.

²⁶ Thereupon I [Jeremiah] awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me.

²⁷ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed (offspring) of man and of beast.

²⁸ And it will be that as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow, destroy, and afflict [with evil], so will I watch over them to build and to plant [with good], says the Lord.

²⁹ In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.^(D)

³⁰ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity [only]; every man who eats sour grapes—his [own] teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,^(E)

³² Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the Lord.

³³ But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the Lord, I will put My law within them, and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.

³⁴ And they will no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me [recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Me], from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more.^(F)

³⁵ Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day and the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar—the Lord of hosts is His name:

³⁶ If these ordinances [of fixed order] depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the posterity of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me throughout the ages.

³⁷ Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.

³⁸ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the city [of Jerusalem] shall be built [again] for the Lord from the ^[c]Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.

³⁹ And the measuring line shall go out farther straight onward to the hill Gareb and shall then turn to Goah [exact location unknown].

⁴⁰ And the whole valley [Hinnom] of the dead bodies and [the hill] of the ashes [long dumped there from the temple sacrifices], and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It [the city] shall not be plucked up or overthrown any more to the end of the age.^(G)

32 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of ^[d]Nebuchadrezzar.

² For the king of Babylon’s army was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah.

³ For Zedekiah king of Judah had locked him up, saying, Why do you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

⁴ And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye;

⁵ And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him [for evil], says the Lord; and though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper [why do you thus prophesy]?^(H)

⁶ And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁷ Behold, Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle shall come to you and say, Buy my field that is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.

⁸ So Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard in accordance with the word of the Lord, and he said to me, I pray you, buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is yours and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

⁹ And I bought the field that was in Anathoth from Hanamel my uncle’s son and weighed out for him the money—seventeen shekels of silver.

¹⁰ And I signed the deed and sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed out for him the money on the scales.

¹¹ So I took the deed of the purchase—both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and the copy which was unsealed—

¹² And I gave the purchase deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the sight of Hanamel my uncle’s son and the witnesses who signed the purchase deed, in the presence of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard.

¹³ And I charged Baruch before them, saying,

¹⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this purchase deed which is sealed and this unsealed deed, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last a long time.

¹⁵ For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall be purchased yet again in this land.

¹⁶ Now when I had delivered the purchase deed to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying:

¹⁷ Alas, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! There is nothing too hard or too wonderful for You—

¹⁸ You Who show loving-kindness to thousands but recompense the iniquity of the fathers into the bosoms of their children after them. The great, the mighty God; the Lord of hosts is His name—

¹⁹ Great [are You] in counsel and mighty in deeds, Whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to reward or repay each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings,

²⁰ Who wrought signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day [continues to do so], both in Israel and among other men, and made for Yourself a name, as at this day.

²¹ And You brought forth Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm and with great terror;

²² And You gave them this land which You swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;

²³ And they entered and took possession of it, but they obeyed not Your voice, nor walked in Your law; they have done nothing of all that You commanded them to do. Therefore You have caused all this evil to come upon them.

²⁴ See the siege mounds [of earth which the foe has heaped against the walls]; they have come up to the city to take it. And the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because [the people are overcome] by the sword and the famine and the pestilence. What You have spoken has come to pass, and behold, You see it.

²⁵ Yet, O Lord God, You said to me, Buy the field with money and get witnesses, even though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

²⁶ Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁷ Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?

²⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

²⁹ And the Chaldeans who are fighting against this city shall come in and set this city on fire and burn it, along with the houses on whose roofs incense has been offered to Baal and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods to provoke Me to anger.^(I)

³⁰ For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil before Me from their youth; for the children of Israel have only provoked Me to anger with the work of their hands [the idols], says the Lord.

³¹ For this city has been to Me a [such a] provocation of My anger and My wrath from the day that they [finished] building it [in the time of Solomon, who was the first Israelite king who turned to idolatry] even to this day that I must remove it from before My face—^(J)

³² Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah which they have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

³³ And they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces; though I taught them persistently, yet they would not listen and receive instruction.

³⁴ But they set their abominations [of idol worship] in the house which is called by My ^[e]Name to defile it.

³⁵ And they built the high places [for worship] of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom] to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire [in worship also of and] to Molech—which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind or heart that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.^(K)

³⁶ And now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword and by famine and by pestilence:

³⁷ Behold, I will gather them out of all countries to which I drove them in My anger and in My wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them again to this place, and I will make them dwell safely.

³⁸ And they will be My people, and I will be their God.

³⁹ And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may [reverently] fear Me forever for the good of themselves and of their children after them.

⁴⁰ And I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will not turn away from following them to do them good, and I will put My [reverential] fear in their hearts, so that they will not depart from Me.^(L)

⁴¹ Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly and in truth with My whole heart and with My whole being.

⁴² For thus says the Lord: As I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.

⁴³ And fields shall be bought in this land of which you say, It is desolate, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

⁴⁴ Men shall buy fields for money and shall sign deeds, seal them, and call witnesses in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South (the Negeb), for I will cause them to be released from their exile, says the Lord.