Beginning

Chapter 35

Faithfulness of the Rechabites. ¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah: ² Go forth to the clan of the Rechabites^[a] and speak to them. Have them accompany you into one of the rooms of the house of the Lord and offer them wine to drink.

³ Therefore, I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, his brothers and all his sons, the entire clan of the Rechabites, ⁴ and I brought them into the house of the Lord, to the room of the sons of Hanan, son of Igdaliah, the man of God. This room adjoins the chamber of the princes and is above the room of Maaserah, the son of Shallum, the guardian of the threshold.

⁵ Then I set pitchers full of wine and some cups before the Rechabites, and I said to them, “Have some wine to drink.” ⁶ However, they replied, “We never drink wine. Our ancestor Jonadab, the son of Rechab, gave us this command, ‘Neither you nor your children will ever drink wine. ⁷ Nor will you build houses or sow seed or plant vineyards or even own them. Rather, you will dwell in tents all the days of your life, so that you may live for a long time on the land where you are sojourners.’

⁸ “We have carefully followed all the commands given to us by our ancestor Jonadab, the son of Rechab. Throughout our lives we have never consumed wine, nor have our wives, our sons, or our daughters. ⁹ We have not built houses to live in, and we have no vineyards or fields or seed. ¹⁰ On the contrary, we have lived in tents and scrupulously obeyed everything commanded by our father Jonadab. ¹¹ But when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, invaded this land, we said, ‘Let us go to Jerusalem so that we may escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’ That is the reason why we are living in Jerusalem.”

¹² Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Go forth and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Will you never come to your senses and obey my words? says the Lord. ¹⁴ The command of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, to his descendants never to drink wine has been observed to this very day; in obedience to their ancestor, they have drunk no wine. But despite the fact that I have repeated this command to you countless times, you have not obeyed me.

¹⁵ I have continued to send to you all my servants the prophets who warned you repeatedly, “Turn back, every one of you, from your evil conduct, and cease to follow other gods to serve them. Then you will continue to live in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you did not pay attention and you refused to listen to me. ¹⁶ The descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have honored the command that their ancestors gave them. You, however, have not heeded my warnings.

¹⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: I am determined to bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem every disaster with which I threatened them because they would not listen when I spoke to them and did not answer when I called to them.

¹⁸ However, to the clan of the Rechabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of your father Jonadab, followed all of his instructions, and did everything that he ordered you to do, ¹⁹ therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: There will never fail to be a descendant of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, to stand before me forever.”

Chapter 36^[b]

Baruch Writes the Prophecies on a Scroll.^{[c] 1} In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you against Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day when I first spoke to you, during the reign of Josiah, until today. ³ Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disasters that I intend to inflict upon them, they will all turn back from their evil ways. Then I will forgive their wickedness and their sins.

⁴ Then Jeremiah summoned Baruch, the son of Neriah, and dictated everything that the Lord had spoken to him so that Baruch might write it all on a scroll. ⁵ He also gave Baruch the following instruction. “Inasmuch as I am prevented from entering the house of the Lord, ⁶ you yourself must go there, and on a fast day, in the hearing of all the people in the Lord’s house, you shall read from the scroll the words of the Lord that you wrote at my dictation.

“You shall read them also in the hearing of all the people of Judah who travel there from their towns. ⁷ Perhaps they will then plead before the Lord, and all of them will turn from their evil ways. For great is the anger and wrath that the Lord has threatened against this people.” ⁸ Then Baruch, the son of Neriah, prepared to do everything that the prophet Jeremiah had ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the Lord’s house.

⁹ In the ninth month of the fifth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah, a fast before the Lord was proclaimed for all the people of Jerusalem and all those who came from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem. ¹⁰ Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll, in the room of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper court, at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house, in the hearing of all the people.

¹¹ When Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the Lord that had been read from the scroll, ¹² he went down to the king’s palace and entered the scribe’s chamber, where all the officials were in session: Elishama the scribe, Delaiah, the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan, the son of Achbor, Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all the other officials.

¹³ After Micaiah had reported to them all that he had heard when Baruch read from the scroll to the people, ¹⁴ the officials then sent Jehudi, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shemaliah, the son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, “Come to us and bring with you the scroll that you read publicly to the people.” Holding the scroll in his hand, Baruch, the son of Neriah, came into their presence.

¹⁵ “Sit down,” they said to him, “and read it to us.” Baruch read it to them, ¹⁶ and when they had heard all the words, they turned to one another in alarm and said to Baruch, “We must certainly report this to the king.”

¹⁷ They then asked Baruch, “Please tell us how you came to write all these words. Were they dictated to you by Jeremiah?” ¹⁸ Baruch replied, “Jeremiah dictated all these words, and I wrote them down in ink on the scroll.” ¹⁹ Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must go into hiding, and be extremely careful not to let anyone know where you are.”

²⁰ Leaving the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe, the officials then went to the court of the king, and they reported all that had occurred. ²¹ The king sent Jehudi for the scroll, and he brought it from the room of Elishama the scribe and read it to the king and all the officials standing beside him.

²² Since it was the ninth month of the year, the king was sitting in his winter residence, and there was a fire burning in a brazier in front of him. ²³ Each time Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king would cut them off with a scribe’s knife and throw them into the fire in the brazier until the entire scroll was finally consumed in the brazier’s flames.

²⁴ However, despite hearing all these words, neither the king nor any of his officials showed the slightest alarm, nor did they tear their garments. ²⁵ And although Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he refused to listen to them. ²⁶ Then the king ordered his son Jerahmeel, and Seraiah, the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah, the son of Abdeel, to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah. However, the Lord had hidden them.

²⁷ After the king had burned the scroll with all the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ²⁸ Take another scroll and inscribe on it everything that was written on the first scroll which King Jehoiakim of Judah has burned. ²⁹ Also state clearly to Jehoiakim, the king of Judah: Thus says the Lord: You have dared to burn that scroll, saying: Why did you write in it that the king of Babylon without question will come and destroy this land and leave it devoid of men and animals?

³⁰ Therefore, thus says the Lord about King Jehoiakim of Judah: He will have no descendant to succeed him on the throne of David, and his dead body will be exposed to the blazing heat of the day and icy frost at night. ³¹ I will punish him and his offspring and his attendants for their wickedness, and I will bring down on them and on the citizens of Jerusalem and on the people of Judah all the disasters with which I threatened them, because they paid no heed to my warnings.

³² Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at Jeremiah’s dictation all the words of the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah had burned in the fire, in addition to many more words than there had been previously.

Chapter 37^[d]

Jeremiah’s Arrest. ¹ Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, was appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to be king in the land of Judah, succeeding Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim. ² However, neither he nor his officials nor the people of the land paid any heed to the words of the Lord that he spoke through the prophet Jeremiah.

³ Even so, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal, the son of Shelamiah, and the priest Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah, to the prophet Jeremiah with this message, “Please pray to the Lord, our God, for us.” ⁴ At that time Jeremiah had not been imprisoned, and he was still able to move freely among the people. ⁵ Meanwhile, Pharaoh’s army had set forth from Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem learned of this, they withdrew from there.

⁶ Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah: ⁷ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Give this reply to the king of Judah who sent you to consult me: Pharaoh’s army which has set out to help you will withdraw to its own country of Egypt, ⁸ and the Chaldeans will then resume their attack upon this city. They will capture it and burn it to the ground.

⁹ Thus says the Lord: Do not deceive yourselves with the belief that the Chaldeans will cease their attack on you, for they will not disappear. ¹⁰ Even if you managed to defeat the entire force of the Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and only those who were wounded were still left, they would rise up and burn this city to the ground.

¹¹ When the Chaldean army had withdrawn from their attack on Jerusalem after they learned of the approach of Pharaoh’s army, ¹² Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem for the territory of Benjamin to take possession of his share of a piece of property that he had inherited. ¹³ However, when he reached the Benjamin Gate, he encountered there the captain of the guard whose name was Irijah, the son of Shemaliah, the son of Hananiah. Irijah arrested the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” ¹⁴ Jeremiah answered him, “That is a lie. I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah refused to listen to him, and he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.

¹⁵ The officials were enraged at Jeremiah. After having him beaten, they ordered him to be confined in the house of Jonathan the scribe, which had been converted into a jail. ¹⁶ Jeremiah was placed in a cell in the dungeon where he remained for a lengthy period of time.

¹⁷ Later, King Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him, and he questioned him privately in his palace, asking him, “Is there any word from the Lord?” “There is,” Jeremiah replied. “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” ¹⁸ Jeremiah then asked King Zedekiah, “In what way have I wronged you or your ministers or this people that caused you to order me to be thrown into prison? ¹⁹ Where are your prophets now who prophesied to you that the king of Babylon would not attack you or this land?

²⁰ “Therefore, I beg you, my lord king, to grant my petition. Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe. If you do, I will die there.” ²¹ Therefore, King Zedekiah issued an order that Jeremiah was to be confined to the court of the guard, and that a loaf of bread was to be given to him each day from the Street of the Bakers until there was no more bread remaining in the city. And so Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.