Beginning

42 While there, Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah went to Jeremiah the prophet. All the army officers went with Johanan and Jezaniah. All the people, from the least important to the greatest, all went along, too. ² They said to him, “Jeremiah, please listen to what we ask. Pray to the Lord your God. Pray for all the people left alive from the family of Judah. At one time there were many of us. You can see that there are few of us now. ³ So pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go. And pray he will tell us what we should do.”

⁴ Then Jeremiah the prophet answered, “I understand what you want me to do. I will pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you everything he says. I will not hide anything from you.”

⁵ Then the people said to Jeremiah, “We will do everything the Lord your God tells us. If we don’t, may the Lord be a true and loyal witness against us. We know he will send you to tell us what to do. ⁶ It does not matter if we like the message or not. We will obey the Lord our God. We are sending you to the Lord for a message from him. We will obey what he says. Then good things will happen to us.”

⁷ Ten days later the Lord spoke his word to Jeremiah. ⁸ Then Jeremiah called for Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers who were with him. Jeremiah also called all the other people, from the least important to the greatest. ⁹ Then Jeremiah said to them, “You sent me to ask the Lord for what you wanted. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ¹⁰ ‘If you will stay in Judah, I will make you strong. I will not destroy you. I will plant you, and I will not pull you up. This is because I am sad about the disaster I brought on you. ¹¹ Now you are afraid of the king of Babylon. But don’t be afraid of him. Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon,’ says the Lord. ‘I am with you. I will save you. I will rescue you from his power. ¹² I will be kind to you. And the king of Babylon will also treat you with mercy. He will bring you back to your land.’

¹³ “But you might say, ‘We will not stay in Judah.’ If you say that, you will disobey the Lord your God. ¹⁴ Or you might say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt. We will not be bothered with war there. We will not hear the trumpets of war. And in Egypt we will not be hungry.’ ¹⁵ If you say that, listen to the message of the Lord. It is to you who are left alive from Judah. This is what the Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you make up your mind to go and live in Egypt, these things will happen: ¹⁶ You are afraid of war. But it will defeat you in the land of Egypt. And you are worried about hunger. But you will be hungry in Egypt. You will die there. ¹⁷ Everyone who goes to live in Egypt will die in war. Or he will die from hunger or terrible disease. No one who goes to Egypt will live. No one will escape the terrible things I will bring to them.’

¹⁸ “This is what the Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I showed my anger against Jerusalem. I punished the people who lived in Jerusalem. In the same way I will show my anger against you when you go to Egypt. Other nations will speak evil of you. People will be shocked by what has happened to you. You will become a curse word. People will insult you. And you will never see Judah again.’

¹⁹ “You who are left alive in Judah, the Lord has told you, ‘Don’t go to Egypt.’ I warn you today. ²⁰ You are making a mistake that will cause your deaths. You sent me to the Lord your God. You said to me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us everything the Lord says, and we will do it.’ ²¹ So today I have told you the message from the Lord. But you have not obeyed the Lord your God. You have not done all that he sent me to tell you to do. ²² So now be sure you understand this: You want to go to live in Egypt. But you will die by war, hunger or terrible diseases.”

43 So Jeremiah finished telling the people the message from the Lord their God. He told them everything the Lord their God had sent him to tell them.

² Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah and some other men were too proud. They said to Jeremiah, “Jeremiah, you are lying! The Lord our God did not send you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to live there.’ ³ Baruch son of Neriah is causing you to be against us. He wants you to hand us over to the Babylonians. Then they will kill us. Or they will capture us and take us to Babylon.”

⁴ So Johanan, the army officers and all the people disobeyed the Lord’s command. He had commanded them to stay in Judah. ⁵ But Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers took those who were left alive from Judah to Egypt. These were the people who had run away from the Babylonians to other countries. But they had come back to Judah. ⁶ Now Johanan and the army officers took the men, women and children. Among those people were the king’s daughters. And they led them to Egypt. Nebuzaradan commander of the guard had put Gedaliah in charge of those people. (Gedaliah was the son of Ahikam son of Shaphan.) Johanan also took Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. ⁷ These people did not listen to the Lord. So they all went to Egypt to the town of Tahpanhes.

⁸ In Tahpanhes the Lord spoke his word to Jeremiah: ⁹ “Take some large stones. Bury them in the clay in the brick pavement. This is in front of the king of Egypt’s palace in Tahpanhes. Do this while the Jews are watching you. ¹⁰ Then say to them, ‘This is what the Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: I will send for my servant, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And I will set his throne over these stones I have buried. He will spread his covering for shade above these stones. ¹¹ He will come here and attack Egypt. He will bring death to those who are supposed to die. He will make prisoners of those who are to be taken captive. And he will bring war to those who are to be killed with a sword. ¹² Nebuchadnezzar will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn those temples. And he will take the idols away. A shepherd wraps himself in his clothes. In the same way Nebuchadnezzar will wrap Egypt around him. Then he will safely leave Egypt. ¹³ He will destroy the stone pillars in the temple of the sun god in Egypt. And he will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.’”

Disaster in Egypt

44 Jeremiah received a message from the Lord. It was for all the Jews living in Egypt. It was for the Jews in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis and southern Egypt. This was the message: ² “The Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: You saw the terrible things I brought on Jerusalem and the towns of Judah. Those towns are empty ruins today. ³ And it is because the people who lived there did evil. Those people burned incense to other gods. And that made me angry! Your people and your ancestors did not worship those gods before. ⁴ I sent my prophets to them again and again. Those prophets were my servants. They spoke my message and said to the people, ‘Don’t do this terrible thing. The Lord hates for you to worship other gods.’ ⁵ But they did not listen to the prophets. They did not pay attention. They did not stop doing evil things. They did not stop burning incense to other gods. ⁶ So I showed my great anger against them. I punished the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. My anger made Jerusalem and the towns of Judah empty. They are only ruins and piles of stones today.

⁷ “So the Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves by continuing to worship other gods? You are cutting off the men and women, children and babies from the family of Judah. So you leave yourselves without anyone from the family of Judah. ⁸ Why do you want to make me angry by making idols? Why do you burn incense to the gods of Egypt, where you have come to live? You will destroy yourselves. Other nations will speak evil of you. And all the other nations on the earth will make fun of you. ⁹ Have you forgotten about the evil things your ancestors did? And have you forgotten the evil the kings and queens of Judah did? Have you forgotten about the evil you and your wives did? They did these things in Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ Even to this day the people of Judah are still too proud. They have not learned to respect me. And they have not followed my teachings. They have not obeyed the laws I gave you and your ancestors!

¹¹ “So this is what the Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: I am determined to bring disasters on you. I will destroy the whole family of Judah. ¹² There were a few left alive from Judah. They were determined to go to Egypt and settle there. But they will all die in Egypt. They will be killed in war or die from hunger. From the least important to the greatest, they will be killed in war or die from hunger. Other nations will speak evil about them. People will be shocked by what has happened to them. They will become a curse word. People will insult them. ¹³ I will punish those people who have gone to live in Egypt. I will use swords, hunger and terrible diseases to punish them. I will punish them just as I punished Jerusalem. ¹⁴ Of the people of Judah who were left alive and have gone to Egypt none will escape my punishment. They want to return to Judah and live there. But none of them will live to return to Judah. None of them will return to Judah, except a few people who escape.”

¹⁵ A large group of the people of Judah, who lived in southern Egypt, were meeting together. Among them were many women of Judah who lived in Egypt. They were burning incense to other gods, and their husbands knew it. All these people said to Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We will not listen to the message from the Lord that you spoke to us. ¹⁷ We promised to make sacrifices to the Queen Goddess! And we will do everything we promised. We will burn incense and pour out drink offerings to worship her. We did that in the past. And our ancestors, kings and officers did that in the past. All of us did those things in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food. We were successful. Nothing bad happened to us. ¹⁸ But then we stopped making sacrifices to the Queen Goddess. And we stopped pouring out drink offerings to her. Since then we have had problems. Our people have been killed in war and by hunger.”

¹⁹ The women said, “Our husbands knew what we were doing. We had their permission to burn incense to the Queen Goddess! We had their permission to pour out drink offerings to her. Our husbands knew we were making cakes that looked like her and that we poured out drink offerings to her.”

²⁰ Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people—men and women—who answered him. ²¹ He said to them, “The Lord remembered that you burned incense. You burned it in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. You and your ancestors, kings and officers did that. And the people of the land did that. The Lord remembered and thought about it. ²² Then he could not be patient with you any longer. He hated the terrible things you did. So he made your country an empty desert. No one lives there now. Other people curse that country. ²³ All this happened because you burned incense to other gods. You sinned against the Lord. You did not obey him. You did not follow his teachings or the laws he gave you. You did not keep your part of the agreement. This disaster has happened. It is there for you to see.”

²⁴ Then Jeremiah spoke to all those men and also to the women. He said, “People of Judah who are now in Egypt, hear the word of the Lord: ²⁵ The Lord of heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says: You women did what you said you would do. You said, ‘We will keep the promises we made. We promised to make sacrifices to the Queen Goddess. And we promised to pour out drink offerings to her.’ So, go ahead. Do the things you promised you would do. Keep your promises. ²⁶ But hear the word of the Lord. Listen, all you Jews living in Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I use my great name and make this promise: The people of Judah now living in Egypt will never again use my name to make promises. They will never again say, “As surely as the Lord God lives . . .” ²⁷ I am watching over them. I am not watching over them to take care of them, but to hurt them. The Jews who live in Egypt will die from swords or hunger until they are all destroyed. ²⁸ Some people will escape being killed by the sword. They will come back to Judah from Egypt. But there will only be a very few who escape. Then, of the people of Judah who came to live in Egypt, those who are left alive will know. They will know whether my word or their word came true. ²⁹ I will give you a sign that I will punish you here in Egypt,’ says the Lord. ‘Then you will know my promises to hurt you will really happen.’ ³⁰ This is what the Lord says: ‘Hophra king of Egypt has enemies who want to kill him. I will hand over King Hophra to his enemies. I will do this just as I handed Zedekiah king of Judah over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar wanted to kill Zedekiah.’”

A Message to Baruch

45 It was the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah. Jeremiah the prophet told these things to Baruch son of Neriah. And Baruch wrote them on a scroll. This is what Jeremiah said to Baruch: ² “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you: ³ Baruch, you have said, ‘How terrible it is for me! The Lord has given me sorrow along with my pain. I am tired because of my suffering. I cannot rest.’”

⁴ The Lord said, “Say this to Baruch: ‘This is what the Lord says: I will tear down what I have built. And I will pull up what I have planted. I will do that everywhere in Judah. ⁵ Baruch, you are looking for great things for yourself. Don’t do that! Don’t look for them because I will bring disaster on all the people. The Lord says these things! You will have to go many places. But I will let you escape alive wherever you go.’”