Chronological

23 ¶ Woe be unto the pastors that waste and scatter the sheep of my pasture! said the LORD.

² Therefore thus hath the LORD God of Israel said unto the pastors that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them; behold, I visit upon you the evil of your doings, said the LORD.

³ And I will gather the remnant of my sheep out of all the lands where I have driven them and will cause them to return to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.

⁴ And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed neither shall they be lacking, said the LORD.

⁵ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

⁶ In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this shall be his name by which they shall call him, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

⁷ Therefore, behold, the days come, said the LORD, and they shall no longer say, The LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

⁸ but, The LORD lives, who caused the seed of the house of Israel to come up and out of the land of the north wind, and from all the lands where I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.

⁹ ¶ My heart is broken within me because of the prophets, all my bones shake; I was like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, before the LORD, and before the words of his holiness.

¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the oath the land is deserted; the booths of the wilderness are dried up, and their course was evil, and their force was not right.

¹¹ For both prophet and priest are feigned; even in my house I have found their wickedness, said the LORD.

¹² Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on and fall therein; for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.

¹³ And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal and caused my people Israel to err.

¹⁴ I have also seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem: they committed adultery and walked by lies; they strengthened also the hands of evildoers, that no one is converted from his malice; they are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

¹⁵ Therefore, thus hath the LORD of the hosts said against those prophets: Behold, I will cause them to eat wormwood and make them drink the waters of gall, for from the prophets of Jerusalem is hypocrisy gone forth upon all the land.

¹⁶ Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.

¹⁷ They say boldly unto those that stir me to anger, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto anyone that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.

¹⁸ For who has stood in the secret of the LORD and has seen and heard his word? Who has paid attention to his word and heard it?

¹⁹ Behold, that the whirlwind of the LORD shall go forth with fury, and the whirlwind which is ready shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.

²⁰ The anger of the LORD shall not return until he has executed and until he has performed the thoughts of his heart: in the last of the days ye shall understand it with understanding.

²¹ I did not send those prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

²² But if they had stood in my secret, they would also have caused my people to hear my words, and they would have caused them to return from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.

²³ Am I a God of the near only, said the LORD, and not a God of the far?

²⁴ Can any hide himself in hiding places that I shall not see him? said the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? said the LORD.

²⁵ I have heard what those prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

²⁶ How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies and that prophesy the deceit of their own heart?

²⁷ Do they not think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which each one tells his neighbour, so much that their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal?

²⁸ The prophet with whom the dream came, let him tell the dream; and he with whom my word came, let him speak my true word. What is the chaff to the wheat? said the LORD.

²⁹ Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

³⁰ Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words each one from his neighbour.

³¹ Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that sweeten their tongues and say, He said.

³² Behold, I am against those that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and did tell them, and caused my people to err by their lies, and by their flattery; yet I did not send them, nor command them; and they did not profit this people at all, said the LORD.

³³ ¶ And when this people or the prophet or the priest shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will forsake you, said the LORD.

³⁴ And as for the prophet and the priest and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will visit upon that man and upon his house.

³⁵ Thus shall ye say each one to his neighbour and each one to his brother, What has the LORD answered? and, What has the LORD spoken?

³⁶ And never again shall it come to your memory to say, The burden of the LORD; for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of the hosts, our God.

³⁷ Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What has the LORD answered thee? and, What has the LORD spoken?

³⁸ But if ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus hath the LORD said: Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD;

³⁹ therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will uproot you from my presence and the city that I gave you and your fathers:

⁴⁰ and I will place an everlasting reproach upon you, and eternal shame, which shall never be forgotten.

24 ¶ The LORD showed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the princes of Judah with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem, and had taken them to Babylon.

² One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very evil figs, which could not be eaten, they were so evil.

³ Then the LORD said unto me, What dost thou see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, so evil that they cannot be eaten.

⁴ Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

⁵ Thus hath the LORD God of Israel said: Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those that are carried away captive 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 return them to this land, and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

⁷ And I will give them a heart that they might know me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

⁸ And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil, surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah and his princes and the residue of Jerusalem that remained in this land and that dwell in the land of Egypt:

⁹ And I give them to be removed, for evil unto all the kingdoms of the earth, for infamy, and for reproach and for a proverb, and for a curse unto all the places where I shall drive them.

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

25 ¶ The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, which is the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;

² this spoke Jeremiah the prophet unto all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying,

³ From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, which are twenty-three years, the word of the LORD has come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and giving notice; but ye have not hearkened.

⁴ And the LORD has sent unto you all his slaves the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear,

⁵ when they said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever:

⁶ and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.

⁷ Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD, that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

⁸ ¶ Therefore thus saith the LORD of the hosts: Because ye have not heard my words,

⁹ behold, I will send and take all the families of the north wind, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my slave, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about and will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

¹⁰ And I will cause them to lose the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

¹¹ And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment; and these Gentiles shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

¹² And it shall come to pass when seventy years are accomplished, that I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that people their own evil, said the LORD and upon the land of the Chaldeans and will make it perpetual desolations.

¹³ And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have spoken against it, with all that is written in this book, prophesied by Jeremiah against all the Gentiles.

¹⁴ For many Gentiles and great kings shall serve themselves of them also; and I will recompense them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.

¹⁵ ¶ For thus hath the LORD God of Israel said unto me: Take the wine cup of this fury from my hand and cause all the Gentiles, to whom I send thee, to drink of it.

¹⁶ And they shall drink and be moved and become mad, before the sword that I will send among them.

¹⁷ Then took I the cup from the LORD’s hand and made all the Gentiles to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me,

¹⁸ unto Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah and to its kings and to its princes, that I might place them into desolation, into astonishment, and into hissing, and into a curse, as this day,

¹⁹ unto Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his slaves and to his princes and to all his people,

²⁰ and to all the mingled people and to all the kings of the land of Uz and to all the kings of the land of the Philistines and to Ashkelon and to Gaza and to Ekron and to the remnant of Ashdod,

²¹ to Edom and to Moab and to the sons of Ammon,

²² and to all the kings of Tyre and to all the kings of Zidon and to all the kings of the isles which are of that side of the sea,

²³ and to Dedan, and to Tema and to Buz and to all that are in the utmost corners,

²⁴ and to all the kings of Arabia and to all the kings of the mingled peoples, the Arabia that dwells in the desert,

²⁵ and to all the kings of Zimri and to all the kings of Elam and to all the kings of the Medes,

²⁶ and to all the kings of the north wind, those of far and those of near, one with another and to all the kingdoms of the earth, which are upon the face of the earth and the king of Sheshach {Babylon} shall drink after them.

²⁷ Therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said; Drink and be drunken, and vomit and fall, and ye shall not rise in the presence of the sword which I send among you.

²⁸ And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from thine hand to drink, then thou shalt say unto them, Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said: Ye must certainly drink.

²⁹ For, Behold, I begin to bring evil upon the city which is called by my name, and should ye only be absolved? Ye shall not be absolved, for I bring the sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, said the LORD of the hosts.

³⁰ ¶ Therefore, thou shalt prophesy against them all these words, and say unto them, The LORD shall roar from on high and from the habitation of his holiness he shall utter his voice; in fury he shall roar upon his habitation; he shall sing the song of those that tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.

³¹ The noise came even to the ends of the earth; for it is judgment of the LORD with the Gentiles; he is the Judge of all flesh; he will give those that are wicked to the sword, said the LORD.

³² Thus saith the LORD of the hosts, Behold, the evil goes forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.

³³ And the slain of the LORD shall be in that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be as dung upon the ground.

³⁴ Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the dust, ye principals of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like an enticing vessel.

³⁵ And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor for the principals of the flock to escape.

³⁶ The voice of the cry of the shepherds and a howling of the principals of the flock shall be heard! For the LORD has spoiled their pasture.

³⁷ And the quiet pastures shall be cut off by the fierce anger of the LORD.

³⁸ He has forsaken his habitation, as the young lion; for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor and because of his fierce anger.