The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ The Lord said, “I did not send these prophets, but even so they went. I did not give them any message, but still they spoke in my name. ²² If they had known my secret thoughts, then they could have proclaimed my message to my people and could have made them give up the evil lives they live and the wicked things they do.

²³ “I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. ^24 (A)No one can hide where I cannot see them. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth? ²⁵ I know what those prophets have said who speak lies in my name and claim that I have given them my messages in their dreams. ²⁶ How much longer will those prophets mislead my people with the lies they have invented? ²⁷ They think that the dreams they tell will make my people forget me, just as their ancestors forgot me and turned to Baal. ²⁸ The prophet who has had a dream should say it is only a dream, but the prophet who has heard my message should proclaim that message faithfully. What good is straw compared with wheat? ²⁹ My message is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces. ³⁰ I am against those prophets who take each other's words and proclaim them as my message. ³¹ I am also against those prophets who speak their own words and claim they came from me. ³² Listen to what I, the Lord, say! I am against the prophets who tell their dreams that are full of lies. They tell these dreams and lead my people astray with their lies and their boasting. I did not send them or order them to go, and they are of no help at all to the people. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

The Lord's Burden

³³ The Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, when one of my people or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the Lord's message?’ you are to say, ‘You are a burden^[a] to the Lord, and he is going to get rid of you.’ ³⁴ If any of my people or a prophet or a priest even uses the words ‘the Lord's burden,’ I will punish them and their families. ³⁵ Instead, each one of them should ask their friends and their relatives, ‘What answer has the Lord given? What has the Lord said?’ ³⁶ So they must no longer use the words ‘the Lord's burden,’ because if any of them do, I will make my message a real burden to them. The people have perverted the words of their God, the living God, the Lord Almighty. ³⁷ Jeremiah, ask the prophets, ‘What answer did the Lord give you? What did the Lord say?’ ³⁸ And if they disobey my command and use the words ‘the Lord's burden,’ then tell them that ³⁹ I will certainly pick them up^[b] and throw them far away from me, both them and the city that I gave to them and their ancestors. ⁴⁰ I will bring on them everlasting shame and disgrace that will never be forgotten.”

Two Baskets of Figs

24 ^(B)The Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple. (This was after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had taken away Jehoiakim's son, King Jehoiachin of Judah, as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Babylonia, together with the leaders of Judah, the craftworkers, and the skilled workers.) ² The first basket contained good figs, those that ripen early; the other one contained bad figs, too bad to eat. ³ Then the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?”

I answered, “Figs. The good ones are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, too bad to eat.”

⁴ So the Lord said to me, ⁵ “I, the Lord, the God of Israel, consider that the people who were taken away to Babylonia are like these good figs, and I will treat them with kindness. ⁶ I will watch over them and bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not pull them up. ⁷ I will give them the desire to know that I am the Lord. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God, because they will return to me with all their heart.

⁸ “As for King Zedekiah of Judah, the politicians around him, and the rest of the people of Jerusalem who have stayed in this land or moved to Egypt—I, the Lord, will treat them all like these figs that are too bad to be eaten. ⁹ I will bring such a disaster on them that all the nations of the world will be terrified. People will make fun of them, make jokes about them, ridicule them, and use their name as a curse everywhere I scatter them. ¹⁰ I will bring war, starvation, and disease on them until there is not one of them left in the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.”

The Enemy from the North

25 ^(C)In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, I received a message from the Lord concerning all the people of Judah. (This was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia.) ² I said to all the people of Judah and of Jerusalem, ³ “For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was king of Judah until this very day, the Lord has spoken to me, and I have never failed to tell you what he said. But you have paid no attention. ⁴ You would not listen or pay attention, even though the Lord has continued to send you his servants the prophets. ⁵ They told you to turn from your wicked way of life and from the evil things you are doing, so that you could go on living in the land that the Lord gave you and your ancestors as a permanent possession. ⁶ They told you not to worship and serve other gods and not to make the Lord angry by worshiping the idols you had made. If you had obeyed the Lord, then he would not have punished you. ⁷ But the Lord himself says that you refused to listen to him. Instead, you made him angry with your idols and have brought his punishment on yourselves.

⁸ “So then, because you would not listen to him, the Lord Almighty says, ⁹ ‘I am going to send for all the peoples from the north and for my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. I am going to bring them to fight against Judah and its inhabitants and against all the neighboring nations. I am going to destroy this nation and its neighbors and leave them in ruins forever, a terrible and shocking sight. I, the Lord, have spoken. ^10 (D)I will silence their shouts of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. They will have no oil for their lamps, and there will be no more grain. ^11 (E)This whole land will be left in ruins and will be a shocking sight, and the neighboring nations will serve the king of Babylonia for seventy years. ¹² After that I will punish Babylonia and its king for their sin. I will destroy that country and leave it in ruins forever. ¹³ I will punish Babylonia with all the disasters that I threatened to bring on the nations when I spoke through Jeremiah—all the disasters recorded in this book. ¹⁴ I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done, and many nations and great kings will make slaves of them.’”

God's Judgment on the Nations

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, “Here is a wine cup filled with my anger. Take it to all the nations to whom I send you, and make them drink from it. ¹⁶ When they drink from it, they will stagger and go out of their minds because of the war I am sending against them.”

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, gave it to all the nations to whom the Lord had sent me, and made them drink from it. ¹⁸ Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah, together with its kings and leaders, were made to drink from it, so that they would become a desert, a terrible and shocking sight, and so that people would use their name as a curse—as they still do.

^19-26 Here is the list of all the others who had to drink from the cup:

Every nation on the face of the earth had to drink from it. Last of all, the king of Babylonia will drink from it.

²⁷ Then the Lord said to me, “Tell the people that I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, am commanding them to drink until they are drunk and vomit, until they fall down and cannot get up, because of the war that I am sending against them. ²⁸ And if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink from it, then tell them that the Lord Almighty has said that they will still have to drink from it. ²⁹ I will begin my work of destruction in my own city. Do they think they will go unpunished? No, they will be punished, for I am going to send war on all the people on earth. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.

³⁰ “You, Jeremiah, must proclaim everything I have said. You must tell these people,

³² The Lord Almighty says that disaster is coming on one nation after another, and a great storm is gathering at the far ends of the earth. ³³ On that day the bodies of those whom the Lord has killed will lie scattered from one end of the earth to the other. No one will mourn for them, and they will not be taken away and buried. They will lie on the ground like piles of manure.

³⁴ Cry, you leaders, you shepherds of my people, cry out loud! Mourn and roll in the dust. The time has come for you to be slaughtered,^[c] and you will be butchered like rams.^{[d] 35} There will be no way for you to escape. ^36-37 You moan and cry out in distress because the Lord in his anger has destroyed your nation and left your peaceful country in ruins. ³⁸ The Lord has abandoned his people^[e] like a lion that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the Lord's fierce anger have turned the country into a desert.

The Wicked One

2 ^(A)Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to be with him: I beg you, my friends, ² not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter. ³ Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell. ^4 (B)He will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God's Temple and claim to be God.

⁵ Don't you remember? I told you all this while I was with you. ⁶ Yet there is something that keeps this from happening now, and you know what it is. At the proper time, then, the Wicked One will appear. ⁷ The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who holds it back is taken out of the way. ^8 (C)Then the Wicked One will be revealed, but when the Lord Jesus comes, he will kill him with the breath from his mouth and destroy him with his dazzling presence. ^9 (D)The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders, ¹⁰ and use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹ And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false. ¹² The result is that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in sin, will be condemned.

You Are Chosen for Salvation

¹³ We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first^[a] to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth. ¹⁴ God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ So then, our friends, stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you, both in our preaching and in our letter.

¹⁶ May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us unfailing courage and a firm hope, ¹⁷ encourage you and strengthen you to always do and say what is good.

Longing for God's House^[a]

¹⁵ Patient persuasion can break down the strongest resistance and can even convince rulers.